Lost Cat, Do Not Find

Chapter 3 - His Round, Bright Eye

Jon finds a newspaper clipping. Martin thinks out loud. Someone familiar appears.

Read on Ao3

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Like everything in the archive, the stacks in document storage were a complete mess. Papers were placed out of order, either mistakenly or according to whatever arcane protocols Gertrude had used to confuse the eyes on her. File boxes had been piled into corners and pushed far back on shelves to gather dust. And the haphazard stacks made it that much easier for papers to slip out of place and find their way between shelves or under cabinets.

There had been a time, ages ago, when Jon had ambitions of starting a full, up-to-date inventory of everything stored there. That ambition seemed almost quaint now, charming in its mundane optimism. Frankly, it would have been impossible even without the supernatural getting in the way.

He sat on the floor, quiet and patient. Listening. Thinking about Smirke’s letter, and what Martin had said. He was putting himself in danger to learn more about the Extinction, and since Jon wasn’t making any progress on his own situation, he could at least try to help Martin with his. Hopefully if there was anything useful to that goal in here, the Eye would guide him to it.

When he was ready he began prowling the aisles, occasionally feeling a tug towards one document or another. Some were deeply wedged in place or otherwise inaccessible, but others he could reach with a bit of careful climbing. There were a few files and envelopes that he even managed to drag out by gripping them in his teeth and pulling. A tiny part of him, the same part that had once housed delusions of organizing this mess, was horribly aware that he was leaving behind bits of fur and bite marks, but it couldn’t be helped.

In the end he’d gathered a small pile of statements into a corner of the room. He stared at them thoughtfully, wishing he could read even a few words of them. Skim them for relevancy to see if they were going to be actually useful, or more experiences tangentially relevant to Jon’s own situation like the statement of Aimal Durrani.

He supposed he could just drag them all to Martin and lay them at his feet, let him figure out what was useful and what wasn’t. But if they turned out to all be cryptic missives like Aimal’s, it would confuse him at best and frustrate him at worst. And statements were exhausting to read. Jon could get through a pile like this in a few days, but that was less a testament to his work ethic and more a disquieting sign of his deepening connection to the Eye. When he’d been new to the archive, one realstatement would exhaust him for nearly a week. Getting through a stack like this would be a trial for Martin, if he even decided to read any of them.

He decided to keep looking. Maybe he’d come across something with a photograph, or a cassette tape – something he could go over himself before dumping it on Martin’s doorstep like a freshly murdered bird.

The corner of what looked to be a newspaper clipping eventually called out to him, and after some careful nipping and tugging, he managed to extract it and lay it flat on the floor. The text was illegible, but the photograph that covered a quarter of it caught his eye. The man was black and wiry, and appeared middle-aged, his dark hair gone halfway to gray. He looked to be in conversation with someone outside of the frame.

Adelard Dekker, the Beholding supplied. As a younger man, though still old enough to have known more horrors secondhand than many see in a lifetime. The photograph was taken by a seminary student that he thought of as his protege, before he became violently disillusioned with the idea of having such people in his life.

He wasn’t sure if Dekker was tied in with what Martin was planning, but Jon had learned to at least take notice when he appeared. Thismight be something worth his time. Taking care to hold it as gently as he could, he picked the clipping up in his mouth. It was a little awkward, and he winced internally at the damage he’d unavoidably be doing to the old paper, but he was fairly sure he could carry it. As he padded his way down the hall, he was struck at the odd picture he must have made. Should he be bringing Martin slippers and a pipe as well?

The door to the little office was closed, but Jon saw light under the door. He pawed at it, just enough to be audible, and heard someone shuffle and go still. He waited, then pawed again. When nothing else happened he resigned himself to the idea that he wasn’t getting in, so he simply spat the clipping onto the floor and pushed it under the door with a paw.

That got Martin up at least. Jon listened as he crossed the room and picked the clipping off the ground, then there was a click as the handle was turned and the door opened. Martin looked at him like he was a puzzle, the paper in his hand.

“Is this for me?”

Martin held the door wide open, with more than enough space for Jon to walk in without weaving past his ankles. He was willing to take that as a sign that he at least wasn’t barred entry, and indeed Martin let him walk in, still looking mildly baffled. He shut the door after Jon entered, leaving it just slightly ajar – enough that Jon could leave unaided, but not enough that a passerby would be able to see inside. That was considerate.

“This is …” Martin examined the paper closer. “Adelard Dekker?”

He sounded curious enough for Jon to feel pleased with himself. Hopefully he’d unearthed something useful, an article that placed Dekker at a particular location and time, or referenced a previously unknown ally. Perhaps something about a ritual he’d stopped – the supernatural details wouldn’t have made it to publication, but surely Martin was clever enough to read between the lines. Martin frowned and looked at him.

“Why are you showing me Adelard Dekkar’s obituary?”

… Or it was his obituary. Right. Typically morbid, he supposed.

“I don’t get you …” Martin sat down at his desk chair, skimming the text. “Wow. Um. Looks like Gertrude was the one who sent it in. That’s … a lot.”

Huh. Yes, that was something. Jon was quite curious about this himself, and he sat attentively as Martin read the text out loud.

“Adelard Dekker was a quiet man. He did not seek out glory, rather he let his work speak for itself. He is survived by no family, he belonged to no organizations that he would have named here, and there are few who even knew he existed. Yet countless people owe him everything, whether they realize it or not. Perhaps in death he will find the divinity he pursued so fervently in life, perhaps not. Either way, we are all diminished by his loss.”

“…Huh.” Martin paused, looking at the paper thoughtfully. “By Gertrude standards that’s almost … sentimental.” He flipped it to the other side, scanning the text. “Doesn’t look like there’s anything about a cause of death. Which, there wouldn’t be, right? He probably died fighting something supernatural that would have been covered up.”

He glanced at Jon as if he could confirm that. And in fairness, he did feel … something. A flash of nausea and a terrible rotten smell drifted through his mind. Gone after a moment. Nothing he could really grasp, not a story or information he’d be able to convey even if he could still speak. Given what Dekker had written about dying in his sleep, Jon wasn’t sure whether it was comforting to know that however the man’s life had ended, he had been horriblyawake for it.

“Guess it’s not really a surprise he’s dead. I mean, I didn’t know exactly, but I sort of figured,” he flapped the paper in his hand. “If he was still around you’d think he’d have checked in on Gertrude’s successor at some point, right?”

Martin moved to his chair, and Jon hopped onto the desk next to him. It was a small thing, and perhaps silly, but he liked being at a level where they were more face to face, even if they weren’t exactly conversing. It made things feel just a little bit more normal.

“That would have been a hell of a thing to see, honestly. Just picture him bursting into the archive back when Jon was still doing the whole ‘skeptic’ act. They’d have killed each other,” he smirked. “I suppose he’d have looked older than this, though, pretty sure the photo’s from the nineties. Heh. Dekkar was kind of handsome when he was younger, wasn’t he?”

He blinked, peering over Martin’s shoulder to take a second look at the picture. Well. Hmm. Yes, he supposed Dekkar was rather good looking, if you liked the world-weary, Van Helsing type. Though from what Jon had read he had never been very social, and whatever his preferences were his religious beliefs might not have left him amenable to the idea of dating other men.

Jon flicked an ear, shaking his head out. Had he just felt a little twinge of jealousy towards a dead man? That was embarrassing.

“Oh, you don’t approve?” Martin had reflexively angled the clipping towards him when he leaned forward to look. “I suppose you’d go more for someone with whiskers.”

He raised a paw and batted at Martin’s hand, the one holding the obituary. Martin yanked it back and raised an eyebrow.

“Careful now,” he said, tone mocking. “What if the Archivistsaw you treating old documents with such flagrant disrespect?” He lowered his hand – setting the clipping down – and looked at Jon critically. “What’s this all about, anyway? Are you trying to tell me something about the Extinction? Am I going to start getting a trail of cryptic clues from you as well?”

A good question. Would Martin likea trail of cryptic clues? Jon hoped he could still be useful, even as he was now. And mysterious scraps were probably the best he could provide given the only research method available now involved drawing on the same power that had led him on a worldwide scavenger hunt. They stared at each other for a while, then Martin shrugged.

“Well … at least you’re better than Peter. Quieter, anyway. Could be worse,” he walked to the door and opened it. “Are we done, then?”

With some reluctance, Jon jumped down and walked back into the hall. There was a chill on his back as the door shut, and he glanced backwards. It was tempting to linger in the hallway a little, but doing that felt less acceptable when Martin had just dismissed him. So he wandered back to document storage, intent on resuming his search there.

He didn’t get far this time, having to cut things short when he heard Melanie’s footsteps approaching. But he resolved to make another attempt as soon as he could. He’d noticed something near the end, something he might well have missed if he’d not been making cycle after fruitless cycle around the same shelves. He found himself thinking of it as a dead spot, a place his attention always seemed to slide over. Even when he tried to focus on it, his gaze would wander off. And he honestly wasn’t sure if he wanted to know why.

* * *

For three days, he stayed away from Martin. He’d been hoping that the next time he saw him, he’d be able to bring him something more useful, something to justify the intrusion onto his self and supernaturally-imposed solitude. But his search was mostly turning up unidentifiable statements, and it kept getting derailed by his former coworkers’ efforts to chase him out.

Meanwhile, the corridor outside Martin’s office was always empty, which made it a good place to hide during the day. He found it comforting to hear the muffled sounds coming from the other side of the door; a chair scraping against the floor, papers rustling, occasional soft hmms and quiet muttering. And unlike the tunnels it was safe enough to sleep in, something he needed inconveniently often now. In that aspect, at least, he was much like an ordinary cat.

One afternoon he woke in his usual spot behind the plant and heard … something … coming from inside the office. A sound he thought he recognized, faint enough that he couldn’t be sure he was truly hearing it right. Testing the door revealed it to be ajar, enough to wedge a paw in and bump it open.

Inside, Martin sat on the floor, his back against the wall and forehead pressed into his knees. Papers were scattered on the floor around him, likely something he’d dropped. He wasn’t crying, at least not that Jon could tell, but his breath was coming out rough and uneven. Carefully, Jon approached, stopping when he was a few steps away. He gave an uncertain meow. Martin slowly lifted his head.

“Oh,” he said flatly.

You again, huh?

After a moment of staring he took a breath, removed his glasses and wiped at his face. “Don’t mind me. Normal day at the Magnus Institute. Having a breakdown on the floor is basically par for the course here.”

His tone didn’t have any humor to it, he just sounded grim. Wrung out. The air smelled of sweat and stale fear, along with something that made Jon feel profoundly sad. He had never been especially good at knowing what to do in a situation like this. Maybe it was a blessing that his lack of language kept him from putting his foot in his mouth. He still wished he could try, offer something, however inept.

“Most of the time I don’t even feelit.” Martin continued. “Then suddenly I’m a mess, but I’m barely even there for it. S'like it’s a fever or a coughing fit, just body stuff.” Martin rubbed at his eyes. “Don’t even know if that’s the Lonely or just normal for… whatever, long term stress, depression, who knows.”

He sighed, looking up at the ceiling.

“The worst part of being alone is you have to be alone with yourself, y'know?”

He did know, more or less. Before that relationship was thoroughly severed, he’d become very familiar with the worn, green couch in Georgie’s flat. He’d lay on it long after Georgie had gone to sleep, exhausted but wired or kept awake by the pain of his injuries, wanting to rest but unable to stop his racing thoughts. Worrying at questions that opened into more questions, fear of what was coming, regrets he couldn’t leave alone. Otherworldly powers aside, Jon could at least understand being trapped in one’s own mind.

Sometimes, as he laid there tormenting himself, the Admiral would notice and sniff at him curiously. Sometimes he’d even climb onto the couch and curl up near him, or roll onto his back, meowing, looking for attention. It hadn’t been much, but it had done him good at the time. A gentle distraction, something to bring him a little bit out of his own head.

But the Admiral was a cat. And despite appearances, Jon wasn’t. Not really.

Martin rolled his neck with a pop, uncurled his shoulders a little. He looked at Jon again, focusing properly this time.

“Dunno why I’m telling youthis,” he muttered. “Anyway. Haven’t got a statement for you today. Doubt I’d be up for one even if I did.”

Well,that changed things. Martin could accept his presence or shoo him away, but Jon absolutely would not allow him think that he’d just come there to be fed. He closed the remaining distance and settled in next to him. Martin looked down at him tiredly.

“Seriously. I haven’t got anything you want.”

Jon stubbornly rubbed a cheek against his leg, once, then laid down and rested his head on his paws. Jonathan Sims the Archivist wasn’t likely to be a comforting presence to anyone anymore. But for the moment, he didn’t have to be the Archivist. He didn’t even have to be Jonathan Sims. He could just be a cat, lying beside someone on the floor. A simple and uncomplicated creature.

For a while, an uncertain silence hung between them. Then Martin muttered something that sounded like fuck it and reached down, cautiously brushing his fingers over the back of Jon’s neck. Jon almost flinched at the contact, as if his body had forgotten how to be touched without violence, but he managed to keep still. Martin’s hand slowly relaxed, moving more naturally as he ran it through the fur on the side of Jon’s face. For a moment he was nearly overwhelmed by the thought that Martin was stroking his cheek.

No, he reminded himself. Martin was pettingacat. As anyone would. It had nothing to do with Jon.

“I used to want a cat,” Martin muttered. “Wasn’t practical, and Mum didn’t really like animals. I could’ve kept it out of her room, I suppose, but it wouldn’t have been fair to leave her home all day with a pet she didn’t want.”

It was really quite easy for Jon to imagine Martin with a pet. He nudged his head further into Martin’s hand as he continued.

“Sort of thought about getting one after she left, a cat or maybe a small dog. But … well, for a while I had this stupid idea that I ought to keep things the samein case she changed her mind. And there was also the expense. Didn’t really seem like it would work.”

Martin’s hand moved to behind Jon’s ears, scratching lightly with his nails. It would have been a very pleasant sensation, if Martin’s hands weren’t so noticeably cold. Jon might have blamed that on poor circulation, but the same chill was radiating all the way up Martin’s forearm.

Jon tilted his head into the movement, turning his face upwards. Martin glanced down and for a moment, there was a hint of a smile on his face. Jon closed his eyes and pressed into his hand again.

“Y'know I let a dog in here on my first day?” he let out a soft, breathy laugh. “Jon was furiousabout it. He pretty much threatened to fire me right there. Imagine if he’d actually tried … .”

Thatwouldhave been quite the revelation, for all of them to learn on day one that they couldn’t leave the archive. God, he’d nearly forgotten about the dog. It felt like such a stupid thing to care about, anymore.

“Probably should have taken that first impression as an omen … the dog was a sweetheart, though. Would have thought about taking it in myself if my lease allowed for it.” He paused, the smile slipping from his face.. “Guess I was never going to have a pet, anyway. Guess I never will now … .”

He pulled his hand away, wiping at his eyes with the back of his wrist and frowned, irritation entering his voice.

“Why does that make me feel sad, of all things?” his voice broke. “S'ridiculous … .”

Raising his head, Jon gave the air a worried sniff. The unidentifiable something he’d been scenting around Martin was still there. It was hard to say if it was stronger, mixed as it was with the ordinary smells of sweat and exhaustion, but it was distinctly present in a way that was disconcerting.

“I’ve been thinking about that line in Dekker’s obituary. ‘We are all diminished by his loss.’ It sounds like it ought to be a nice sentiment, but when you think about it it’s pretty awful. I mean … who’d want to do that to someone, especially someone they cared about? Leave them diminished.”

Martin stared off into the distance, his gaze unfocused. That odd scent seemed to take on a more clarified form as he spoke. The smell of rain, mixed with the antiseptic of a hospital bed.

“It’s so cruel to make people miss you,” he continued. “Wouldn’t it be better in the end to just quietly slip away, unnoticed? It’d be sad in its own way, sure. But it also feels right … poetic, maybe.”

Jon rose onto his back legs, placing a paw on Martin and meowing loudly with concern. At the sound, Martin blinked out of his thoughts and belatedly looked in Jon’s direction.

“What? Oh,” he muttered, reaching to scratch the back of Jon’s head again. “Right. Very rude of me to have stopped petting you.”

Jon grunted in frustration, lowering himself back down. He didn’t like this. Most of all, he didn’t like the look in Martin’s eyes when he talked about slipping away. As they sat there in silence, he pressed himself firmly into Martin’s leg, as if his meager body heat could somehow banish the unnatural chill settling on him. Eventually, Martin began eyeing the papers scattered over the floor. He sighed, getting to his feet.

“I should pick up … get back to it.”

There was nothing more Jon could do, he supposed, but he was reluctant to leave. He watched as Martin gathered and organized whatever it was he’d dropped. An irritatingly polite urge to help nibbled at him, though he doubted he’d be much assistance without any hands. When it was done he waited for Martin to open the door, to look at him, indicating it was time for him to leave.

Strangely, he didn’t. He sat back down at his desk and resumed whatever task he’d been at before. Experimentally, Jon walked a little closer, settling in a spot beside a filing cabinet that looked more comfortable. He waited, but Martin didn’t react. At one point he glanced back to confirm that Jon was still there, but he didn’t seem bothered to find him in the room.

It was surprising. Given everything, he’d have expected Martin to want to be … well, alone. Perhaps the silent presence of a strange cat was a small enough sort of company for him to accept.

Well. If Martin didn’t mind him there, he didn’t see any reason to leave. The room was quiet, and there was no chance of the others barging in. He stretched out on his side and yawned.

* * *

All of Jon’s time was spent in the windowless, subterranean rooms of the archive, and it was very disorienting. He had precious few cues to mark the passage of time – the main lights switching off, Martin arriving in the mornings. It all blurred and bled together.

Martin continued to let him come and go, sometimes commenting on his presence, usually just giving him a glance and leaving him otherwise alone. He’d come by for an hour or two at a time, find a spot to curl up on and settle in. He’d listen to Martin talk, or sleep, or simply sit for a while and contemplate things. His concern for Martin was growing, and he hoped having some form of companionship – even that of a sleeping cat – could keep him tethered as the Lonely drew in around him.

Jon could feelthe Eye pressing on his own natural anxieties, a part of him certain that if he just kept Martin in his sight at all times he could be sure he was safe, and it took a great deal of willpower to ignore it. He wasn’t there to spy on Martin, and he wouldn’t ruin the peace they’d managed by obsessively hovering.

When he wasn’t with Martin, he spent most of the day hidden. Avoiding Melanie and Basira, who were clearly aware that a potentially-supernatural cat was living in the archives and not particularly pleased with the idea. He could only pass through rooms when a door was left open, or where a damaged section of wall allowed access to the tunnels, and those rooms were constantly changing based on the movement of people in the archive. At night he had more freedom but still needed to tread carefully, as any noticeable thunks or other sounds would bring Basira up to investigate.

On top of that, he still couldn’t read statements, and his options for ordinary food were limited. Hunting mice in the tunnels was a last resort, one he’d had to turn to several times but that he truly hated. The unpalatable but preferred alternative was digging for leftovers in the bins he had access to. At one point he’d even gotten the bright idea to try opening the break room fridge. He’d managed to push the door ajar and drag a styrofoam container off of the lowest shelf without much trouble, but he couldn’t do it neatly, and didn’t have the fine coordination to properly clean up and cover his tracks. The next night there was a plastic child lock on the fridge and on each of the cabinets. So that was it for thatoption.

Worse still, he’d sparked retaliation. The day after his assault on someone’s leftover takeout, he started seeing animal traps left around the archive.

He didn’t know why they bothered him so much, it wasn’t as if they were any danger to him. They were the humane sort – long cages with one-way openings opposite a place where bait can be set. They were obvious enough that he couldn’t stumble into them accidentally, and he certainly wasn’t going to walk into one on purpose. But he hated seeing them around. Cold and resentful reminders of how little he was wanted there.

Being able to come and go from the building would have at least given him more options for food, but thus far everything he’d found required thumbs to use consistently. He spent the majority of one evening wandering through the tunnels, hoping to stumble across a previously unknown crack or trapdoor, coming back with nothing. Worn out from the search, he found a spot far back on a shelf where he could be fairly well hidden, then crawled in for a good, long rest. When he woke the lights were on again, so he decided to see if Martin was in.

As he approached the little office down the hall, he heard a voice coming from it. At first he thought Martin was recording, but then the voice raised in pitch and he realized it was someone new, that there was another person in there with him. Jon barely had time to register that before the door was flung open, and a hunched figure – short, compact and dressed in a coat too large for her – hurried down the hall in his direction. Her hand covered her face as she surreptitiously wiped her eyes, but as she passed Jon she lowered it and he saw her properly. He froze.

He knew her. He’d seen her in nightmares a hundred times – dirt in her mouth, her body so bent and twisted by the rubble that she didn’t even realize that the hand pulling at her ankle was her own.

Jess Tyrell glanced in his direction and stopped still, eyes wide with a sudden fear that she didn’t understand. Then she shuddered, shook her head, and hurried down the hall. Eager to get out of this place. Jon stared at the space she’d left behind. Why would she have come here?Not to give a statement, surely. She’d already – that is, he had – well –

“Christ, Jon, that’s – that’s not okay!”

The shout came loud enough to carry through the door. Martin wasn’t talking to him, or at least not the version of him still standing dumbly outside his office. He carried on to the tape recorder about the conversation that seemed to have just occurred, enough that Jon could guess what they’d discussed. The room went silent. There was a click and the sound of a chair scraping, then footsteps towards the door. Jon bolted into a corner on instinct, not wanting to be seen. He followed from a distance as Martin walked down the hall with an envelope in his hand. He placed it on Basira’s desk and paused – rubbed his arm in a self-soothing gesture, as if uncomfortable in the comparatively open space, then hurried back to where he’d come from.

Once he was gone, Jon emerged from the shadows and leaped onto the desk. The writing on the envelope was illegible as anything else, but it was clear enough that it held a tape. Presumably the tape Martin had just recorded, containing his talk with Ms. Tyrell. He didn’t Know the exact details, but he could guess the generalities of what she had said. He doubted that it painted a very kind picture of him.

And?A voice inside him chided, exactly why should he be painted kindlyby someone whose story he’d ripped from them, raw and bloody?

No, it – it wasn’t that. Of course she wouldn’t see him as anything but a monster. He was just worried how Basira might react to it. Or Melanie, God, Melanie definitely wouldn’t take it well. They barely had any tolerance for him under normal circumstances, this revelation could only make things worse.

As he sat there, it occurred to him that he could get rid of the tape. It wouldn’t be heavy, it was small enough for him to pick it up in his mouth, carry it into the tunnels and drop it down somewhere it wouldn’t be found. Martin wouldn’t know the difference, if he even noticed it was gone later he’d assume one of the others had taken it. It didn’t even need to be about hidingwhat he’d done, necessarily. Maybe the others should know about it after all, it still didn’t have to happen thisway. He could explain it to them later, when he was himself again. When he could talk, could lay things out properly and defend himself a little.

Would he, though? Or when the time came, would he be tempted to delay it, find an excuse to put it off? Even if he didn’t, why should hebe the one to decide how they heard it? The others had a right to know what he was, even if it turned them on him. Maybe especially if it did.

In the end, he left it. It wasn’t for the others’ sake, or for his own need to punish himself. It wasn’t even really for Martin. It was because Jess Tyrell had come to the Institute to tell the people there what Jon had done. After everything, the least he could do now was not take her words away from her.

He slunk down the hall. The door to Martin’s office was cracked open, and though he wasn’t sure if it was wise for him to be there, he needed to get away from the room with that envelope in it. Martin was back at his desk. At first he appeared to be reading, but then Jon realized there was nothing laid in front of him, he was just staring at his hands. He spared Jon a glance as found a space for himself on the floor beside a filing cabinet.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

Situating himself in the little niche, Jon felt his tail actually curl between his legs. Martin looked back at him and frowned.

“What was I supposed to do? Someonehas to talk to him about this. And it can’t be me, obviouslyit can’t be me.Ican’t.”

He couldn’t guess what recriminations Martin seemed to see in him. The feline face he had now didn’t give away much of his thoughts. But the more neutral an expression, the easier it was to find one’s own feelings reflected in it. Either way, Martin was the last person Jon felt any reproach towards now, and he didn’t want him to think otherwise. He lowered his head to the ground and looked away.

“… Honestly, the worst part is that I don’t even want to. Guess I’m just getting used to the distance. Lonely,” the word came out on a breath, and Jon felt ill hearing it. “Peter’s not wrong, it is easier. I don’t know how I’d even trytalking to him about this.”

Jon heard a heavy sigh. He carefully glanced back at Martin as he bent forward in the chair, rubbing his brow.

“I know, okay? I know,” he glanced back at Jon. “I just – I need him to be all right. If he’s gone already … .”

A plaintive meow slipped out of Jon as Martin shook his head. He rose and walked over to the cabinet that stood beside him, opened it and rummaged around for something.

“It’s not really him,” he said firmly, closing the drawer with a little more force than necessary. “It’s … addiction, or instinct, maybe mind control or something. I don’t know. He just needs someone to intervene, the other three will help him with that.”

Mind control. Jon would be lying if he said he hadn’t considered that himself.

He remembered watching from the back of the cafe as Jess Tyrell walked in. It had been like magnetism, the whole world seemed to shrink until there was nothing but him and her and the terrible secret carved into her. The pressure in his mind had borne down, urging him to stand, to walk over and ask for her statement. It would be easy to think he hadn’t truly chosen what he did – that he hadn’t been in control, that a terrible force had acted through him and he’d been powerless to resist. To an extent, it had feltthat way.

The trouble was, he didn’t stand up right away. He’d known that he was staring, and that he was surely making her uncomfortable. But he’d sat and waited for more than two hours at an empty table, watching, even as the pressure inside him built.

It wasn’t because he was fighting it. It wasn’t that he was ever going to spare her. But when she walked in there he Knew that she was coming to meet someone. He’d held himself back until her date was finished because he didn’t want to ruin it for her. At the time it had seemed like the decent thing to do, but in hindsight it just made everything more grotesque. More deliberate.

The excuses Martin was making for him, he might have made them for himself at one time or another too. But hearing them out loud only made them feel hollow.

Ashamed, he slunk a little deeper into the shadows beside the cabinet. He probably shouldn’t be there. He doubted he deserved any comfort Martin’s presence might provide. But for the moment, the small, lonely world inside that room was easier to face than the one outside of it.

Lost Cat, Do Not Find

Chapter 2 - Cat and Clerk

Jon hears footsteps. Some statements are read.

Read on Ao3

- - -

Tail twitching, Jon stared at the bone on the floor with open hostility. He hadn’t had a real plan in mind when he’d maneuvered his own rib out of the desk drawer, just the idea that something from his former body might be a key to getting it back. Seemed like a decent place to start.

So he’d toyed with it for a while - nudged it with his head and batted at it, gnawed on the end with his teeth, pressed his paw against it while remembering the horrible sensation of Jared pulling it from his body. He’d even tried laying on top of it, his abdomen positioned so that it lined up with his new, far smaller rib cage. Throughout, there had been no sign that any of it was working.

Some anchor you are, he thought.

He’d looked back in document storage the second day after his transformation, and had barely been surprised to find that Animal Poems had disappeared. An unnatural insight told him that the book had left just as mysteriously as it arrived. Trap sprung, job finished, off to find another victim. There were no answers to be found there.

Jon was still connected to the Beholding, of that much he was certain. He still felt it moving quietly through his mind, occasionally slipping him jarring and unpleasant information. Nothing helpful of course, just the usual assortment of bad memories and untimely deaths, but enough to tell him he must still be the Archivist in some way. Which was strange, because he wasn’t dreaming anymore.

Oh yes, and wasn’t thatinteresting? He was sleepingmore than ever, his new body demanded it, but it was silent and entirely dreamless. It might have had something to do with the on-and-off rest cycle of cats, but he suspected something deeper, that the book itselfwas blocking them. The Forsaken wouldn’t allow its victims to escape from their solitude in dreams, even ones as terrible as his own. He couldn’t say that he minded, but he did wonder if there would be consequences.

Which highlighted another pressing issue. Being unable to read meant he couldn’t read statements, and he was already beginning to feel the effects. It had been a week since his change, and while he wasn’t truly ill yet he knew it would only be a matter of time. Part of him wondered if he could still compel live statements in this form, even without speech. Many people talk to cats, after all, perhaps if he saw someone with a statement curled inside them and came up close … .

No. He didn’t want to do that.

(He did want to do that.)

But he’d have to leave the building to attempt it, and he wasn’t willing to risk being trapped outside. Which meant that if he didn’t want to be consumed by the thing that had claimed him, he would have to get back to a body that could read.

Caught up in his thoughts, it took him a moment to notice the sound of someone walking past his office. In a few days of depending on hearing more than sight, Jon had come to learn the pattern of everyone’s footsteps. Basira and Melanie were loud and called attention to themselves, though Melanie’s pace was faster. Daisy – still with a predator’s instincts – walked softly, but her tread was slow and shuffling these days. The steps coming from outside were different, quick and regular but quiet, muffled even. When they were well past the door Jon chanced a look outside.

It was the first time he’d seen Martin in months.

He stood across the room, examining the contents of a shelf. At this distance Jon couldn’t make out much about how he looked - it was Martin, that was certain, but the finer details were lost, his features blurred and smeared. Jon hoped that was just his poor feline vision at work.

Martin pulled out a file and flipped through it, then pushed it back in place with a sigh, apparently unsatisfied with whatever he’d found. Jon wondered what he was looking for. More importantly, he wondered why he was here, why he was seeing him. No one saw Martin anymore. You didn’t bump into him in the break room or catch him walking down the halls, not anymore. Sometimes you’d find signs that he’d been through a room – a mug in the drainboard, a borrowed tape returned, a footprint on a rainy day – but he’d never walk in while someone else was there. Jon had only been able to find him before by leaning on the Beholding.

Was it simply that Martin hadn’t noticed him, and thought the archive was empty? Maybe the power that was isolating him no longer saw Jon as a person to be avoided, either because the book had touched him with the Lonely as well, or because he was currently a cat.

Apparently finding what he’d been after, Martin stuck a manilla envelope under his arm and turned back towards where he’d come from. Jon ducked behind the door as he passed, then stepped back out to watch him go. When they spoke last, Martin asked Jon to stop finding him, and he had honored that request so far. But surely thiswas an exceptional circumstance? Obviously Martin hadn’t been thinking about the possibility of poetry assisted animal transformations when he asked that. And he might be more likely to realize who Jon was than the others, to pick up on some subtle clue they’d miss. He’d always been good at noticing little things about people, surely if anyone would recognize Jon in this form it would be him.

Even if he didn’t … Jon could take a closer look at him. See how he was doing. There was no harm in that.

He hurried down the hall, following Martin as he opened an unlabeled and unassuming door. The room inside was small and sparse, space enough for a chair, desk, cabinets, and an attached door that Jon immediately Knew led to a private toilet. It wasn’t big, but it was big enough to fit everything you’d need for a day’s work without leaving you many excuses to step outside. As Jon slipped in after him, Martin glanced backwards and finally noticed that he was being followed.

“Oh. Hello there,” he said with mild surprise. “What are you doing here?”

There was no response Jon could offer, of course, but Martin hadn’t been expecting one. He turned to sit in a chair, setting the envelope down. Jon’s leaps had become more practiced over the past few days and he immediately jumped onto the desk, finally close enough to get a proper look at Martin’s face.

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see. Some harried version of the face he remembered, perhaps, drawn and sunken, worn down by the fear and exhaustion of whatever Peter Lukas had been putting him through. But he looked … god, he looked like himself. A little tired, a little less neat with his stubble growing in, but in the end he just looked like Martin. It was a profoundly encouraging sight.

“Sure,” Martin smirked as he jumped up. “Make yourself at home, then.”

Carefully, he held a hand out a few inches from Jon’s face, and without really thinking about it, Jon sniffed at his fingers. It wasn’t any catlike instinct, if anything it felt more like politeness. Like reflexively shaking a hand, or saying ‘you too’ to 'have a nice day.’ He knew what the other half of this interaction was supposed to be and did it automatically.

His new sense of smell was sensitive, and sense-memory flooded him as he sniffed. Martin smelled like the old sweatshirt in document storage and the tea from the break room, along with some undefinable combination of sweat, soap and skin that was beautifully human and ordinary. He smelled like other things too, as Jon took far more information through his nose than he ever could have before. Mundane information, mostly – the same hand soap that was in the downstairs restroom, the dry-sweet scent of old paper, a faint trace of something spiced and meaty that was probably whatever he’d eaten for lunch. And something else as well … there was something on Martin that smelled cold and damp, like freezing rain or seawater. Jon didn’t like it at all.

A cautious hand touched the fur behind his ears and he startled, the sudden electricity of fingers against his skin snapping him out of his focus. Martin drew his hand back, looking sheepish.

“Not one for petting, huh? I get that. I need space too, sometimes.”

He smiled weakly, like he was telling a joke he didn’t like the punchline of. Jon’s skin tingled distractingly in the spot where Martin’s hand had brushed it, and for a moment he dearly wished that he hadn’t flinched away. Keeping his hands to himself, Martin looked him over.

“No collar, but you’re obviously not shy around people,” he muttered to himself. “I’m guessing you’re not feral, then. Though you look too scruffy to be a pet … .”

Well I don’t have thumbs anymore, Martin. Jon thought, feeling oddly miffed, I can’t exactly hold a brush. And forgive me if I’m not enthused at the prospect of grooming myself with my tongue.

“Did someone abandon you?” he asked, and for a moment Jon’s stomach dropped. “Probably that, huh? People really need to take responsibility for their pets … .”

He moved the pile of paperwork on his desk to the side, talking to himself in Jon’s direction. Addressing what he no doubt thought was an uncomprehending animal.

“You must be pretty clever to have found a way in here, Basira really went inon security after the Flesh attack. Sealed up most of the tunnel entrances and put secondary locks on half the doors. It honestly seemed sort of pointless when those things didn’t even usedoors, but I guess I get it.”

Yes. Jon had expressed similar doubts about the efficacy of locks against the sort of threats coming after them; they hadn’t stopped Breekon after all. But Basira had just shrugged and said ‘couldn’t hurt,’ and to be honest he understood the psychological value they had. Martin would definitelyunderstand it, he’d done something similar after Prentiss. Just a few days after returning to his flat he’d installed a stronger deadbolt on the door, even though it was expensive and he knew it violated his lease. Knowing it was there had helped, but he kept silently recriminating himself for his foolishness, because Prentiss hadn’t even gotten throughthe door and a lock obviously wouldn’t keep wormsout, so what had he even been trying to protect himself from–

Ow. Damnit. Jon hadn’t meant to Know that. He shook his head, attempting to dispel the unpleasant images. Oblivious to his thoughts, Martin just smiled at a cat shaking itself out.

“Better see that she doesn’t spot you,” he continued. “Don’t imagine she’d be very happy to find out a cat snuck in. Don’t let Jon see you either, he’s got a whole thing about animals getting loose down here. Sort of my fault, really, heh… I … .”

Martin trailed off. He took a second look at Jon, frowning.

“Wait …” he said. “Waita minute… .”

The uncertainty in Martin’s tone shifted to slow realization, and a glimmer of hope rose in Jon. Martin was looking at him critically now and he leaned forward, tail weaving eagerly from side to side. It’s me, he thought, as if Martin could hear his thoughts. It’s Jon. You know me.

“You’re not a real cat, are you? Something wandering around the archive, around this place, it’s never just going to be something nice.” Martin sounded more disappointed than scared. “You’re another Flesh monster or something, a thing that just looks like a cat to get someone’s guard down. Aren’t you?”

An entirely unfair sense of rejection burned through Jon, and he felt foolish for getting his hopes up. His tail dropped and he sank down onto the desk, rolling onto his side, defeated. Martin folded his arms.

“Don’t try and trick me by looking cute. I’m not falling for it. If you’re here to cause trouble, you –” he swallowed “y-you can just skip to the part where you dissolve into spiders or grow a million teeth, or, I don’t know, vomit up letters from my dead relatives saying how they never liked me. Whatever it is you do.”

Well. At least he could rest easy in the knowledge that Martin wouldn’t be fooled if some other monster in the body of a cat came after him. He didn’t move from the desk. Martin didn’t move either, just sat there, bracing himself for whatever it was he thought Jon was going to do. The two of them stared at each until eventually Martin slumped and sighed. He rubbed his eyes behind his glasses.

“God, I hope I haven’t just lost it and gone off on a regular cat,” he muttered. “Or, wait – I hope I did, because the alternative is that I’m hoping there’s a monster in the room with me.”

A low, annoyed mrr came from Jon. Martin looked back at him, keeping a good foot or so of distance between them. He held a pen out in front of him, as if he was going to prod Jon with it or use it for self-defense. He did neither, just leaned forward and peered at him.

“You’ve got creepy eyes,” he muttered. “Does that mean you’re on ourside? Whatever 'our side’ even is these days.” Something seemed to occur to him and his eyes widened. “Wait. Is that you, Elias? Are you spying on us with catsnow?”

Jon felt himself actually bristle at that, ears flattening and an affronted growl slipping out between his teeth. Martin flinched. Then a look of puzzled amusement crossed his face, and he held his hands up placatingly.

“All right, all right. Didn’t mean to offend,” he smirked. “Suppose if you don’t like Elias that’s one point in your favor.”

Jon flicked an ear, feeling slightly mollified, before it struck him that what they’d just done had almost been communication. Jon hadn’t been tryingto say anything, just reacting naturally, but Martin had still interpreted it as a response. Meaning the book didn’t prevent others from reading into his actions, it only stopped him from actively trying to lead those readings.

That was … interesting information. Though the nature of it meant he couldn’t really useit without his thoughts getting clouded again. Still. There was something of an idea forming in his head.

He jumped to the floor and walked to the other side of the room, which was crowded with shelves and boxes. For the moment he tried to ignore Martin, avoiding thinking about his presence or how he might interpret anything Jon did. Instead he focused on the hungry, ever-present pressure in his mind. He closed his eyes and listened, allowing the unnatural instincts he’d had since waking from the coma to pull him where they willed. For a moment he lost track of himself entirely, sunk into an otherworldly current. Then his head was pounding and his mouth was clamped around a dusty file, tugging it loose from a stack.

He walked back to the center of the room, a little dizzy from the strain of leaning into the Beholding. Martin was still in his chair, and upon seeing him the confused haze Jon had experienced the last time he’d tried to communicate with someone swam over him again. He forgot entirely what he’d been planning to do, or why he was holding something in his mouth. It was heavy and didn’t taste very good, so he dropped it onto the ground.

Puzzled, Martin picked up the dropped file and opened it. He looked at Jon and raised an eyebrow.

“You want me to read a statement?” he asked. “Are you with the tape recorders or something?”

Somewhere in the room, there was the subtle click of a machine turning itself on, the soft whirr of magnetic tape. He suspected Martin had heard it as well, since he was rolling his eyes.

“Fine. Guess there’s worse things you could be after. And it’s not like I haven’t done this before.” He sat back and cleared his throat. “Recording statement number 0111302. Statement of Aimal Durrani, given February 13th, 2011. Statement begins.”

“English is not my first language,” he read, his voice slipping into something softer and deeper than his usual tone. “So you’ll have to forgive me if this document has mistakes of grammar and of punctuation. I would ask for your patience, but in the past I have found patience to be a thing in short supply. So I will ask for nothing, and I expect to receive it in quantity … .”

* * *

The statement was from a young man who’d come to London as an international student, and found himself alienated from his peers by language. Though he spoke English fluently enough and could easily follow the lectures he attended, he found casual conversations more difficult. The other students spoke quickly and mumbled, peppering their speech with idioms and slang he didn’t recognize. The effort of concentration he had to expend on understanding it all made him slow to respond, and often he became left out of conversations entirely. He began drawing away from his classmates, as the difficulty of communication made socializing exhausting.

It was hard to tell when he started forgetting. After all, it was hardly strange to draw a blank on words here and there, especially in a second language. If it happened a bit more than usual it was likely exhaustion and the stress of schoolwork making him absent minded. But as time went on, it became more noticeable. He missed half of what his professors said in lectures, he opened books he’d read easily before and found a wall of incomprehensible text in front of him. Logically, being immersed in the English language should only be improving his skills with it, but instead they seemed to be rapidly deteriorating.

English wasn’t all he was losing. One evening, while on the phone with his mother, he realized he could no longer remember how to say “yesterday” in Pashto. As he sat there, mind blank, trying to remember words to describe “time,” “memory,” and “home,” his mother’s comforting voice began to deteriorate from gentle inquiries to an increasingly agitated jumble of sounds and syllables. He couldn’t understand half of what she said.

After that, he became certain that something was wrong with him neurologically. It took over an hour to schedule an appointment with an on-campus doctor, a frustrating back and forth with increasingly impatient administrators as he tried to communicate what was wrong, his skills in any language having frayed so badly by then that he could barely speak at all. It hardly mattered, as he never made it to the appointment.

It’s interesting, the power that language has to shape our perception of the world. Aimal came to understand that power better than most the next morning when he woke up lying on an indistinct smear, unable to remember any word for “bed.” As he got to his feet, he was nearly knocked back by an incomprehensible blur passing by him – hazy and human-shaped, making discordant noises that barely even sounded like speech. He fled out the door, half-stumbling his way downstairs and made it outside, only to find his senses assaulted by a world he had no words to understand.

Aimal has no idea how long he wandered through blurred shapes and smeared colors, indistinct and meaningless sounds. He lost “door” the moment he’d stepped outside, and soon “inside” and “outside” were concepts he couldn’t hold onto at all. On some level he knew there were people around him, he could see their forms, vague and alien. But without any hope of understanding or being understood, they may as well have not been there. Hemay as well have not been there. That was the last distinct thought he had before his remaining words fell away, leaving him in a fog of solitary incomprehension.

Later, he would learn that campus security found him wandering in his pajamas and babbling something they couldn’t understand. Assuming drugs were involved, they took him to a hospital. When the test came back clean, the doctors became truly concerned, and his family was contacted.

Most of the people who dealt with him during that brief period dismissed his nonstop muttering as meaningless babble, but one of the nurses who’d looked in on him had picked out a few words. Tasukete, pomóż mi, ayudame, tolong aku. They were in languages he’d never spoken in his life, but it all meant the same thing - help me, help me, please help me.

His mother flew in to pick him up. He was terrified of her, unable to understand anything she said or did, but too helpless and worn out to resist. After a few days he began to recognize her face again. Her voice came back to him not long after that, and slowly the rest began to fall into place. After a few weeks at home, everything seemed normal again. He still saw a neurologist, of course, but they could find nothing medically wrong with him.

His family decided it had been some sort of mental breakdown, brought on by stress and isolation, and he pretended to agree with them. But when he finally came back to London to clean out his dorm and deal with some administrative details, he made a detour to come give a statement. Because he couldn’t stop thinking about that empty, incomprehensible landscape. Whatever he’d brushed up against there, it was truly beyond all words.

The statement was … disappointing. There were parallels Jon could see to his own situation, but none that would be obvious to someone outside of it. He had hoped the Beholding would guide him to a statement about the book itself, or at least something about involuntary transformation. He’d have settled for a statement about werewolves in a pinch, anything that might hint to Martin that the cat sitting in front of him had been a person once.

“Not sure if there’s much point in follow-up,” Martin said. “Suppose I could contact Aimal or his family to find out if he actually escaped, or if it came back and swallowed him up one day. But it’s not like we could actually do anything to help him. Besides … not really my department anymore.”

As Jon shook himself out and got to his feet, he found that his joints ached a little less. The pressure in the back of his head had been eased, and the shakiness he’d felt since that morning was entirely gone. Hearing a statement had helped, even if he hadn’t been the one to read it.

“So … is that it? Because I have got actual work to get done today.”

He ought to go. He knew that. His attempt at making some meaningful contact had failed, and any further bids at communication would go as poorly as they had with the others. He’d seen Martin and confirmed that he was all right. There was no reason to stay in this office when Martin didn’t want him there.

And he didn’t. That much was clear.

Reluctantly, he walked to the door. It was closed, so Martin had to cross the room and open it to let him out. He resisted the urge to turn when he heard the door click shut behind him, an impenetrable barrier. He supposed it always had been.

* * *

He couldn’t keep away.

Despite his better judgment, Jon found himself wandering back to the hallway outside the tiny office. He came by once in the afternoon, and again late in the evening after Martin would have gone home. The next morning found him curled up behind a plastic fern just outside the door, slipping in and out of sleep until a familiar voice woke him.

“You again, huh?”

He blinked drowsily up at Martin, who by the looks of things had just arrived – he was wearing a jacket and scarf and holding a paper to-go cup. He didn’t sound pleased to see him, but he didn’t sound too bothered either. It was the tone of someone noticing a raccoon in their yard, and idly wondering if they needed to secure their trash cans. You again.

Jon’s body was stiff, and he reached his front paws out as far as they would go, stretching a bit of life back into himself. The movement felt nice, and he arched his back into a full body stretch. It triggered a huge yawn, and when he opened his eyes again Martin was looking at him with an oddly soft smile. He opened the door to his office, and though he didn’t invite Jon to follow, he didn’t shut it entirely behind him either. That seemed good enough, and he padded inside.

“You after another statement?” Martin set the cup down and reached into a messenger bag, pulling out a stack of papers. “You’re in luck. Peter’s already asked me to go over one today.”

Jon felt a twinge of guilt – two statements in as many days was a lot. He knew how difficult they could be, especially for someone without Jon’s particular needs. But another part of him was already leaning forward, ears pricked in anticipatory hunger.

“'Asked’ is charitable, actually,” Martin continued, settling himself at the desk. “I came home last night and found this on my kitchen table with a note. Doors and windows were all locked, so … yeah. For someone who’s supposedly all about being alone, he sure likes reminding me that I can’t really get away from him.”

Hmm. Jon made a sound that he’d once heard come from the Admiral when he had to pull him roughly away from a peace lily, as he wondered how much damage a cat’s teeth and claws could do to the body of a man Peter Lukas’s age.

“I know, right?” Martin smirked. “Still, he can slip in and out of my flat like a ghost but he can not make me do unpaid overtime. I’m reading this one on the clock.”

He took a long sip from the to-go cup and settled down. Jon found a spot on the floor a foot or two away, and curled himself into a soft crescent. A tape recorder quietly clicked on.

“Martin Blackwood,” he read out loud, “Assistant to Peter Lukas, Head of the Magnus Institute, recording statement number… 8671302. Statement of Robert Smirke, taken from a letter to Jonah Magnus, dated 13th of February, 1867 … .”

* * *

In Jon’s experience, leaving the near-trance state of a statement was like waking up, in that it happened little by little. His awareness of himself would come back while he was still half-buried in the emotions of some poor soul’s experiences, taking several minutes to fully rouse himself back to reality. If that was the usual experience of coming out of a statement, the abrupt end to Smirke’s letter made him feel as though he’d been thrown out of bed into a pool of cold water, an unpleasant shock that Martin seemed to experience too.

“Um… He, um… the letter ends there,” Martin said, gathering his voice again. “Apparently Robert Smirke was found collapsed in his study that evening, dead of, uh … . apoplexy?”

It wasn’t a stroke, the back of Jon’s mind supplied, midway through writing, he felt eyes on the back of his neck and turned. His daughter was there, and behind her was every member of his household staff, crushing him beneath the pressure of their gaze.

He shook his head as Martin continued to talk, trying to dispel the feeling of unease. He felt better, anyway, abrupt conclusion aside the statement had done him good. And it touched on a number of things that caught his attention. Smirke’s description of the sky blinking back at him had been uncomfortably familiar, and Jon couldn’t say he lacked pity for the man, even if he kept the absolute worst of company. The mention of Watcher’s Crown was particularly troubling … the phrase was familiar, but he truly couldn’t say if he’d heard it in another statement or simply Known it to be significant. Either way, he worried at the implications of the phrase.

Martin recorded his post-statement, speculating on what he had read. Jon’s attention was piqued when he mentioned something called the Extinction, the capital E all but audible in his voice. Frustratingly, he didn’t follow the offhanded comment with fifteen minutes of elaboration on just what the Extinction was, but it sounded very much like it was tied up with Peter Lukas.

Martin sighed, running a tired hand through his hair, and leaned forward on the desk.

“I’m not the one who knows all about this stuff. I wish –” He stopped mid-word, biting his lip as if to physically block what he’d been about to say. Shook his head. “No, it’s fine, I’m fine – I can do this.”

He sounded exhausted. There was an ache in his voice that absolutely yanked at Jon’s heartstrings, and he wanted so badly to be in his proper body, wished that he could … .

Could what? Help him? Talk to him? He couldn’t do that anyway. He’d had yearsto talk to the man sitting in front of him and he’d barely used them at all.

“I don’t know what Peter’s planning,” he continued. “My guess is that it might involve something below the Institute. Hopefully by the time you get these tapes I’ll have something more concrete for you.”

Concern over Peter’s plans, or whatever this Extinction was (capital E, he was quite certain) was mingling with a quiet and profound vindication. For months he’d told the others that Martin had a reason to be working with Peter, that he hadn’t betrayed them. Basira said he was being naive - no, biased, that was the word she had used. But clearly, she’d been wrong, clearly he was on their side all along, and if he ever managed to stop being a cat Jon was going to absolutely rub that in her face. He took a few steps closer as Martin finished up.

“Good luck, Jon. I …” he hesitated a moment, then smiled sadly at the recorder. “Stay safe.”

The name froze Jon in place, as if Martin had been speaking to him directly rather than some hypothetical future version who’d be listening to a tape. He – he supposed it was logical that Martin would be making these tapes for him. He was the Archivist, he’d surely be the most likely to come across them, given his, his –

It didn’t matter why. Whatever Martin’s reasons, it felt meaningful to him. It felt like he hadn’t given up on him yet. Despite Peter and the Lonely, despite staying isolated in this barely-used corner of the Institute, Martin was still thinking about him. Despite the coma, and the Eye, and every terrible thing Jon was becoming, if he was the intended recipient of these tapes Martin must still have some trust in him.

The realization was moving. And maddening. He didn’t want a tape with his voice on it, he wanted – but no, that didn’t matter either. All that mattered was that he had been right, and Martin was still with them. They hadn’t – hehadn’t lost him.

Jon came up beside Martin and gently bumped his head against his leg. He walked past, pressing into him affectionately and letting his tail curl around his calf. It felt a little odd, and a little silly. But it was the only way to express even a fraction of what he felt in that moment, and it would have to do.

“Liked that one, did you?” Martin gave him a tired smile. “Glad that someone’s enjoying these.”

Jon straightened up, feeling a new, determined energy that had nothing to do with the statement, and slipped out the door.

Lost Cat, Do Not Find

Transformed by a Leitner, Jon finds himself trapped in the body of a cat. Unable to communicate, he faces the unenviable prospect of watching the world continue on without him.

Where is Martin? He needs to find Martin.

Read on Ao3

It seemed a strange thing for a Leitner to do, even against Jon’s ever-shifting definition of strangeness. More akin to something from a children’s fantasy story than the series of horrors he’d come to expect. Which of the dread powers could possibly be fed by turning people into animals?

The Flesh felt likely. His initial transformation had been horrific enough – the unnatural sensation of his bones shifting, the pain of muscles tearing and re-knitting, the agonizing pressure as his skin shrank just slightlyfaster than everything inside it. If not for his encounter with Hopworth he’d have nothing to compare it to, and as was he’d been made violently aware of a dozen new ways his body could break.

He wondered if his missing ribs had grown back in the process. Cats had thirteen pairs, if he recalled, so he’d at least have broken even.

* * *

Jon found the book in document storage, half-hidden behind a cabinet. A slim volume, shiny with use around the corners. The cover was red, decorated with the silhouettes of birds, beasts and reptiles, and the title - Animal Poems.

He thought it might have been Martin’s, dropped and forgotten during his stay there after Prentiss. The wear on the cover made it seem well-loved, and he wondered if it had been a favorite of his – something read and reread many times over. Jon knew Martin reread books he liked. He’d mentioned it over lunch once, commenting on a novel he came back to a few times a year. Jon had balked at the idea. Though he was more flexible than he’d been as a child, he only ever reread things for research, and then only to skim and check for anything he’d missed. Reading the same story over and over for fun sounded absolutely maddening to him, and Martin had laughed when he’d told him as much.

It’s like comfort food, he’d said, and gestured to the soup and sandwich in front of him. Jon had ordered the same meal every time they’d shared lunch at the cafe, it had been a little embarrassing to realize that Martin had noticed.

He pictured Martin during a long night in document storage – curled on the tiny cot, book in his lap, taking comfort in the familiar words. It stirred something in Jon that he was absurdly tempted to call nostalgia. As if those had been the ‘good old days,’ back when Martin was sleeping with a corkscrew under his pillow, terrified the swarm would come for him. When Jon went home every night pretending not to feel the eyes on the back of his neck.

Then again, Sasha had been alive. Tim had been alive too, had still been talkingto him. And Martin, well … Martin had been talking to him too.

Good lord. Maybe those werethe good old days. That was a depressing thought.

He sat on the cot and flipped idly through the pages, indulging in thoughts of Martin doing the same, wondering which poems were his favorites. They were all short verse, named after animals, each with a sketchy ink drawing on the opposite page.

One illustration he found particularly captivating was of a pitiful-looking kitten huddling behind a stack of rubbish bins. The adjacent poem was called The Alley Cat. It described a small, hungry cat making its way through a city, scrounging for its meager meals and trying futilely to stave off the chill of the night air. The poor thing found itself ruthlessly chased from every doorway it approached, before finally giving up and accepting that there was no safe harbor for it. That it would never escape the cold.

It was surprisingly affecting. The actual words slipped from his memory almost as soon as he read them, but he was left with a profound feeling of sympathy for the poor creature.

He’d barely finished the final line before the pins and needles began at his fingertips. The sensation traveled to his larger muscles, quickly rising to the level of pain, and he was forced to his hands and knees. He barely had the chance to cry out before his scream was twisted into an animalistic yowl.

* * *

He may have gone unconscious for a while. When he could properly focus again he was lying on the floor, aching, eyes unfocused. It was only when he tried to push himself to his feet that it became chillingly clear how much his body had changed.

His limbs were strange, the angles they wanted to move at were all wrong, and his hands felt clumsy and inarticulate. The first attempt to rise was a failure, body folding underneath him and dragging him back to the floor. He twisted around, trying to get a better look at himself, but moving his head bombarded him with feelings of vertigo. Tentatively, he stretched what ought to have been his left arm out in front of him.

It took a moment to register what he was seeing as real. His vision was blurry and the colors seemed dull, but there was no mistaking the fact that he was staring at a scruffy, tortoiseshell cat’s paw.

Panic rose in him and he thrashed. The wild motion only dizzied him further so he stopped moving, forced himself to close his eyes and breathe. He tried to get a handle on his senses. The darkness helped – he was able to focus on sound, smell, and the sense of the room around him until his breathing slowed down and he could orient himself.

After another stumbling attempt he made it to his feet and managed a few uncertain steps on all fours. The sensation of vertigo – that Jon belatedly realized might be his own mind adjusting to taking in sense data through whiskers – began to fade. His hands (paws, he was walking on paws, there was no getting away from that reality) still felt clumsy, but manageable. As he moved, he saw the twitch of a tail (histail, god, his fucking tail) out of the corner of his eye.

All right. All right. He was apparentlya cat.

He might have laughed at the absurdity of his predicament, but laughter didn’t seem to be a natural response for his body anymore. He walked a few slow circles around the room, getting used to moving, and contemplated.

Not Martin’s book, then. Another sort of book. How had a Leitnergotten into document storage? He couldn’t imagine Gertrude leaving one there. Had a third party snuck it in? It could have been some sort of belated attack by the Stranger, revenge for stopping the Unknowing – the overwriting of identity, coupled with the uncanny wrongness of his new form seemed fitting enough for I Do Not Know You.Then again, avatars that came after Jon tended to take a more directapproach than planting a book behind a cabinet and hoping he’d stumble across it.

Perhaps it was a mistake to think it needed to be broughtthere. Given how these things worked it seemed entirely possible that the book had simply grown among the camouflage of stacks and papers. A natural lure, a pitcher plant, ready to trap a curious Archivist.

First things first, he should alert the others to his situation. Human speech might be beyond him now, but there were other ways to communicate and fortunately he’d left the laptop on in his office. Typing would be a challenge with paws, but he wasn’t going to be graded on his spelling. He’d get a simple message down, find Basira and direct her to it.

Navigation outside of document storage was difficult, his vision was poor and the new angle disorienting. He’d read somewhere that cats have a reflective layer behind their retinas which improves their night vision at the cost of visual acuity, hence their dependence on hearing and on scent. It didn’t matter. By this point, he could have walked the archive blind.

The door to his office was cracked open and he nosed his way in. Getting onto his desk was another matter – just working up the nerve to try and jump to the chair was a process, and he nearly fell in an attempt to climb from there to the desk itself. Finally, stable in front of his laptop, he stared down at the keyboard.

It took him a moment to realize he had no idea what he was looking at.

It wasn’t just his muddled vision. Up close the letters were clear enough, but they were meaningless squiggles and for the life of him he couldn’t remember how to put them into order to form words. The notes and papers scattered around his desk were likewise incomprehensible to him now.

All right. Cats couldn’t read, and apparently that meant he couldn’t anymore either. Fine. That was fine. Maybe it had something to do with language centers in the cat brain, but probably it was just one more part of whatever torment the book put its victims through. It didn’t matter, the laptop would have been easiest but he’d work something out. Some pantomime, or a “one meow for yes, two for no” sort of thing. He just had to get the others’ attention.

Melanie was in the breakroom, stirring unenthusiastically at a cup noodle. She didn’t seem to notice him walking in, and for a moment he stood in the doorframe and stared at her. The first idiotic thought to enter his head was that she was so tall.

(She wasn’t, objectively she wasn’t. She was the shortest member of the archive staff, and in fact was the only reason Jon himself was spared that title. He suspected she’d never quite forgiven him for the few inches he had on her.)

He’d already noticed his own change in size, of course. But it was one thing to see a desk or filing cabinet tower over him, another thing entirely to see a person he knew and realize he suddenly didn’t reach their knee. Particularly when the person in question had a recent history of throwing sharp objects at him.

She didn’t look at him, and he feared pawing at her ankle would get him kicked, so he stood back a bit and meowed. Melanie flinched at the sudden noise, eyes wide. Then she spotted him and let out a breath, shaking her head.

“Jumpscared by a cat,” she grumbled. “My life really isa horror movie.”

He meowed again. It wasn’t as if he had many conversational options.

“Where the hell’d you come from?” she asked, in the rhetorical way one asks questions of cats. “I know this place doesn’t have actual archival standards, but stray animals running around is a new low.”

This was the part where he should do something, he knew. Make a sound or gesture to indicate that he understood her, hint at who he was. Yet his mind seemed to have gone oddly blank all of a sudden, and the harder he thought about it, the slower and fuzzier things felt. He lowered his head and sniffed at a spot on the floor.

“Should probably get you outside. Not that I’d be opposed to seeing you take a piss on some ancient tome or something, but you reallydon’t want to be here. Hell, I don’t want to be here, but I haven’t got a choice –”

She stood from her chair and bent down, making as if to grab him and he jumped back clumsily, skittering towards the wall. He didn’t run, but kept a few feet of distance between them. If Melanie put him outsidethe archive, he didn’t know how he was going to get back in. A closed door was an impassable barrier to him now.

There was something he had to do, some reason he had sought her out. Why couldn’t he remember it?

“Come on. I’m not planning to hurt you,” she said gently, crouching down to his level. “I just don’t want to see you hurt. If you stick around you’re likely to get eaten by something from Artifact Storage.”

She reached for him again and a sharp, cornered-animal instinct made him snap, baring his teeth. A flash of anger passed over Melanie’s face as she jerked her hand back, and they both froze – she had instincts of her own she was fighting. He knew that. But the anger faded quickly, becoming something tired and bitter, and she stood.

“Fine, then,” she muttered, turning to go. “If you haven’t got the sense to leave, s'none of my business what happens.”

He followed after her, still trying to put his thoughts together, aware of how easily she could shut him out by closing a door behind her. She glanced back with annoyance as he trailed her through the archive.

“Aren’t animals supposed to know when a place is cursed, or something?” she grumbled. “Honestly … .”

“Who are you talking to?”

Basira’s voice came from the hallway, and Jon felt a measure of relief. Hopefully she’dbe a bit more patient than Melanie. He stepped into the middle of the room to give himself a better sightline, and Melanie gestured towards him.

“Cat got in here, now it’s following me around. I think it smells Georgie’s cat on me.”

Jon’s mind was beginning to clear, and ideas for communicating were coming back to him. He could move his head to approximate agreement or disagreement with things they said. He could meow loudly if they said his name, or other relevant words. He could tap his paw on the floor in an S.O.S. pattern, which he knew Basira would recognize. There were countless ways he could make them understand that hewas the cat in front of them.

Basira looked in his direction and all of it fled his mind, leaving him only with the sense that he’d forgotten something important.

“You think someone upstairs brought it in?” she asked.

“Looks more like a stray to me. Figure it wandered in through the tunnels.”

“Mmm.” Basira looked him over, her gaze sharp and suspicious. Jon’s head was heavy, his thoughts growing more muddled the harder he tried to concentrate, he looked helplessly back as the others talked over him. “Don’t like its eyes. Do cat’s eyes even get that color?”

“It does seem like something’s off about it … .”

“Don’t suppose you’ve got a pet carrier with you?” Basira asked, though she was already emptying a file box.

“It’s pretty skittish,” Melanie said as Basira turned the box in her hands, readying it as a trap. “Dunno if you’re going to have much luck with that.”

“We’ll see.”

There was nothing Jon could do but bolt, ducking away as she swung the box down over where he’d just been standing. From behind him there came a frustrated grunt behind him, followed by a told you so from Melanie. He ran towards the stacks, hoping he could slip between the shelves where his smallness would be enough to hide him. Footsteps followed, hurried at first and then hesitant, considering. They were looking for him.

Catching a whiff of something rotten in the air, he noticed a partly-chewed hole in the back wall, one that hadn’t been filled after the Prentiss attack. It was probably just large enough to fit him.

He glanced back with dismay as the only people who might have helped him discussed the best way to trap him in a box, then he shimmied through the hole and slipped into the tunnels.

* * *

Trial and error confirmed what he suspected. He could understand other people, could even planways to make himself understood, but the moment he tried putting them into practice his mind became hazy and disoriented. Besides trapping him in this form, the book’s effects were actively keeping him from seeking help.

Animal Poems was beginning to feel more and more like a creation of the Spiral. Muddling his thinking, keeping the others in the dark, spreading mutual confusion. He half-expected to run into Helen’s door as he stalked through the tunnels, but if she was aware of what was happening to him she kept the game to herself. Meanwhile, all his attempts to reach Melanie and Basira only cemented him in their eyes as a nuisance and probable threat.

He wasn’t entirely sure what they intended to do if they caught him – the absurd image of Basira shining an interrogation lamp at a cat, demanding he tell her what he knew flashed through his mind. It seemed more likely he’d be put outside, or worse, taken to a shelter where he’d be locked in a cage that he couldn’t escape from. At the absolute worst, who could say? If they thought he was an intruder, a monster in disguise … he wasn’t sure if either of them had the stomach or the cruelty for a sack and a river, but he also wasn’t ready to find out.

Daisy had been his last real hope. He’d thought her weakened connection to the Hunt might help her catch an inkling of his true nature. Hell, maybe part of him had expected her to sniff him out like a bloodhound, catch a familiar scent in the air and suddenly know who he was. It didn’t matter in the end, because he’d barely been able to poke his head into the room with her. The second she’d glanced in his direction he’d been filled with a rush of fear - animal and all-consuming, overriding thought, drowning reason, narrowing everything into the pureness of predator danger runrunrun. By the time he’d put some distance between them and caught his breath, he knew he wouldn’t be trying that again. He kept to shadows and corners after that, doing his best to stay unnoticed.

As day turned to evening, he felt the toll that all the running and leaping was taking on his body. The pain of hunger became demanding enough that he gave into the urge to follow an increasingly appealing smell deep into the tunnels. It wasn’t long before something small and furry darted past him and his body moved automatically, already knowing how to chase and kill. He sprang, pinning the struggling thing beneath his claws and bringing his head down to bite.

He ate, swallowing it all even as his still-human brain recoiled and fretted about diseases carried by wild rodents. His body was the body of a carnivore, but he had the mind of someone whose only experiences with meat involved grocery stores and delis. He’d never torn into a living thing as it tried to get away, never pulled out warm, stringy gore with his teeth. It was revolting, but once he’d started he couldn’t stop. Not for the first time, he let hunger and instinct take hold of him.

The pain in his stomach faded as he licked the blood from his face, leaving behind only a quiet nausea and a shame he couldn’t quite identify. A feeling that reminded him of leaving Jess Tyrell quietly weeping in the coffee shop.

As he slunk back towards the archive, he reflected on the Hunt. On ways that the fear of becoming prey could be turned back onto the predator, become the horror of needing to stalk and kill to survive. He wondered if Animal Poems had been touched by that particular sort of blood, if his guilt and disgust over his own ignoble feeding habits had called it to him, tempting it to subject him to a more visceral form of predation.

* * *

Maybe it didn’t matter which fear the book was connected to. But how was he going to find a way out of this if he didn’t understandit?

Crouched atop a filing cabinet, just out of sight, he watched as as others wound down for the evening. Basira and Daisy retired to cots near the tunnels, while Melanie left before dark. Jon had noticed she hadn’t slept in the archives since the night she woke up with a scalpel in her leg. He couldn’t exactly blame her. He hopedit meant she had someplace safe to go, more welcoming than this place, but she’d never told him and he’d never asked. He’d badly wanted to, but pressing someone who was already wary around him to reveal where she slept at night seemed like the exact sort of thing he shouldn’t be doing.

Sitting quietly, eyes tracking the others as they retreated, he wondered if he ought to look closer to home. Since he’d been left unable to communicate, all he could do was watchas the others went about their business. The Leitner had turned him into one more hidden observer in this place, another silent, staring eye. Perhaps it had been part of the Beholding all along.

If the others had even noticed Jon’s disappearance, they hadn’t commented on it. He grimly thought that an afternoon without him around may well have come as a relief to them, one less monster to worry about. How long had it been, he wondered, since the people he worked with had known him as anything other than a problem to be managed?

One by one, the lights were turned off and the building shut down. The archives grew dark and quiet and Jon finally emerged, free to wander without being seen.

As he walked through the empty, silent rooms, he felt strangely bereft. One might almost think he’d have grown usedto this sort of thing by now. In many ways his new form was just the latest in a series of bizarre and disorienting predicaments he found himself in. Not even the worst of them, really. He’d been trapped and on his own before, several times, and this wasn’t nearly as dangerous as being held by the Circus or threatened by the likes of Julia and Trevor.

But it feltdifferent. It felt worse. Having others so near to him but being unable to communicate, to even approach them without being chased away. Hiding in the shadows and watching as people he knew went on without him, it was worse than just being alone. The archive hadn’t exactly been welcoming before, Lord knows that conversations with his coworkers had been strained at best, but at least it had been something.Even in these past few terrifying years, he didn’t think he’d ever felt so profoundly isolatedas–

… Oh.

Well. There it was. Should have been obvious from the start, really.

Jon curled beneath the cot in document storage, shivering with a cold far deeper than the climate-controlled temperature of the archive. He lowered his head to the floor and let the Lonely bleed into him.

Lost Cat, Do Not Find

Chapter 4 - So It Goes

Martin gets into an argument. Jon contemplates. An extremely poignant conversation is avoided.

Read on Ao3

—

“You know, this would be a loteasier if you’d just answer my questions instead of being cryptic all the time … .”

“I understand you’re skeptical, Martin, but that’s the point of this. It’ll be far more convincing for you to come to your own conclusions than it would be for me to try and persuade you. Besides, you know how I feel about protracted conversations.”

Half-hidden beside a filing cabinet, Jon watched the argument progress. Peter had appeared a few minutes ago – literallyappeared, taking Jon by surprise and leaving him no time to think of hiding. His approach so far had been to keep still and hope he simply wouldn’t be noticed. It was a difficult task, when his irritation with the man increased with every passing moment.

“Anyway,” Peter continued, “I’ve kept to my end of the bargain, haven’t I?”

“Have you? You said you’d keep the others safe, but from where I’m standing you’ve been as much of a threat as anything else.”

“This isn’t about those irritating young people from research, I hope.”

“You vanished them! No one can even remember Dylan, I only know he existed because his name is still on file. Did we know each other? Probably not, but I have no idea!”

“Really, Martin. I’m under the impression that it’s common for new management to reduce the staff a little. Keeps people on their toes. Besides, you specifically asked me to ensure the safety of your friends in the archive. I don’t remember all this concern for the regular employees coming up back then.”

Martin sighed through his teeth.

“And they have been safe.” Peter insisted. "Unwanted deliveries aside, there’ve been no more attacks. In fact from what I’ve seen, your little archive has been downright quiet lately. Especially now, with those former officers out of town.”

“With - wait, Basira and Daisy? They left?”

“Headed to Ny-Alesund, I believe, something to do with the People’s Church. Probably sent there by your Archivist.”

“Ny-Alesund? In Norway? The place with the ritual site?! ”

“I wouldn’t worry. They’re quite capable of handling themselves, after all. Both of them survived an encounter with a creature of the Dark already, I’d say they’re far more likely than not to come back alive.”

“I mean, maybe,but–” Martin sighed. “Fine. It’s not – can’t do anything about it now, I suppose. And Jon stayed behind?”

“I watched the two of them leave and he definitely wasn’t accompanying them. Too involved in his own projects, I’d imagine. The man’s so easily preoccupied, I really don’t know what Elias sees in him.”

Jon took all this in from the corner. The archive had been quiet lately, but it hadn’t occurred to him that this was why. Ny-Alesund … so they’d left without him in the end. Before his change, the three of them had discussed going there, planning for the near future. He supposed that after he’d turned up missing they decided not to wait and took matters into their own hands. He wondered if they had already reached the ritual site. If there were active members of the People’s Church there, or something worse, something that couldn’t be stopped by firearms.

Daisy hadn’t been planning to go, not originally. She’d worried that if things went badly, if there was danger and a need to fight the pull of the Hunt would be too hard to resist. It must have been a hard choice, between facing that risk and letting Basira go into danger alone. He hoped they were all right.

“… So. What’s this about?”

Peter had finally noticed Jon, or maybe he’d known he was there the whole time and was only now acknowledging him.

“It’s a cat.” Martin said blandly. Peter raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“Really, Martin. A pet?” He pronounced the word like it was a particularly distasteful fetish.

“That’s a bit far. It comes by sometimes, goes on its own terms,” he turned back towards the desk, as if moving on from the topic. “Never liked cats, personally. More of a dog person. Cats always feel like they’re judging you, you know?”

For a moment Jon felt slighted by the sentiment. It took him an embarrassingly long minute to realize that it didn’t line up with things Martin had already mentioned, and that he was likely saying what he thought Peter wanted to hear. For his part, Peter was looking critically at Jon. He reached forward as if making to pick him up, and Jon growled warningly. 

“I wouldn’t,” Martin advised. “It’s not very social. First time I tried putting it outside it nearly took my hand off.”

Peter frowned and drew back, still eyeing him. Jon kept his own eyes narrowed to slits, hoping any uncanny quality they had wouldn’t be visible.

“A bit odd for a cat to show up down here, don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I was wondering about that. Can you tell if it’s, y'know … spooky?”

Peter rolled his eyes. “I’ve said before, I’m not Elias. I can’t just Knowthings like that.”

“Well I don’t know! I thought maybe you had some sort of … avatar-to-avatar sense?”

“Afraid not. Not something that falls under my abilities.”

“Seems like there’s not much you’re able to do,” Martin muttered, quiet, but not so quiet that he couldn’t be easily heard, “when I’m actually asking for it … .”

“If you’re concerned, Martin, I can spare a moment to get rid of it.” Peter smiled, and Jon felt a chill down his back. “I’m sure there’s an overcrowded shelter nearby that would be willing to put the poor thing down.”

“It’s fine,” Martin’s tone was carefully neutral. “It’s not even here that often. I’d rather just leave it alone.”

“Really, it wouldn’t be a bother.” Peter replied, his voice light and amiable. “I’d hate to have it disturbing your work. We need to have all pistons firing, especially now.” He paused. “Of course, if you’ve gotten attached to the mangy old thing, that’s understandable. But that poses a problem of its own, doesn’t it?”

"Congratulations Peter, you caught me. I don’t want you to kill a cat, even an annoying one. But I doubt I can stop you if you’re determined, and if I argue you’ll probably decide I’m getting too friendly with it or something, so it’s kind of a catch-22? So –” Martin gestured to them both. “I’d like you to leave it alone. But do whatever you’re going to do. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you, I wasn’t kidding about it almost taking off my hand.”

The threat of being lightly mauled by cat claws seemed to be enough to make Peter hesitate. If he reached for him again, Jon fully intended to make him bleed. But he knew there was only so much that he could do. His size left him vulnerable, and a grown man could easily overpower him if he was willing to put up with a few scratches. More to the point … if this man in particular wanted to get rid of him, he wouldn’t have to touch him to do it. He could just send him away. Vanish him into the Lonely.

Maybe he believed what Martin had said about not liking cats, or maybe he couldsense something about Jon, some aura of the Lonely that the book had left him with. Whatever his reasons, Peter shrugged.

“I suppose it’s harmless enough,” he glanced back at Martin, a predator’s smile on his face. “Might even serve as a reminder, given our surroundings. Curiosity killed the cat, eh?”

“Great. So if we’re done with that,” Martin turned back to the desk, opening a drawer. “As long as you’re here, I could use your signature on … these … ." 

He was gone by the time Martin looked up again. 

”… Of course.“

Martin turned back to his desk, sighing tiredly. A cold, numbing sensation still lingered in the air, and it made Jon wary. Whether consciously or unconsciously, Martin seemed to sense it too – he didn’t so much as glance back until several long minutes had passed, and the air began to clear.

"Don’t like Elias, and don’t like Peter,” he smirked. “At least you’re a good judge of character.”

Jon took that as a cue to emerge from his hiding spot, walking over. Martin held a hand near the ground, and he rubbed his face against it a little, like a greeting.

“You like me, though,” he said, voice filled with the smug satisfaction one naturally feels over being preferred by an animal. “So that’s something. Not saying I trust you or anything, but I’m starting to appreciate your taste.”

He returned to his work, and Jon curled up beside his desk, listening to the sound of him typing. The tension from Peter’s visit dispelled as the afternoon ticked by, with Martin working and Jon dozing on and off. His body demanded sleep from him so often now. He didn’t like how easy it was for him to nod off and be suddenly defenseless, hated how much time he lost to it. Even so, he could almost enjoy the time he spent napping beside Martin’s desk, his quiet presence just a few feet away. Occasionally he would drift awake and see Martin looking down with a hint of a smile. It wasn’t for him, not really – just a smile at the sight of a drowsy cat. It was still a nice thing to wake up to, sometimes.

The sound of a chair scraping against the floor pulled him from his half-doze. He blinked slowly as Martin stood gathering his things – clearly preparing to leave for the evening. Just before walking out, he glanced back at Jon who was getting to his feet, stiff and only half-awake.

“Good night then, you.”

Martin left the door ajar as he went. It had become his habit, and it meant Jon didn’t need to dash out on his heels to avoid being trapped inside. Instead he took a long moment to stretch and shake himself out, get his bearings. It was night time, time to get to work.

He started by raiding the wastepaper basket beside the desk, one of few he could easily get at after the fridge incident. The sandwich Martin had for lunch had been made with a day-old roll, and he’d tossed a good quarter of the stale bread away. At one point Jon would have balked at the indignity of fishing someone else’s table scraps out of the garbage, but his options were limited and there was no one but the Beholding to see him now. 

Plain bread wasn’t very nourishing for cats, but he felt full after eating it, and the little meal gave him some energy. Newly invigorated, he headed into the archive proper. If Daisy and Basira were away, and Melanie was presumably still leaving at five, he’d have several hours without any risk of interruption. And there was something down there that he very much wanted to investigate. 

He hadn’t yet managed a proper search of that dead spot in document storage, the one his attention kept sliding off of. It was hard to put a finger on the source of his reluctance. It was clear the Beholding was steering him away from it – he could tell that much by how suddenly anxious he became around it, how heavily the feeling of being watched, the fear of being discovered at his task weighed on the idea. But under that there was a fear that he suspected was entirely his own. What could be so awful that the embodiment of terrible and forbidden knowledge wanted to keep it hidden?

But seeing Jess Tyrell had gotten him thinking – about the Eye, about himself. What he was becoming. About the way it had felt, taking her statement from her. He’d known it wasn’t right, but it had felt right. It felt right because he’d been giving in to the pull of the Beholding, following the direction it led. And his searches through document storage, they’d always followed a similar pattern. Reach towards his patron until he was pulled in a particular direction, then follow what felt right to him. Lately, he’d been thinking about doing something that felt wrong. Something that hurt. It would take a great deal of determination, but determination was about all he had left.

Pushing through the resistance, he crawled onto the back shelf where he found a box of thin wood, distinctly different from the standard file boxes that crowded the other shelves. He could have sworn he’d seen it somewhere before, perhaps Elias’s office? He couldn’t tell, and the Eye certainly wasn’t giving him any information. He took the edge of it in his teeth and dragged it off the shelf, dumping its contents onto the floor.

It was filled with tapes, mostly unlabelled. He felt a tick of excitement run through him, a tremor of curiosity that for once he could say was all his own. Tapes were good . Wrangling a tape into a recorder on his own would be a challenge, but he could actually do something with these. He began to sort through them, paying particular attention to any he felt an impulse to ignore and moving them off to the side. He was halfway through the box when he reached for one and found himself jerking back on reflex.

He paused, staring at the unlabelled cassette that his paw had just refused to touch. He tried again, batting at it experimentally until his body rebelled and he found himself scrabbling backwards. He stood there a moment, fur bristling, until his heartbeat settled down.

Well. He couldn’t very well ignore that.

A shudder of lethargy went through him at the thought of investigating further, but he was used to working when he was tired, and he could be a verystubborn creature. He’d seen a tape recorder on Melanie’s desk earlier. All he had to do was get the tape that far. He was able to push it down the aisle a foot or two at a time by smacking it with his paws, until it occurred to him how easy it would be to lose it this way – to damage it, or send it sliding under a cabinet. He tried picking it up in his mouth, but only managed to walk a few paces before his jaw went slack and it fell to the floor. Undeterred, he picked it up again and continued in this fashion, carrying it a little distance at a time, determinedly moving forward even as his jaw went numb and he began drooling. 

By the time he made it to the bullpen, his whole body ached with effort and he’d considered giving up four times. It had taken what felt like hours to travel what couldn’t have been more than fifty feet, and he was thirsty, tired and hungry again. He eyeballed the tape recorder above him. Just a jump to the chair, then from there onto Melanie’s desk. He’d managed higher leaps than that in this body before. He could do it. 

His legs wobbling under him, he launched himself weakly upwards and crashed into Melanie’s chair, knocking it down. The tape flew out of his mouth, landing under the desk somewhere while helanded a foot or so away. He stumbled, trying to keep his legs under him, and made it three steps before collapsing onto the floor. The room was spinning. 

That was … it was all right. First attempt failed, but he could try again. He’d have a bit of a rest first then make another attempt. Rest sounded nice. And his eyes were definitely drifting closed, like it or not.

When he opened them again, it was to the sound of footsteps coming down the archive stairs. All other goals forgotten, Jon got to his feet and put all his remaining energy into fleeing to the tunnels, leaving the tape and the mess he’d made behind.

* * *

It was hard to tell date and time anymore, but Jon suspected that he’d been a cat for a few weeks. 

At one point, it struck him how long it had been since he’d actively looked for a way out of his situation. He’d been putting so much of his energy into surviving in his current form, and what was left he spent looking for something that might assist Martin – when he wasn’t just lurking around his office like the pitiful shadow he’d become. At some point, any efforts to reverse his condition seemed to have fallen by the wayside. It was as if he’d given up already.

It wasn’t that he wanted to stay a cat. But as limiting, isolating and maddening as the experience was, he found he was getting used to it. Not comfortable with it, lord no, and certainly not content, just used to it. Already he’d lived with it long enough for it to gain a strange near-normalcy. The panic, the sense of immediate danger had given way to a low sort of dread. Like Joshua Gillespie learning to live around a box of nightmares. Fear becoming as routine as hunger.

Had every change he’d undergone in these past few years been like this? Faintly, he could still remember the horror he’d felt when he first realized he needed to read statements to survive. How long had it taken for him to lose that particular shock? To think of recording a statement as a matter of habit – sometimes inconvenient, sometimes unpleasant, but not very different from any other basic need. How long after that before the paper statements began to look innocent by comparison, an alternative to prying someone’s traumas from them by force? A person can get used to anything, even things they really, reallyshouldn’t get used to. 

He knew he shouldn’t be thinking like this. He couldn’t just accept his situation, he had to at least try to break the Leitner’s hold on him, to get back to himself. 

Doubtful that there was very much to get back to, of course … at least as a cat, he could see Martin. That would certainly change if he found a way out of this. And he doubted the others would be glad to see him either, after learning about Jess Tyrell. 

Maybe this was better, in the end. The others wouldn’t have to worry about him being a danger. And whatever Elias was planning for him, he doubted he’d be able to carry it out now. He didn’t dream anymore, and he wasn’t going to be taking any live statements. Maybe he should be glad some other power had gripped him tightly enough to arrest his development as a creature of the Eye. At least it hadn’t been the Buried. 

He could stay this way, resign himself to never again speaking to another human being, to never being seen as one. Continue to mope around Martin’s office until he took enough pity on him to take him home and hide him from his landlord. Keep him as a pet, something he’d never see as an equal or a friend, but at least Jon would be close to him and cared for and could see him every day. And then after a while he’d probably just keel over and die, consumed from within because he’d stopped feeding statements to the Watcher. At least he’d be able to spite Elias.

Jon sighed. This … self pity wasn’t helping anything. For better or for worse, he wasn’t ready to give up and die. The others were still trapped here, Martin was still circling Lukas, he couldn’t abandon them all. He had to at least try to stay alive. 

At the moment, he was lying sulkily on the floor beneath Martin’s chair as he read out the gruesome and inevitable death of Doctor Nikos Anastos. Martin leaned forward when he read statements, just slightly. As if concerned that the tape recorder wouldn’t pick up his voice, or as if pulled forward, tugged by a gravity that started somewhere behind the eyes. His voice filled the room with the humidity of the jungle, the scent of acid rain and rotten plastic, and the sharp, satisfying taste of fear. Jon didn’t have it in him anymore to feel disturbed by how much listening to it soothed him, how the aches and dizziness troubled him less as he listened to Martin feed the Beholding, taking some part himself by simply witnessing it.

It wasn’t enough. He knew it wasn’t enough. He was getting weaker in a way that he probably shouldn’t be ignoring – he’d gone from sleeping half the day to a good majority of it, and any mildly strenuous activity tired him out. Since Martin was the only one recording statements anymore, it made for a good excuse. A reason for Jon to linger under his chair or sat on top of his desk, in case he’d be reading one that day. But he didn’t bother pretending that was why he kept coming back. 

There were surely healthier ways to deal with one’s feelings for someone than spending half the afternoon curled around their ankles. He just didn’t know what the healthy option was in his situation.

“ … There’s something in there and I don’t know which scares me more,” Martin intoned above him. “The thought that it’s more than just the things we left behind. Or that that’s all it is, and we can’t escape the ruins of our own future.”

A sense of relief, of lessening pressure filled the room as the statement concluded and a terrible gaze withdrew. Martin’s voice left the deep, rhythmic register of reading as it was returned to him, and he spoke more casually as he recorded the follow up. Jon closed his eyes and listened as he speculated on the Extinction and Adelard Dekkar, wondered aloud about Peter’s absence.

“Could be worse. Peaceful at least. I don’t miss all the shouting, even if it would –” Martin stopped suddenly, going stiff. Jon cocked his head, he’d heard it as well. Someone was moving around outside. “… Wait.”

Martin slid his chair back abruptly, and Jon had to jump to avoid catching his paws under it. As he got his bearings, Martin hurried to open the door.

“Excuse me –” he called. “Excuse me, this area is off-limits to the public.”

Jon was a moment too late to slip after him – an oddly familiar scent pushed in from the hall as the door closed behind Martin, clicking shut and trapping him inside. He growled in frustration, pawing at the sealed exit before trying a different tactic. With a few well-aimed leaps, he got on top of a filing cabinet near the door, just high enough for him to peek through the ventilation window.

It was a shock to see Georgie standing there. She turned as Martin approached, blinking with confusion, as if she wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing.

“Oh … Sorry, um, Melanie told me to wait for her here.”

“Oh, you –” Martin stopped up short. “You’re here for Melanie?”

“Yeah.” Georgie smiled politely. “… Georgie." 

She held out a hand to shake and Martin subtly stepped backwards. Awkwardly, she lowered her hand and nodded instead. 

"I’m sorry – sorry, I didn’t realize.” Martin stepped back again, keeping a little space between them. “I’m sure she’s around here somewhere.”

“… You must be Martin.”

“Yeah. Has Melanie been talking about me?”

“Oh, um…” her face fell slightly. “Jon used to go on about you a lot.”

“Oh. Oh, wait – wait, I thought Melanie-Georgie and Jon-Georgie were…”

“Same – same Georgie,” she said softly. She hesitated a moment, then spoke again. “I’m sorry. About – about Jon.”

“… About Jon?”

“Melanie told me. Things got … complicated between the two of us. But I still –” she shook her head. “A-anyway, it seemed like the two of you were –”

“Sorry,” Martin interrupted, “I don’t know what you’re talking about?" 

Georgie’s posture went suddenly rigid. She had the look of someone who’d only just realized they’d made a very significant mistake, too late to undo it. 

"Has no one told you?” she asked.

“I ah, haven’t really been showing up at meetings?” Martin laughed mirthlessly. “Kind of out of the loop over here.”

“Oh.” Georgie paused, eyes wide. After a deeply awkward silence, she coughed and continued. “Right. Well. Jon’s gone missing.”

“Missing? He’s – No. No, of course he has.” Martin sighed, frustration edging into his voice. “Do we know he’s missing missing? He kind of just runsoffsometimes.”

“Seems like it. He didn’t say anything about leaving, and he’s not answering calls. Apparently Basira made him promise recently that he wouldn’t go on any more trips without leaving some word, so they wouldn’t think he’d been, y'know, kidnapped.”

“Great. Just great. Meaning he probably has been kidnapped. Again.”

“Maybe … ." 

Georgie didn’t sound very convinced. She shifted on her feet, and there was something in her body language that maddened Jon in his inability to unpack it, but Martin seemed to catch on. 

”… But you don’t think he is?“

"I’m not sure of anything. But no, I don’t think so,” she said. “I used to have dreams about him. I mean, real dreams. Supernatural ones.”

“You gave him a statement?” Martin sounded surprised.

“I suppose.” Georgie said. “They weren’t every night, but they happened often enough. I’d see him and – it’s hard to explain, but I just knew it was him? Not a dream-image or a memory, he was there. Even when he went missing before, the dreams meant I knew that he was still alive. It’s why I was sure that he was still inthere through the coma, even if he never woke up again. But they’ve stopped now.”

“Stopped?”

“Stopped cold. According to Melanie, the last time anyone saw him was the first of the month, and as far as I can tell they stopped when he disappeared.” She paused to allow that to sink in. “I suppose I can’t say for surewhat that means for him. But I have a guess.”

From his perch above them, Jon took a moment to absorb that. Martin had gone very still, and with his back to the door he couldn’t see his face. Georgie continued.

“Melanie says they’re going to assume he’s alive until they know otherwise, but I can’t say I have any hope. I … I think that this was coming for a while.” she said gently. 

A soft huff of air came from Martin. He turned back towards the door, a hand over his mouth.

“I am so sorry.” Georgie said. “I thought you knew.”

“I –” Martin laughed shakily. “I told him to stop finding me.”

He looked up, then. Although he couldn’t possibly have seen Jon from that angle, for just a moment, it seemed as if their eyes met. There was a terrible rushing sound, like the ocean, or the wind in a dizzying fall. And then Martin was just gone.

* * *

Panicked yowling and scrabbling at the door was enough to catch Georgie’s attention as she stood, staring at the space where a man had vanished before her eyes. Jon barely glanced at her as she opened the door for him, darting past her ankles and running out into the archive. Frantically, he reached for the Eye, pressing against the door and damning any cuatuion left in him. It returned nothing. Whether due to his weakened state, or Martin being somewhere beyond the Watcher’s sight, his power to See was useless now.

So he looked with his mundane eyes, small as limited as they were. He went through the archive, the small offices and side rooms – even taking a detour into the tunnels, as if he had ever found answers there. Only when he’d begun retracing his steps did it occur to him he hadn’t checked inside his own office. 

Heart still pounding, he nosed open the door. It looked empty at first, but there was a pronounced chill to the air, and a shadow in the corner that didn’t look right. He crept closer to it. 

Martin was there. Or, the shape of him was. Something vaguely present, hard to see in the dim light of the room.

“Not sure how I got here,” he muttered. His voice was dull, distant. “Did I wantto be here? Why? He’s gone, there’s no point in looking here now.”

Even up close it was hard to make his form out. He seemed faded, the color of the wall was bleeding though him and his veins were visible through his skin – as if different parts of him were vanishing at different rates. Jon pawed at his leg, meowing, and Martin’s gaze moved towards him sluggishly. He frowned.

“Guess you would be the one to find me,” he said, half-heartedly pushing Jon off of him. “You here to watch me suffer? That seems like an Eye thing. Suppose you want a statement before I’m gone.”

He meowed again in protest – Jon was going to lose his mind. Martin was mourning him and he was standing inchesaway.There had to be some way he could make him understand … .

But that thought wasn’t one the book would allow him to hold. Its influence came over him just as it had every time he’d tried to communicate with someone and his mind went blank. The terror remained, his thoughts scattered and confused, still certain something was horribly wrong but no longer able to understand whatorwhy.

"He kept finding me,” Martin spoke, and Jon fixed his attention on him, trying to hold onto what he was saying. “After he got back. I guess he was worried about losing more people. Or just … wanted to keep an eye on everyone. Maybe he was lonely.”

Movement caught Jon’s eye – he was drumming his fingers against his knee. As he watched, the delicate outlines of phalanges began to appear.

“It’s funny. For a minute I actually felt guilty, because I kept thinking – what if he needed my help? But that’s stupid, really. He never needed me before.”

He let out a long, slow breath. It hung in front of his face, obscuring his features. When it dispersed, Jon couldn’t see his eyes anymore.

“Guess I already knew that. Still told myself I was doing this for him, after he came back. Keeping Peter’s attention off him, but …” The figure shook its head. “Think I can admit now that it wasn’t about that, not really. Clinging to the fog was just easier by then.”

The figure’s breaths were coming out in clouds, like that of someone speaking on a cold day. They blurred its form, eroding parts of it with every word spoken. The face was entirely gone now, faded into a blur of shadow and fog, veins and arteries floating within it, shadows of bones just visible as it all faded to nothing. And Jon could barely move . He had to do something, he was sure, but the harder he tried to focus the slower and hazier he felt. Struggling against it only sapped his strength, and he felt his legs give out on him. He lay helpless on the floor, trying to keep his gaze on something that was nearly not there.

“Suppose it doesn’t matter what happened. One way or another, everyone leaves.” A voice… someone’s voice? It was so faint. “At least this way there’s nobody … who might be … diminished … .”

It was impossible to see where the voice was coming from now, every part of it seemed to be dissolving. Jon couldn’t focus, couldn’t think, but he lunged forward on pure instinct. No plan or  goal in mind, only the sudden conviction that he had to grab hold of whatever was left before it disappeared.

His mouth closed around something cold and damp but just barely solid. He bit down. Hard. 

Emotion returned to Martin’s voice as he cried out in pain and surprise. He tried to jerk his hand back, but Jon was clamped down tightly and wasn’t letting go. Grunting, he pressed two fingers into Jon’s cheeks, prying his jaw open just enough to pull him loose. A moment later he was being lifted into the air, hands cupped under his front legs, back legs dangling. 

“What the hell,” Martin rasped – his voice retained a distant, echoing quality. “What’s the matter with you?”

He was holding Jon at arm’s length, just far away enough that he couldn’t reach him if he struggled. Jon didn’t struggle, he kept still and stared. Martin’s form had regained some solidity, if only enough to hold a cat in place. But his face was an insubstantial smear, his outlines weak. Any moment now, he’d start slipping back into the nothing that was waiting for him. Jon couldn’t allow that to happen – he reached into himself and Lookedas hard as he could at the memory of Martin’s face, willing it to return.

I’m here, Martin, he thought. See me, see me, see me,SEE ME.

At long last he felt something terrible move through him, and a vast and seeking gaze reached out. It found two eyes lost in the miasma and pulled them out to look back into his. A familiar nose followed, a brow ridge, creased skin and messy hair. Light returned to the eyes and they widened, still looking back.

Martin’s face had reappeared. His form was opaque – truly, entirely solid again. He stared back in total disbelief.

“Oh my God…” he gaped, voice rising in shock. “Jon?!”

more furry tma cause my laptops new battery hasn’t arrived yet