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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year

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And Eat It, Too: Chapter Seven: A Wild Gerry Appears

In which Breekon and Hope are violent deliverymen, the Mother of Puppets is clearly Up To Shenanigans, and Jon realizes something with Michael has gone very, very wrong...

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A wild Gerry appears.

Note: Jon is mortally wounded in this one (no, he does not die, but it ain't pretty, either.)

(Masterpost including playlist)

CHAPTER SEVEN

The night is bad, and Jon feels bad.

The first half is a refresh of his battle over the book—only now, he can see the strands tying him, see the gleaming, white threads reaching into every living being in the world, controlling and directing and refusing free will. In the dream, he reaches for the book, and doesn’t even need to go anywhere. The moment he turns the first page, Mister Spider’s spiny, spindly legs shoot out, and get him, and there is darkness and pain.

He does that several times before moving on.

Then come Breekon and Hope, slamming him into the pavement, scraping his face until it’s cheekbone on asphalt, kicking him until his eyes go out.

That’s the word for it, too—like lights, extinguished.

When they do, the Beholding can never touch him again.

And in his sleep, in the place where he is honest, that is a worse fate than anything else he could ever dream.

He starts his morning with the second statement Elias sent.

It helps. Calms things. Soothes the lingering phantom-pain and fear.

He still has to check his face for scarring, and is honestly surprised that there is none. Well; no new ones, anyway.

“You can do this,” he tells his reflection, feeling incredibly cheesy. “It doesn’t matter how you got here. It doesn’t matter what… comes after. If they’re alive, if you’ve stopped it, then… it doesn’t matter.” He hardens. “And I won’t be sacrificing anyone else, thank you very much.”

Oh, like this? Comes the feeling of the words, not the words themselves, and suddenly the Eye shows him Gertrude—an old woman, visually frail and absolutely anything but—chopping Jan Kilbride to pieces and throwing them into the pit to stop the Buried’s ritual.

Jon heaves into the toilet.

We’re all monsters, he thinks as he heaves again, gripping the porcelain, dripping tears into the water. Maybe only monsters can stop monsters, after all.

The Usher Foundation is so like the Magnus Institute that it almost feels good to be there.

It feels heavy, though; he’s still being watched far more than usual, and if he didn’t assume it was the Eye and Elias, he might slide back into the paranoia that so marked the worst period of his life.

The place is not organized the same, though, and he’s having trouble finding what he wants. The librarians are nice, but they don’t have any records of Gertrude’s visit, and they don’t know what he means by The Stranger.

He can feel the Eye pushing at him, wanting to give him information, to tell him where to look so he can read, and feel, and know.

I’m not doing this, he grumps at it, and then has to spend a minute sitting down staring at nothing because he realizes he very much wants to do this.

There’s a door in his mind. It’s locked; he doesn’t know how to open it, and he’s afraid of what would happen if he could—but there are… cracks.

It wants him to peer through those cracks and see.

But he doesn’t have to. The Eye can’t force him. At least not in this.

He thinks of Martin. Melanie. Basira. Tim.

Daisy, too, I suppose, and realizes with a flinch that he hasn’t tried calling them again.

Well, they didn’t call me, either, he thinks pettily.

Besides—it’s only three in the afternoon back home. He has time.

And maybe he’s feeling rebellious.

What if Leitner was wrong?

What if the Eye does like him?

What if Elias didn’t know it could?

That was unlikely.

Jon looks at his hands again. They’re dry. Nikola’s moisturizer treatment seems to be fading.

Tim’s been treating him like a monster anyway, no matter how he fights.

It feels like Basira assumes the worst.

Daisy definitely does; she’d tried to cut his throat on the premise that he was a monster already.

He clenches his hands.

Jon is tired.

He wonders if the other avatars ever felt this way before falling. Before trading their humanity for… whatever it was they got.

Maybe going into it with a good cause could affect the outcome? Doing this because he wanted to save as many people as he could?

No.

Michael would be proud of that little delusion, he thinks, and laughs weakly.

The feeling of being watched worsens.

All right, he thinks at the silent Eye, the Beholding, the Ceaseless Watcher; the thing that everyone but Michael says is just a gaze, an infinite being without understanding, without emotion, without anything but that all-consuming knowledge.

If Michael is right, this is a turning point.

If Michael is wrong, then… it’s a waste of a few minutes.

All right, he thinks again. You know I want files on the Stranger. The S-t-r-a-n-g-e-r. Go on. Prove yourself to me. Show me where to look, and I’ll read every damn statement they have.

That probably wasn’t the way to go about this. If it had feelings—which he still doubts—insulting the eternal personification of paranoia likely wouldn’t make for good relations.

Those feelings would probably be so alien that he could never understand them, anyway. He thinks of Leitner’s example of the ant, looking up, finding a giant eyeball staring at it, and naturally having neither the means nor the strength of will to imagine what the fuck that monster could be. Thinks of his own example of the Fears being like muscle spasms, unthinking, just reaching for what they—

He knows where the file is.

Just knows. Knows as if he’d put it there himself.

Pale, he rises, climbs two floors, and goes right to the appropriate shelf.

It’s a statement from a woman named Alice Janssen, the granddaughter of the man who hid inside the Mechanical Turk to pretend it played chess in the last part of the eighteenth century.

Apparently, her grandfather had told her stories of an insane, horrifying event in which he knew nothing, could understand no language, could not recall having limbs.

Nothing was anything, and nobody was what they did not pretend to be, she’d quoted, because his tale, only told when drunk, had given her years of nightmares.

Jon realizes this was a previous attempt at the Unknowing.

And it failed.

He reads.

He must still look stunned when the receptionist finds him, still on the third floor, tucked into a corner and staring at his limp hands.

“Oh, Mister Sims!” says not-Rosie, and hands him a packet, faxed over. “It’s from the Magnus Institute—you said you work for them, right?”

Jon sighs. He’s in no place to fight off Elias’ reach right now. “Yes. Thank you.”

It’s more statements—two about the Stranger, and one about the Dark.

The Dark scares him. More than the Stranger. More than anything.

He shakes it off. One apocalypse at a time, if it’s not too much to ask.

It probably is too much to ask.

He bids not-Rosie farewell (and ignores the statement near-visible under her skin about a dead niece and something to do with shadows that beckon) and marches out the door quickly, as quickly as he feels might not be rude, and that’s why he doesn’t see what is waiting for him.

This is America, in a major city. It is an unfortunate fact that if a policeman attacks a person of color, even in broad daylight, in most cases, no one will even care.

Jon wakes up tied to a chair.

He has a bad moment before he clocks that this is not the same chair, not the same room, and handcuffs, not a rope.

He looks up.

The policeman (Mustermann, says his badge) watches Jon without a shred of pretense at human expression. It is talking on a phone. “Yeah, I’m sure. Passport confirms it. Well, I don’t know, how the fuck do you want him home? I could just send the skin.”

New boss, same as the old boss, Jon thinks wildly, and tries to wriggle his hands free. No go; the cuffs are on mercilessly tight.

“That’ll take weeks,” Mustermann complains, and starts pacing.

Weeks? Weeks of what?

Jon pulls, tries to see if he can lift his arms over the back of the chair, but it’s no good.

“It’s no good,” says a voice, strangely echoing, like a memory of itself. “He’s got you locked down tight.”

Jon turns.

Behind him, an old man lies on the floor, unconscious. He’s breathing, at least. Beside him is an open book.

Above the book hovers a see-through man.

A man with long and badly dyed black hair; even semi-opaque, his eye tattoos are visible on every joint of his hands, and his apparent ghostly clothing of choice is a black leather coat that reaches his ankles, spikes, chains, and what might be a mesh shirt.

Jon stares.

Looks down. Looks back up.

Trevor Herbert, his brain supplies, though it makes absolutely no damned sense how the old man was here instead of Manchester.

He knows Trevor is pretending to be unconscious.

And also knows who the goth ghost is. Gerard Keay. A shiver races right up Jon’s spine. “You,” he whispers.

Mustermann abruptly storms over, grabs a handful of Jon’s hair, yanks his head back, and takes a picture of his face.

Jon cries out.

“Fuck, you’re noisy,” Mustermann observes, lets go, and marches off again, texting. “Yeah, I sent it. Well, give it a minute!”

“Ow,” says Jon, then looks over again. “You’re Gerard Keay.”

“Shhh,” says Gerard. Somehow, though incorporeal, he still has a skull ring on his index finger. “Don’t think that guy’s too particular about keeping you alive.”

“I… I…” Jon is panting. “I have questions.”

“Good for you.” Gerard does not look interested in questions, and turns away.

Jon looks back and forth. “What is happening right now?” he whispers.

“A sting,” says Gerard.

Trevor smacks the book and goes back to playing comatose.

It’s not dissimilar to smacking the leg of someone who’d said too much.

“But you worked with Gertrude,” Jon hisses, truly trying not to cause trouble. “The Unknowing—”

“Shut it, or the monster’s gonna need to treat you for concussions,” Trevor warns, sotto voce.

Gerard laughs.

It’s… not a bad laugh, exactly? But it’s definitely not kind.

Jon tries to get loose again, and discovers his legs are handcuffed, as well. He’s not going anywhere.

The thing’s going to skin him.

It’s all come back to this, all over again.

“H… help! Help!” he shouts.

“Yeah, he didn’t think of you doing that before he brought you here, I’m sure,” Gerard drawls.

Here seems to be some kind of closed factory. Dirt-covered skylights let in some light, and shadowed machinery haunts the walls; everything has been moved far away from Jon and his prison-chair.

Definitely, no one can hear him.

Jon tries again to get loose, knowing it’s foolish. Fear is eating away at his reason; all he manages to do is bang his chair around a little.

Trevor doesn’t bother to comment.

Right, making an idiot out of yourself in front of the vampire hunter and the… ghost? Jon thinks, staring at them again. “How are you here? You’re dead! Both of you are supposed to be dead!”

Gerard touches his finger to his lips, hushing.

Mustermann returns. He’s not happy with his phone call. “Fine, fine; I’ll figure it out, no thanks to you.” He stuffs the phone in his pocket and crosses his arms.

And Jon knows. “You… you’re one of the anatomy students. The ones who tormented Doctor Elliot.”

Mustermann laughs. “Tormented? We were nice to him,” he says, as if terrifying a poor old professor and giving him an apple with human teeth in it had been positively doting.

Jon is breathing too fast. “Let me go.”

“No. You’re my big chance. Can’t believe you were just walking around, unprotected.” He shakes his head. “What Nikola wants, Nikola gets—and she wants you back real bad.”

Why? Why? Breekon and Hope said she’d found something better. A panicked whine tries to rise in Jon’s throat, and it takes all his will to force it back down.

And a niggling something is trying to work its way through Jon’s brain. Something about Mustermann. Something he can’t… quite see, can’t quite know, and yet…

The Eye wants to show him something.

“Waiting for a callback?” Gerard suddenly says, drawing attention away from whatever Jon’s face is doing. “She left you on read, didn’t she?”

“You shut it,” says Mustermann, “whatever the fuck you are.”

“Bored,” says Gerard. “That’s what I am. What kind of a hopped-up monster are you, anyway? What, you run around, Frankensteining yourself, and then what—jump out and say boo at people?”

“Oh, I am burning that book, I don’t give a fuck what she says,” Mustermann says.

Jon is barely aware of this conversation.

He sees someone creeping up behind Mustermann, but it seems so unimportant that Jon logs it away and forgets it almost at once.

Because something is happening to him.

If he hadn’t been listening earlier today, if he hadn’t been leaving himself open to the Beholding for hours, he wouldn’t even have felt this breath.

But he had.

And he does.

His eyes are widening, his breath quickening. The same way he saw the outline of Michael’s door, he sees what’s holding this thing together.

It’s not one piece. Not even close.

Not nearly coherent enough to be safe.

“Ooh,” says Gerard. “So you’re going to burn my book and finally let me go? Wow. That’s a threat, dangling the thing I actually want. Good job, there. Real scary.”

“Gonna burn your friend here, first,” says Mustermann. “Ugly old man. That’ll shut you up.”

“Van Helsing?” Gerard shrugs magnificently at Trevor and looks away. “Naw.”

“Naw?” says Mustermann.

“I mean that won’t upset me. At all. Don’t tell me—the brain you stole was labeled Abby Normal, wasn’t it?”

And Jon speaks, and didn’t even mean to do it. “You stole the name, even though it just means John Doe. You actually sought someone out who had that name.”

Mustermann stares. Gerard stares. Whoever is creeping up on Mustermann stares, then resumes their stalk.

Jon can’t shut up. “He had two daughters, and you killed them, too, though you didn’t need their skins. You did it in front of him, because you wanted him saturated, overflowing, so full of fear and sorrow that you could weave it into your dance.”

Oh, and he has grabbed Mustermann’s attention, he has run it through as with a hook, and Mustermann forgets anyone is there except for Jon.

Mustermann puts his hand on his gun. He’s angry, the way the Fears’ creations are always angry, but that isn’t all that’s happening.

Mustermann’s cheek twitches, and his shoulder bobs up and down. His left hand begins flexing and unflexing, shaking wildly, as if all these parts have slipped out of his control. “Shut up,” he says.

Jon sees the wires of will and sour magic, sees the woven body-parts from so many people that still carry the trauma of everything they were, parts that fuel this thing with the pain of their taking as much as whatever fear Mustermann causes now.

And how does he cause fear? By being uncanny. By being unknown.

But Jon knows.

“Nikola doesn’t like you,” he says, a weird smile twisting his lips. “She thinks you’re a rip-off, a lesser version of what she is, because you still rely on flesh.”

Mustermann hits him.

It rocks his head back, but he almost doesn’t notice.

Nothing hurts.

Energy thrums through him, his energy, created for him, calibrated to his exact self, and he can’t even feel the handcuffs anymore.

Mustermann is breathing fast now, too, mimicking Jon unconsciously (because that’s all the Stranger does, Jon knows, they just copy life because they have none of their own), and suddenly draws his gun. “Stop looking!” Mustermann says.

“No,” says Jon softly.

And Julia Montauk comes out of left field with a baseball bat and whacks Mustermann in the head.

Jon has done something, reminded Mustermann’s parts that they don’t belong to him, and he can’t fight back.

It’s a brutal few seconds.

Everybody stares.

Trevor sits up—quickly and easily, evincing a core strength that’s mildly disturbing for an old, possibly homeless man. “The hell just happened?’

“I don’t know,” says Julia, checking her bat as if to see if it has runes on it, or something.

Jon is panting. He’s exhausted.

He’s not sure what he did.

The two hunters look at him. It’s a very… intent look.

“Who’d you say he was?” says Trevor, standing.

“Besides bait?” Julia searches Jon quickly, clinically, finds his wallet. “Jonathan Sims? Don’t know him.”

“You… you’re Julia Montauk,” Jon breathes, really struggling to get air, wondering just how much power from the Beholding it took to make that happen, whatever it was.

This feels worse than when he passed out in the hotel.

She looks at him upon hearing her name, her eyes flat, like a shark, and he knows if he doesn’t say something really clever in the next two seconds, she’s going to kill him.

“You—you—gave a statement at the Magnus Institute!” he blurts. “I work there! That’s all! That’s how I know!”

“Oh.” She relaxes, looks like a normal person again (though the feel of Hunt rolling through her is strong, heavy, not quite as awful as Daisy’s, but still bad enough to make him want to hide under a bed). “Yeah, I did do that, didn’t I?”

“Wh... what are you doing here?” says Jon, and he’s trying not to compel, he’s fighting it so hard. “And you—Trevor Herbert? They said you died!”

Trevor shrugs. “Not as long as I keep hunting, I don’t. Don’t remember you at the place when I went in. Who’d you say you were?”

“I’m the Archivist,” says Jon, and the word is capitalized, and he doesn’t know how to make it not do that.

They look at each other. They are a (pack, Jon’s brain supplies) team, and can communicate very well without speaking.

“Think you can do that again?” says Julia, nudging Mustermann’s shoulder with her foot.

“Uh-oh,” says Gerard, almost cheerfully.

Jon tries to ignore that Mustermann’s hand is still working, grabbing, flexing at nothing like Thing Addams having a stroke. “I… uh… I don’t know. I don’t know what I did. I’ve never done it before in my life.”

No one, Jon notes, has moved to undo his handcuffs. “I… I don’t suppose I could… ask for a hand up?”

“Not yet,” says Julia. “A little too interested in this.” She toes part of Mustermann again.

A chill runs down Jon’s spine. “I… I told you. I don’t know how I did it.”

“Right damned convenient of ye,” says Trevor, stretching and cracking his back. “Took your time, by the way.”

“I told you it’d be a while, old man,” says Julia with such fondness that Jon’s heart would be warmed if not for—well, everything else.

“You get to be the victim next time.”

“You know I’m quieter.”

“Yer just skinnier, is all you are.”

Jon pulls at the handcuffs. “Please. I… I need to go. We’re trying to stop something horrible—a ritual. The Stranger has a ritual, called the Unknowing, and it—”

Flat looks again, shark looks from both of them, absolutely inhuman and calculating, and Jon’s throat closes right up.

“Clean up first,” mutters Julia.

“Yeah. After that, we’ll get to ‘im,” agrees Trevor, and so quickly it’s almost dizzying, they’ve cleaned up all the blood, packed away what’s left of Mustermann (still wriggling), and headed off to dispose of him… wherever.

“Sucks to be you,” says Gerard.

This whole day has gone mad. Jon tries to focus. “I don’t think we have much time. Gertrude had some kind of failsafe to stop the Unknowing. I think you know what it is.”

“No foreplay, huh? Gertrude would’ve liked that,” says Gerard. “Assuming she fucked, which who the hell knows.”

Jon stares at him. “I’m sorry.” He’s trying to be compassionate; they both know that if Jon is the Archivist, Gertrude is dead.

“Yeah.” Gerard looks up. Sighs. Looks at Jon. “Don’t believe them. They’ll promise to release you, but they won’t.”

“Wh… what?” says Jon.

Then Julia and Trevor are back, and finally undo Jon’s cuffs, gathering Gerard’s book while Jon rubs his wrists.

Julia hands him his wallet back with a smile.

Jon knows that was meant to lull his suspicions. Instead, he starts shaking.

Gerard vanishes the moment the book is closed.

“I,” says Jon. “I need to talk to him. He has information I need.”

“Sure you do,” says Trevor, and it is a terrible smile. “Let’s all go have a cuppa and figure it out.”

“Anybody traveling with you?” says Julia casually as they all head for the door.

Some deep instinct tells Jon that if he tells them about the Distortion, traveling with a monster, he’s signing his death warrant. “Yes, I… an archival assistant. Michael Shelley.”

They look at each other.

“He back at the hotel?” says Julia.

“Look, how do you know about my hotel?” says Jon. “Have you been following me?”

“Since Mustermann started following you, yeah,” says Julia.

Oh, thinks Jon. So that extra feeling of being watched was something he should have listened to. I am an idiot.

“Not that you’re going back there,” adds Julia.

They won’t let you go, said Gerard.

Jon pretends he doesn't know. “We… you’re taking me somewhere else?”

“Yeah. D’you think you could do that trick again?” says Trevor. “Hold ‘em like that. Focused. Weaken ‘em a little bit, too.”

“I… I don’t know.” Jon stumbles. He’s woozy, but can’t say he’s glad to have Trevor gripping his arm to keep him from falling. “To be completely honest, it seems to have… hurt me. A little.”

“Too bad, that,” says Trevor. “Get in the car.”

Jon hadn’t even realized they’d reached a car.

Being taken to a secondary location, he thinks, decreases likelihood of rescue by 97%. He doubts that applies to him. Too many of his would-be rescuers are monsters. “All right,” he says, because he’d rather ride in the back seat than in the boot, and he gets in the car.

He’s empty. Just empty. Can barely think his way clear.

He wants to ask how the hell they got here. What they’re doing. Why they’re together. What they think, exactly, he can do for them (he already knows).

He wants to tell them about the Unknowing.

Instead, Jon falls asleep.

Maybe it was closer to passing out.

He wakes up in an unfamiliar room, on an uncomfortable, thin mattress, and realizes his leg has been chained to the bed.

He stares at it, uncomprehending.

He tests it. It’s real.

His head feels horrible.

“Kidnapped again,” he mutters. “Twice in a row. Georgie, you were right, and I’m a moron.”

Trying not to panic over this, trying not to lose his mind over being chained to a damned bed, takes a minute. He attempts to distract himself by inspecting the room.

There’s no sound from the room’s single door. There’s barely space to stand between the bed and a small bureau with a water basin on top.

Jon stares at them, stares at the door, collapses back on the bed, and groans.

At least they weren’t monsters, he tells himself. Avatars of the Hunt weren’t much better, but surely, he could reason with them. Surely, he could… something.

He was lying to himself, and this was terrifying.

Fuck, he thinks.

Thinking was hard. Sluggish.

Whatever he did to Mustermann took far more power than he was used to using, and two statements from Elias were not enough.

Were you watching that? he thinks in Elias’ direction, probably pointlessly.

Jon gets up and searches the room. Well—the two drawers in the bureau.

They left him Gerard’s book, at least. There’s nothing else here.

He goes to the door, flinching at how loud his chain is, and listens.

Nothing.

Back to the book.

Was it a kindness? Or was it convenience, keeping their secret weapons in the same room?

Jon blinks.

Knows they’re using Gerard, somehow, like they plan to use him.

He opens the book.

It feels wrong, vaguely tacky, as if it had blood over it at some point and was impossible to fully clean off.

He doesn’t know how Gerard is in this thing. He only knows that he is—and scanning through, skimming fast, he finds Gerard’s page.

He knows it’s the one, beautifully and creepily written.

“His consciousness faded in and out like the tide,” Jon murmurs, reading this version of Gerard’s death, written in Gertrude’s hand but through Gerard’s eyes. “She was there sometimes, the one he had followed around the world. There was almost sadness in her eyes.”

Almost sadness. Almost.

Jon suddenly knows that Gertrude bound Gerry’s soul in this book, somehow, and he hates Gertrude, just a little bit.

“—and his only thought was to cry out for his mother. But with the last vestige of his stubborn will, he refused. She would not claim his last moment. He was silent. And so Gerard Keay ended.”

Power washes through him, a sense of other, of an entire consciousness, maybe a soul, and Jon gets the other man’s entire life slammed through his mind in an instant.

Eye probably thinks it’s helping, Jon thinks, gasping, crouching and clinging to the bureau to keep from keeling over.

“Huh,” says Gerard. “Doesn’t usually do that.”

“I…” It’s hard to talk. “I’ve done too much. The last couple of days.”

“Yeah, really?” Gerard has perfected the use of sarcasm. “Never saw Gertrude do that, that’s for sure.”

“What did you see her do, then?” Jon snaps, and finally looks up.

The outfit has changed. No long coat; instead, some sort of a collar with chains that drape around his torso like ribs. “Blow shit up,” says Gerard.

Jon stares. “What are you, anyway?”

“Trapped. Nothing matters, past that.” Gerard studies him. “So are you, now.”

“I…” Jon rubs his forehead; tries to stand.

That doesn’t go well, and he lands on his ass.

Gerard’s eyebrows nearly reach his dyed hairline. “Wow. Really not Gertrude.”

“Oh, shut up.” But somehow, Jon isn’t upset. Gerard isn’t talking about her as if he venerated her.

That’s new and lovely and Jon wants to keep it.

Jon sighs. “You said you’re trapped?”

“They keep promising to burn my page. They don’t do it.” Gerard smiles wryly. “I think I’m done helping them. Sorry—that means it’s all going to fall on you.”

“To do… what, exactly? I have to stop the Unknowing.”

“So she didn’t manage it.”

“No, she didn't.”

“Did she die peacefully?”

Jon almost lies. Studies Gerard. Decides to go with his gut. “No. She was murdered. Shot point-blank three times in the chest and left to die in the tunnels.”

Gerard shakes his head. “Well, that’s about how she would’ve wanted it.”

“You didn’t like her.”

“I didn’t trust her. Nor should anyone, as it turns out.”

“She did have an unfortunate habit of sacrificing people,” says Jon.

“You sound like you don’t approve.”

“I don’t.” Jon scowls. “And I still need to know what you know. I can’t believe I have this chance to talk to you. You know so much! You bought a beer in New Zealand, and I… But then you died, you’re, you died, and—” He stops.

Gerard is just looking at him, unreadable.

Jon sighs. “Sorry. That’s… probably not the best way to go about this.”

“It’s awkward as hell,” Gerard says approvingly. “My friends call me Gerry.”

“Jon.”

“Right.” Gerry looks around. “They’re out there acting like something’s going down, so I don’t know how much time we have. Let’s make a deal.”

“As long as it has nothing to do with my dreams,” Jon mutters.

Something about Gerry’s very tiny smile makes Jon think he hasn’t done in a while. “Wasn’t planning on that, no.”

“So what do you want?”

“Burn my page.”

Jon stares at him. “You… want me to destroy you?”

Gerry sighs and crouches in front of him. Jon can see the door through him; it’s dizzying. “This hurts, Jon. I am supposed to be dead—this isn’t right. It hurts. Every second of existence hurts. I want out. They won’t let me go—they keep using me for…” He shakes his head. “Their own personal Dracula-of-the-week wiki, but I don’t want to do it anymore.”

“And your solution is to… to self-destruct?”

“You don’t listen very well for an Archivist, do you?” says Gerry, but he’s smiling again, and the corners of his eyes crinkle when he does.

“I—it’s been a long few days, all right?” Jon snaps.

Gerry laughs. “Right. Well. That’s my deal. Burn my page, and I’ll tell you what I—” He stops.

“What?” says Jon.

Gerry stands, staring at the door. “Mustermann had friends.”

“What?” Jon grips the bureau, pulls himself to his feet. He feels so weak, legs like noodles. There is nowhere to run in here, or hide.

“The Hunters got tracked. Or maybe they’re just trying to lure them in,” Gerry mutters. “Well. Fuck.”

And from outside the door come gunshots.

This would be a great time for you to show back up again, thinks Jon, gripping the scar on his arm, digging his fingers in.

Nothing happens.

Gerry looks at Jon. There’s a touch of pity there, just a hint. “Better take the page now.”

“Wh… what?”

“They’re coming. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Then tell me quickly!”

“No. I won’t risk being trapped with them any longer. You want my help, take the page.”

“But the Unknowing—”

“Changes the world in horrible ways—for you. I’m a book.”

Gerry has a point.

Another gunshot. Shouts.

Jon pants as he rips out Gerry’s page, not being careful, hoping it won’t hurt him, and stuffs it in his pocket. Then he thinks better of that, folds it, and puts it in his wallet, instead. “I can’t burn it here. There’s nowhere to do it. Please take my word that I will.”

Gerry studies him. “I don’t think you’re much of a liar, are you?” he says, casual, as the sounds of carnage outside increase.

Jon shakes his head quickly.

Gerry smiles. It does wonderful things to his eyes. “Gertrude lied like breathing. I’m glad you don’t. Right—listen hard, Archivist Jon. We are just about out of time.”

It takes Mustermann’s “friends”—six creations of the Stranger, six horrifying amalgamations of the uncanny and the crude—twenty-two minutes to break their way through Julia and Trevor’s defenses.

Twenty-two minutes of Gerard talking, filling in so many gaps.

Twenty-two minutes of carnage outside the door, shrieks and snarls and terrible crashing.

Two of the anatomy students go down hard, torn to such pieces that they cannot regrow.

Two remain to distract the Hunters.

The other two break down Jon’s door.

He recognizes them from Doctor Elliot’s descriptions, knows they are Jan Novak and Pavel Petrov, two more John Does in the flesh.

They do not look at Gerard as they grab Jon.

Novak realizes Jon’s chained, and just breaks the chain off near his ankle, like snapping a plastic spoon.

Gerry fades as Jon goes, taking the page away from its source. Their eyes meet; when Gerry nods, Jon knows he’s not just saying goodbye. He’s saying he understands.

And he does. Gerry’s life was never his own, either.

“Wir haben ihn!” Petrov shouts, and the remaining surviving anatomy student books it to join them.

Trevor gets that monster from behind, and they go down in a spray of blood.

Jon’s being carried; they are moving faster than he could run full-out, anyway.

Three kidnappings in a row, he thinks, dazed with hunger, dazed with what Gerry said, dazed with new and treacherous knowledge. Has to be a record.

Then: Why?

Nikola suddenly seems quite determined to get him back for someone who has an alternate solution, or whatever the hell Breekon and Hope said.

It’s all dizzying. They throw him into the back seat of a van and take off, but the streets don’t lend themselves to car-chases here, no matter what the movies say, and Julia catches up before they’ve run two traffic lights.

The gunshots are so loud, and Jon covers his ears, curling down on the floor. He’s not even sure they’re fighting over him, or whether this was some long-standing conflict—it feels like the latter, like he’s incidental.

Which means he may be able to slip out.

The van rocks with the violence of Trevor’s arrival, and now there are knives as well as guns, and so much shouting—

The van has stopped. Jon tries the door-handle and finds it unlocked.

“Stop!” shouts someone, but he neither knows who, nor cares to obey.

Gerry’s statement helped; it’s enough for him to run, but he’s not fast enough.

He runs, turns a corner, runs; and then someone gets him from behind, and he doesn’t know who; he struggles, shouts.

More shouting, more gunshots.

Something punches him in the chest, and he suddenly can’t breathe.

Everything goes hazy; his ears ring, and his heartbeat drums out any other sound that gets through, and he finds he’s sinking to the sidewalk, unable to do anything more than lie down.

Hurts, now. Starting to hurt very, very much.

A new scream slices through the noise—the voice is Novak’s, but the monster sounds horrified, afraid, and in pain, and its shriek rises up and out as if it was just torn to fibers.

More shouts.

Jon is barely aware that it is Michael who lifts him, that there is blood all over Michael’s hands (Does Michael have blood? Do concepts even bleed? Is this what’s left of Novak?), then blessed silence as they are through its door and out of D.C.

“Oh, Archivist, what have you done?” Michael says, very softly.

Jon’s heart hurts with every beat. He can’t breathe.

It hurts, oh, it hurts.

He closes his eyes, hangs his head.

Not yet, not yet, he thinks, afraid, and then he is gone.

(part eight)

#tma au #tma fic #julia montauk #gerry keay #jonathan sims #trevor herbert #the anatomy students #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #and eat it too

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andersonlore · 4 months

Text

currently thinking about....

doctor!abby who you meet for the first time when she’s covering the emergency room. you’re a patient, suffering from abdominal pain and a high fever. it’s pretty quiet, and it’s also three in the morning on a wednesday. late night shifts weren’t unfamiliar territory for her, she only had a few more hours left and she would be calling it a night.

doctor!abby who greets you with a soft smile as she glazes over your chart, before introducing herself. even with all the pain you’re in, you try your best to muster the courage to put on your best face, but you’re in pain and it’s evident.

doctor!abby tells you she wants to run a few more tests after you explain to her what brought you back in here. she tells the intern to notify her when your test results come back in. she believes it’s your appendix, inflamed and your symptoms masking themselves as a flu doesn’t help. it’s why the last hospital had missed it when you came in a week ago.

doctor!abby attempts to stir the thought of you from her mind. you're a patient. she's your doctor, and she'll be your surgeon if she's right about your prognosis. abby can't think about how you're extremely easy on the eyes. how your eyelashes compliment your eyes, accentuating the darling hue she could get lost in if she allowed herself. your voice floats over her heart like honey, sweetening her up at her very core. it's sickening how she wants to swallow every bit of it.

doctor!abby finds it a little hard to believe she feels this way just after one brief interaction with you. she prides herself on being professional, being distant enough from the patient. she has to be, her focus needs to be lasered when she's in the operating room. she can't think of how beautiful you are, how much she wants to flirt with you, and how she would if she'd met you anywhere but this godforsaken hospital. god has a special kind of torture for making you her patient. she can just be your surgeon. cut you open, patch you up, and send you back home. it's all she can do.

doctor!abby wants to uppercut this intern’s jaw. it’s really not their fault, but you’re undeniably in pain and they were attending to another patient before giving your results to the lab. but it’s more than clear with the results coming back, it’s your appendix and she’s sure at this point it’s ruptured. fresh tears spring to your eyes as she explains they need to get you into surgery right away, before any further damage can happen.

doctor!abby watches as you wipe your tears away, embarrassed you’re crying in front of the stupidly hot doctor. it’s mortifying, and you hated to be like this in front of anyone. abby’s expression is focused, cold even. she reassures you the intern is going to prep you for surgery, the weight in your shoulders drops, but the pain persistent.

doctor!abby who is elated when the surgery goes smoothly. you wake up several hours later with slight discomfort, but you’re recovering nicely. she was supposed to leave the hospital hours ago, but couldn't bring herself too. the thoughts of you coming out of anthesia after your surgery, telling her how gorgeous she is and how briliant she is to save your life.

doctor!abby who was thankful you wouldn't remember her cheeks flushed, dazed eyes and a stupid smile from your compliment alone — thankfully no one to see how unprofessional she was being. how her stupid, caring heart couldn't seem to control itself around you. she blamed your eyes. they were too easy to get fall for, making her get lost in nostalgia, as if she’d loved you in some past life.

doctor!abby who thinks about you even after you’re discharged. you’re home, healthy, and should be out of her mind but you’re not. your existence stretched into every thought of hers. god, maybe it’s impenetrable, rose-colored glasses affecting her judgement, but she wonder what it would be like to see you out of the walls of this hospital. she imagines picking you up for a first date, holding your hand sweetly even if she was nervous — god — she thinks about kissing you the most. she would savor every moment if you let her.

doctor!abby who happens to see you again at dina’s place or more accurately, you’re waiting in the pouring rain, downright soaked. lightning paints the skies, cracking thunder rumbles making you jump as your rubs your hands along your forearms trying to regain some warmth. she’s never been more thankful for her loud neighbor. of all the people in the seattle area dina could be friends with it’s you. the woman she can’t stop thinking about, the beautiful goddess she dreams about is within her reach and she’s definitely going to take advantage of it.

abby softly greets you not wanting to frighten you, declaration of her appearance known as she says your name eloquently. it’s the hot doctor, oh my god. oh my god.

“dr. anderson?” you question, a hint of a smile wanting to escape and abby takes note. your hair is wet, silky, hint of curls forming. drops of the rain flow over supple cheeks, falling over wet lips.

yet again, abby is reminded of just how beautiful you are. butterflies swarm the pit of her stomach at your excitement to see her. you’re surprised but you can’t stop looking at her. it’s a relief, the hope you might feel the same as her.

“please, just abby.” so distracted by her, domineering presence you noticed the umbrella she had, shielding you from the dreadful rain. but it really didn’t seem too terrible. not when she was in your company.

abby was shed of her white coat, only wearing navy blue scrubs and simple tennis shoes for comfort. biceps sculpted to the heavens, slightly wet from the rain which seemed to make them appear even more delicious. you want to eat her right up.

“i’m so confused. you live here?” abby gestures to the house right next door. “yeah, right next door.”

“i was just coming home and you looked…..wet.” abby silently cursed herself for being so goddamn awkward. it was worth it though, your small laugh an equal reward.

“if you want, you can come to mine. dry off, not get completely soaked while you wait for dina.” abby offers sweetly. “totally up to you, but my home is pretty damn cozy. warm too.”

the two of you are smiling like idiots. abby’s hoping you say yes and you’re thinking about how adorable she is, despite how physically terrifying she may appear.

“okay….yeah. i might be into that.”

“yeah?” abby’s voice changes, dropping into a tone you hadn’t heard before. it’s pure velvet and you want to feel it on your skin. you want to feel all of her. she leads the way as you stay under the umbrella, impossibly close to her as she protects you from the rain.

doctor!abby who gets you a change of dry clothes, a crewneck sweater and sweatpants. she can’t help but notice how adorable you look in her clothes. abby tries to do her best not to flirt with you as you’re sitting on her couch, but she fails. she’s asking normal questions, non-sequential small talk, but her hand is on your thigh. though the cotton is thick, her touch lights a fire between your thighs.

doctor!abby who nearly combusts when you start touching her arms, her shoulder, ghosting longer her thigh. but they find home elsewhere. fingers delicately smoothing over the end of her braid. abby can’t stop the way her heart stops, and then continues. the blonde strands wrap around your finger like a vice, clinging onto you as if it’s the sole purpose of existing.

doctor!abby who can see the ember shining in your eyes, the way you’re looking at her, like you might just eat her whole. fuck, she would let you too. she’d let you do whatever you want.

“i bet you look beautiful with your hair down.” you tell abby, inching forward, your thigh touching hers. “but you’re beautiful like this, too.”

“beautiful? me?” abby questioned as if it wasn’t obvious.

“don’t play dumb, dr. anderson.”

“i told you to call me ab—” her words just stop when you sling your left leg over, straddling her, grinding your hips just slightly before you fully press your weight on her. she sighs at the contact. feels s’good, having you this close.

wordlessly, you slowly undo her braid until every blond strand is free, her scalp thankful for it. abby moans as you run your fingers through her hair. your bring it over her shoulders on both sides, cradling her face in the palm of your hands.

“you really think you’re not? you’re going to sit here and pretend like you’re not the most beautiful woman i’ve ever seen?” abby blushes, supple cheeks close to crimson, but she doesn’t look away.

“yeah, baby? you think so?”

“i know you are.”

abby lifts her hips cockily, smirking as the moan leaves your lips. all these layers, but being pressed up against her is doing something to you.

“i guess blonde doctors are your type then, huh?”

“only when they keep checking up on me when they didn’t have to.” your hands rest on her hips, as you lean into her, nose pressed against hers, lips ghosting over her very kissable ones.

“i was just doing my job, you know?”

“sure you were, dr. anderson.” abby grunts, aggravated you won’t just say her name again. she needs to hear it.

she can feel your breath on her lips, if she just moved slightly upwards, she’d be kissing you. she wants to, needs to.

“you want to kiss me.” your pupils dilate and your voice trembles.

“say my name and maybe i will.”

“so it’s that easy?”

“mhmmm, that easy.” abby hums, and her name is about to fall off your lips. tragically, dina walks through abby’s front door before you get the chance to. you’re not embarrassed to be found on abby’s lap, and dina knows it too. she just laughs and asks if you’re ready to go.

you whisper in abby’s ear before biting gently, “until next time, dr. anderson.”

an. omfg i actually like something i wrote???? wild.

#✭・۪ ⊹ ֗ ray’s works #if you're a med student....do not come for me pls #yes i’ve been watching a lot of grey’s anatomy and thinking about abby being my doctor #abby anderson x reader #abby x you #abby the last of us #abby anderson x female reader #abby tlou2 #abby anderson tlou2 #abby anderson x fem!reader #abby anderson x you #abby anderson x y/n #abby anderson x poc reader #abby anderson x masc reader #abby anderson smut #abby anderson fluff #abby x reader

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