something forgotten
Jon stared at the folder containing Carlos Vittery’s statement. He’d completely forgotten that he was already The Archivist when Vittery had come to leave his statement. He let out a sigh as two things came to mind. First being he could have taken the statement live, and given Vittery some sort of advice, or warned him the next time he saw the spider to not kill it. The second thought was he could’ve taken the statement live, gotten it fresh, with all the little extra details of fear.
He gave Marshal a little ear scratch. “I couldn’t have done anything, much as I would’ve wanted to. The Web always gets their way, and he’d offended it.” She let a little ‘merow’ chirp in response to the ear scratch, but it was nice to think she was agreeing with him.
This was the one that set everything into motion. Vittery had no idea what an integral part in Jon’s becoming the man had played. Well, maybe Jon was being dramatic. Vittery was just the unlucky man whose unfortunate death had helped pull aways the veil of ignorance. No, what set everything into motion was the day he accepted this job. But damn the Web and their dealings.
Might as well get this over with. He knew how the follow up of this went, so he could just add all the notes in without giving it to anyone. Call it good enough and move onto the next. No need for Martin to investigate, nor for Martin to have to relive the time he’d spent with Prentis.
Martin had told Jon during one of the times he’d stayed over, that he remembered the majority of the events from 2015-2017 as though they were just normal memories at this point. Some still blurry, but in Martin’s words ‘seriously fuck worms.’ Something about having them confirmed helped them solidify smoother was what they both guessed. Jon didn’t quite Know the effects like he wanted to, but Martin was confident he was okay.
Jon felt like he probably shouldn’t leave her to her own devices. She could still attack the institute. It was where she was going to try her ritual. Unless that was what Martin had interrupted gaining her wrath? She would’ve been in that basement for quite some time at this point.
“Hm, what do you think, should we try out if I can still smite without the Eye in the sky? It worked for Peter in the Lonely, but not sure if it would be the same...” Marshal did a little headbutt into Jon’s hand.
“Talking strategy meetings with the critter?” Martin stood in the doorway holding a few case files and a tape recorder.
Jon hummed in response. “I found Vittery’s case.”
Martin let out a bitter noise.
“Heh, yeah. Trying to figure out how to approach things. It’s tempting to try to recreate things so there is some semblance of a timeline. But also that is the last thing I’d want to do. Feel like she would be not as good of a test run than another avatar might be? Since if I fail, then I get eaten again by worms.”
“What about trying it on someone like Jude?”
Jon let out a snort of laughter. “Trade out worms for fire? I would for sure not survive Perry if it failed.”
Martin sat down and reached his hand out to summon the kitten for pets with that clicking noise. Which Marshal was all for.
“Probably not.”
“Its- I feel like I should be able to do it still, but it can’t be the same way. I can’t just call on the Eye to do it for me. I will have to be the one to Look and See them. Like with Peter I was angry at him, and just wanted him gone.”
“Well, could try and have some of us on the sidelines with extinguishers?”
Jon was about to say something when his desk phone went off. “Ah, one sec. Hello, Archives.” He picked up and immediately made a displeased face. “What do you want Elias.--- Wait you what? ---- Oh, of course you would. ---- I try to avoid looking at you if I can help it. --- I’m not thanking you.” Jon hung up the phone without saying anything more.
Martin looked up from the kitten that was hanging from his hand. “What he do?”
“Apparently Prentis wasn’t needed so he put an end to her himself because he ‘didn’t want to have to deworm his archives again.’ Since we both know repeating the incident won’t work for the ritual.” Jon reached out both his hands and made something of a gimmie motion for Marshal. Which Martin reached his arm over with kitten attached for Jon to claim.
“So he is going to look for a whole new form of corruption to traumatize you with.” Martin sounded like he would be willing to punch Elias the next time he saw him. Which, Jon found it rather humorous that Elias only communicated with them all through the phone lines. Quite the cowardly man.
“Probably. I might have to look into other Avatars in general and see which ones he’s got favors with. Maybe up my networking game…” The Mashal purred as she snuggled into Jon’s chest.
“You know I’m happy to help. Heck, we know a few who are probably chill with meeting you. Like Fern or Trish?”
“Yeah, I could. That would require so much traveling and socializing…” Jon clearly didn’t want to.
“I could be there with you. You wouldn’t be alone?”
“Hm… yeah I’ll consider it. For the moment we should prep for another how to mess up Elias meeting. Nikki mentioned she wanted to join the next one since she is still mad about his old Archivist destroying the skin. Something about how he should’ve kept a better ‘leash on her if he was going to let her go mad dog’, it didn’t make much sense to be honest. She probably was testing out wording from a movie she watched or something.”
Martin smiled. It’d been a few months at this point since Jon meet up with her again, and that tense start seemed to fizzle out nicely. Granted the two of them alone for more than an hour still rubbed them wrong, but they were constantly texting back and forth. Martin was curious about what they were talking about all the time, but it was Jon’s privacy.
“If she is coming, I’ll make sure to have some plastic food for her to enjoy.”
“Pfft What?”
“Well, at meetings we normally have snacks, but since she only pretends to eat, I’ll get her some pretend food so she isn’t just drinking air.”
Jon’s shoulders relaxed as he let out a lite laughter. “I’m sure she will love it.”
“I’ll even go all out and get the type with colors, and not just with sticker details.”
“Hm, she might enjoy the stickers.”
“Don’t ask her. I want to surprise her.”
“Okay. I’ll refrain from asking.” Jon sent a quick text asking when Nikki would be free to plan another 'fuck with Elias' meeting.
“Good. Mind if I use the company card?”
“I would expect it. Elias always funds the meetings. Nikki’s snacks included.”
“Hmm think I should grab a full dinner set? Make it a night event?”
“Not sure what her availability looks like, but she could always take it to go.” Jon pet Marshal a bit slower as the kitten started to fall asleep.
Martin laughed a bit. “Time to do some food shopping. Do you want me to grab you anything before I get back to work?” Martin pointed to the kitten as to say ‘since you can’t move’.
“I’m good. Thanks. Could you close the door? I figure might as well record this and file it away. “
Martin nodded, and got up to leave, but not before he took a quick detour to give Jon a quick kiss.
---
Meanwhile upstairs a rather upset lady was being checked in by Rosie. She was there to leave a statement, and while not quite in a hurry, she looked rather anxious.