Ok so we had training for the first time in over a month and Marcie gave me a lot of Information and that information was: my rewards suck and everyone else’s rewards are better. Good to know!

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.