Getting the band back together?
Somehow the summer ended up flying by in a near flash for Jon. Time wasn’t getting any easier for him which unnerved him slightly cause of the timeline events he needed to be aware of. He wasn’t even sure what would repeat and what wouldn’t due to all the changes that had occurred so far. Jon wasn’t too fond of being a test subject for the butterfly effects of time travel.
It was easy enough to explain why he was so disoriented by time by crediting it to the knowledge crammed in his brain. Tim would joke Jon didn’t have enough RAM to run all the processes, which both annoyed and pleased Jon. He’d normally retort with an info dump of the processing speed of a normal human brain, then Knew how his brain compared and shared that too. No one wanted to know those facts, but oddly enough, somehow Knowing things about his anatomy as it was as an Avatar wasn’t all that different than when he had been human. The differences were definitely things none of them wanted to know, but Jon couldn’t help but overshare. Supernatural anatomy was disgusting.
Tim picked up calling Jon ‘Monster Boss” after learning Jon’s feeding habits since Jon refused to hide that from them all. Sasha didn’t call Jon that to his face like Tim, but her phone contact for him was “Monster Boss™”. It made Jon happy none of the assistants rejected him after finding out details of his less than human habits. Jon was still banned from calling himself a monster. According to Georgie, it could only be used as a pet name from his humans though. They all had a group chat Jon wasn’t allowed in called “Jon’s humans” where they would tattle on him if he ever let it slip. It was approved that he could call himself Spooky, but Jon would rather jump into the buried than do that.
The first time he saw someone in public with a Lonely statement he wanted, he’d asked if anyone of them wanted to join to see what it looks like for him to take a statement from a passerby. So they could stop him or least be prepared if it happened while they were out, was how he put it when he’d asked. Sasha surprised him by agreeing, while Tim and Martin didn’t seem to agree with her choices. She later reported back to them she would like to never do that again. With that being the only thing she said.
Jon had a very stable feeding method by this point. What he had discovered with a little trial error over the 6 months, was that most of the time if he kept himself feed, resisting people in public was easy as smelling a pastry shop but not going in. Part of him wondered if it was so hard before cause he’d never actually gotten full, or comfortable enough that he Knew he wouldn’t starve if he didn’t take the statement right that moment. It was like each statement back then would be his last and he would do anything to not let it pass him by. After talking with Georgie about it, they both ended up agreeing that Jon had enough uncomfortable parallels with eating disorders that they were going to leave it at that and make sure that Jon never relapsed.
What Jon had discovered was it took him about 2 weeks without a live statement before things started getting rough. If he created a statement like what had happened with Jess, it lasted a little longer than 2 weeks, but never made it to a 4th week without needing something fresh. Knowing the time frame for his feeding did wonders for minimizing the trauma he spread. If he was out and passed someone with a statement, he would get their attention with a simple, ‘Hello, what you experienced was real. If you would like to share it, here is my business card;’ and leave it at that unless they asked questions.
After about a month of using the business card method, there was a new statement giver coming in once or twice a month, sometimes even more. Other than the normal wavers they had to sign, Sasha had put together another waver that gave them warnings about the potential of a recurring nightmare from sharing traumatic experiences, and with a few other warnings. Jon luckily didn’t require as much sleep so the nightmares wouldn’t be every night. He would try to take naps during the day, normally after lunch in the middle of the day to minimize overlapping with people’s dreams.
It was mid-august Jon found he was able to make a fake statements real as well if it met the right requirements. It had only happened once so far as he was taking a statement from someone who had mistaken their neighbor’s cat as a demon. As the fellow had described the glowing eyes of the cat he thought was a demon, he by chance looked up to see Jon’s eyes and made the mistake of meeting them directly. In that moment, Jon’s eyes lit up from the taste of fear in the air and the man didn’t miss it. He had to be escorted out by security unfortunately because that moment the fellow had cemented it in his mind that Jon was another demon or maybe even the same one as before, and that paranoia was enough to create a mark.
The man was in Jon’s dream that night along witnessing the cat’s demonic form the man had thought he’d seen, as it followed the man wherever he ran. Jon felt bad about that one, but he was mildly curious nonetheless as he watched. The fear of being watched was more common than he’d realized. He couldn’t help but wonder why there weren’t more statements in the archives. Thought maybe if one was afraid of being witnessed, going to a place that records fear is probably not on the top of their list. Either that or Jonah was just a shit Avatar and only one based in the UK since Gertrude never quite Became, so there were less around to make fear over the last 50 years.
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“Jonathan Sims? What are you doing here.” Basira was escorted to the archives by Rosie. There had been a report from a pedestrian dealing with something not right in the Magnus Institute's basement. And since the Institute was an auto section 31, here she was.
“Basira?” Jon wasn’t expecting to see her for a long while from now, maybe sooner if he contacted her to catch up, but certainly not this soon. He was completely unprepared and winging it was not something Jon’d ever been adept at.
“Oh, you know each other!” Rosie looked delighted.
Basira nodded slightly. “Had a few friends in common in uni. Can’t say we were close though.”
“Shame. Jon here could use more friends.” Rosie meant well Jon thinks, but that stung. He had friends.
Basira let out a quick laugh. “Sounds like the Jonathan I remember. Thanks for escorting me down. I’ll take it from here.”
“Of course. Let me know if there is anything else I can assist you with.’ Rosie took her leave after that.
The assistants were all out doing various investigations so it was just Jon and Basira now.
“It’s nice to see you again. Looks like you’ve been doing well. Assuming your visit isn’t for catching up from your uniform.” Jon smiled at her. No questions around Basira and he would not Know why she was here if she didn’t want to share. Jon wouldn’t do that to her again.
“Has been quite some time. We should plan something with the crew later. I’m rarely in touch with them myself. Work and all. Which is also why I’m here, though I wasn’t expecting you to be here. I’m doing a follow up on a report that came in a few days ago. Do you remember a man that came through here mentioning a demon wearing human skin who was all eyes?”
“There was a man that had to be escorted out the other day while recounting a demon in his backyard? Don’t remember the all eyes bit tho. Think his name was Clarance or Karl Shults? Or something along those lines. I have a recording if it would help.”
“Yup. That’d be him. If I could have a copy of the recording it would be helpful in clearing this up quickly. What do you remember of the encounter with him?”
“Hm, well he came into to share a statement about a tiny demon, which I suspect was a cat from the way he was describing it, and then when he got to describing the eyes, he looked up at me and started to yell, and tried to throw a punch at me.”
“Why didn’t you report something like that?”
“He’d tried to, but missed horribly. No harm done. We get weird things like that happening from time to time. He tripped over the chair and I was able to call for security to help me out. Have you asked them for any details?” The static hung on his tongue as Jon mentally cursed to himself. He’d relaxed too much.
“My partner is speaking with them at the moment, but we thought the best details for the encounter would be here.” Basira looked at Jon with a confused look that screamed she noticed the compulsion.
Before Jon could say anything else, A growl came from the doorway.
“Basira...Get away from him.” Daisy’s eyes were locked onto Jon. Jon felt the blood drain from his body.