Morning stare off
The Magnus Institute was buzzing when Martin got into work. The front door had a sign that read, “we apologize for any inconveniences, but the Institute is closed off to non-employees until tomorrow. To reschedule any appointments please call xxx-xxx-xxxx. Thanks for your patience. We should be open for our normal hours tomorrow.”
There were googly eyes everywhere, and the atmosphere was a mix of joy and anguish, depending on who one would ask. Martin was on the confused side for sure, but some of them were in cute places. There was a very expressive stapler on the front desk,
The eyes only seemed to increase as Martin made his way to the basement, then they suddenly stopped. At first he thought that would make sense since the only people with keys to the basement were Elias, the security team, artifact team, and Jon. So whoever had placed the eyes around, wouldn’t have been able to get to his area. That thought ceased as soon as he heard laughter coming from Artifact Storage.
Martin pokes his head in to see two of the artifact staff joking around with what looked to be an unsettling rock with two different sized eyes. Majority of the other items were in a similar shape from what he could tell at a glance. None of them had matching sizes, and some objects had more than 2 eyes.
Martin continued to the archives, curious and excited to see the state of it since apparently whoever did this had access to the basement levels?
He was both disappointed and excited to see Sasha currently putting some eyes on her work station. “Morning Martin. Want some eyes?” She held out a baggy of eyes.
“Morning, but what?”
“Boss brought us the extra eyes. He told us to fancy up our space before Double Boss came down.” Tim’s desk looked like a googly eye war zone. “Something about him not wanting to invade our space?”
Martin looked even more baffled. “Wait, Jon? This was Jon’s doing?”
Sasha nodded cheerfully. “Yup, I guess he and some friends got drunk and hit up a craft store? He’s in his office with a hangover.”
“He is trying to play it off like it wasn’t him, though. I guess Double Boss isn’t happy about the state of things. So Sasha and I were planning on playing oblivious. “
“Gotta say, Jon,” Sasha turned her head to Jon’s open office door. “Never expected you to abuse your key privilege not even a week after promotion.”
There was a groan from Jon’s office in response. Jon was still proud of the eyes, and hiding it from Elias wasn’t a goal since they both knew it was him. The groan was very much from the hangover. He didn’t even think he could get one of those anymore, but sure enough, here he was. Plus there was now the thing with Jess Jon didn’t want to or know how to address yet. He would have to talk to Georgie about what next, and figure out a way to make it up to Jess. It wasn’t a pleasant dream for a Photographer to have.
Was it cause they were a photographer that it had been so easy to mark them? God, Jon realized he Marked them. Like the full-blown Avatar he was. Time to revise his meal plans again. This would be harder to catch since he didn’t even notice he’d been creating a statement about him and collecting it until he found the tape recorder in his pocket later that night. It was like all the times wandering into other Fear's territories in the future. Except he didn't need to describe the experience cause he could actively watch it happening. Jon was determined to figure out all the rules his body followed before telling his assistants about the Fear stuff. Jon didn’t want to pull any surprises on them after explaining to them.
Martin placed a mug of tea down in front of Jon, startling him out of his train of thought. The mug stared back at Jon. “Christ, M-Martin!”
“S-sorry Jon, I thought you heard me come in.”
“No, no it’s alright. Head isn’t all there right now.”
“So I heard. Though some tea might perk you up? Lovely job with all the eyes?”
Jon let out a snort of laughter, and Martin felt a butterfly in his heart.
“Thank you. Some friends took over the top floors, while I went to town in Artifact Storage. I’m rather proud of my work.”
“None of the eyes matched, Jon.” Martin said with a little bit of a dry tone, if only to keep himself from sputtering out something dumb. Jon’s face was beaming and so gorgeous.
“Unsettling eyes, for an unsettling place. Seemed fitting. By the way, thank you for the tea, Martin.” The way Jon said Martin’s name.
“Y-yeah don’t mention it. Ah, I’m going to go now. To my desk, to ah, help camouflage like Tim and Sasha.”
Jon nodded with a smile to Martin as he booked it out of the office. Tim could be heard whispering something teasingly at Martin, only to Martin return with a sharp sounding comment.
--
Meanwhile upstairs, Elias was furious. If he watched, all the jiggling of the googly eyes made him dizzy, and if he stopped watching, the Hunger was torturous. Far more than it had ever been before in the past. Sure he could watch outside of the Institute but it was the easiest place to passively watch. Anywhere else he would need to focus, but that would interfere with his work.
He called Rosie to send Jon up to his office immediately.
Surprisingly, Jon actually came up and closed the door behind him.
“Wow, Jonah, you look like shit. Having a hard time Focusing?” Jon sounded miserable from the hangover, but also like he was having far too much fun. “What can I do for you?”
Elias Stared at him which was returned by Jon. “What were you planning to accomplish by making me angry.”
“Honestly, nothing?” Jon felt great saying that. “There was nothing for me to accomplish by doing this. No twisted plan, no goal. Just thought I would add more eyes to help you out since you only seem to feed by viewing others from afar.”
“I don’t appreciate the sarcasm Jon.”
“Too bad.” Jon finally ended up sitting down in the chair across from Elias’s desk. “I’ve been thinking about our bet. It was a little quickly made, so I want to make sure we are clear on details.”
Elias didn’t say anything and looked at Jon to continue.
“Well, you want me to continue to stop rituals, but I don’t have the same resource pool as Gertrude did. Most of what she used hadn’t fallen victim to inflation yet and Money is a thing again. So I’m going to need more of it to keep the other Avatars from figuring things out.”
“Are you telling me you want a raise?”
“No. Not at all.” Jon reached into his pocket and pulled out the company card he was given on the first day. “What I’m saying is I need 3 more of these with Martin, Sasha, and Tim’s names on them.”
“And you think I will just give everyone access like that?”
“Would be nice if you did, but no. I didn’t think it would be that easy. I feel like I can be persuasive if you need convincing.”
“I’m sorry Jon. This isn’t a negotiation. The terms are that we will not interfere with each other's goals, while hiding the truth behind our ritual using deception. That didn’t include endless access to the company bank.”
Jon paused then stopped Staring and got up from the chair. “Well, that's a shame. Guess that is everything for now. I’d best be off then. Got quite a bit of work to get my Archives in order. Was a nice chat I guess.”
Jon stopped in the doorway. “Oh. I noticed that the time off wasn’t approved for Friday yet and my admin privileges don’t appear to be active yet, or I would do it myself. Should I talk to Rosie about it since you don’t seem to be in the right headspace?”
“Ask Rosie to help you with that.” Elias looked like he had all the fight taken out of him. Something about the way Jon stopped looking at him was unsettling. Like there was something unspoken that Elias needed to Know, but he couldn’t seem to Know it. Nothing came. No details were provided by the Ceaseless Watcher for him. Was it a side effect of the googly eyes, or was there a powershift that Elias had missed?
Jon nodded and closed the door behind him. He got out his phone and sent a text to Georgie that read ‘Fear-mas is now a mission rather than a prank. You free for dinner any time this week for details?’