πππ πΈπ£ππππ§ππ€π₯ (thearchivist) wrote in valloic, @ 2020-10-06 23:04:00 |
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He'd known, of course. The second the Hotel had arrived, he had felt it in his bones. A sympathetic presence. A draw. Something calling to that part of him that thrived on fear and horror. A place that drew out people's fears and forced them to experience them. A prison of fears where he could watch and witness and observe. Where he could see the fears and see the suffering. It was like a monument to the Beholding. A temple to the Eye. How could he stay away?
He had tried, of course. He had struggled for so long with this part of himself. Basira's condemnations rang in his head no matter how he tried to ignore them. Her insistence that giving into this made him a monster. It was hypocritical, given how she enabled Daisy's much more violent hungers. But then, Daisy hadn't ended the world, so in the end maybe she was right.
In the end, he had to acknowledge that he couldn't cut himself off from the part of him that was no longer close to human. He had to accept that he was, in some ways, a monster. The others didn't like that word, but they had no say over what went on in his head.
He was the Archivist as much as he was Jonathan Sims. Perhaps even more.
He could feel the weight of anticipation in his gut as he approached the hotel, a flickering uneasiness in his gut, but also an eagerness. What did it say about him that he was so excited to engage with the suffering of others? Jonah would be so thrilled to see him now.
He stepped inside and immediately felt the exhaustion and weariness that had been plaguing him for weeks begin to slip away. There was a warmth to the place. A welcome. He felt good here. He felt wanted. It wanted him to stay. To be a part of it. A kindred soul. He forced himself to breathe and shake off the feeling, moving through the halls. And then there was the click of a tape recorder.
He hadn't brought one, but that hardly meant anything. They found their way to him. Or perhaps the Overlook had saw fit to provide. He could feel the familiar sensation in his chest, words coming to his lips almost without thought. The hotel wanted a witness. A record. And he would provide.
"Statement of the Archivist," he began, the words familiar on his tongue, and he can feel the static of the Beholding buzzing beneath his skin, thrumming in his bones, "concerning the Overlook Hotel and its guests. Statement recorded in situ." He takes a deep breath. "Statement begins."
"There is a young woman," he says, "who has found her way into the hotel. It wasn't her intention to come to this place. Cassandra is smarter than that and more sensible than to go and seek out danger. But the Overlook does not care about intentions. So she finds herself in a room with two people. They were once a mother and father to her, but at the same time neither. She believed for many years that they were all she had and the hurts didn't matter because it was better than being alone with her grief. And for many years they pulled her strings and she danced where they wished. And she hated them as much as she loved them."
He can taste the Web, sickly sweet and intoxicating with manipulation. He had told Martin once that the Fears had their own flavors. He often wonders if his partner had taken that as hyperbole, but it was true. The Web is candy floss and alcohol and cloying. He hates it.
"Cassandra is no longer their daughter and she no longer loves them. All that is left is anger and pain and the desire to hurt them the way they so often hurt her. To kill them the way they killed the people she loved. The family they took from her. And she hates the part of her that fears this makes her more like them. A cruel and vicious thing. A monster. She feels it more as she stares at the bodies of her family and wonders if she wishes she had met their end. Perhaps that would be easier. But she will not give them this and she stands against them the way she always wished she had."
The Hunt and the Slaughter are different shades of a similar flavor. Hot and thick with the metallic hint of blood on his tongue as he speaks. This is the sharper, charred taste of the Slaughter. His eyes burn bright and green and they glow as he takes it all in.
"She's running now with her brother," he says, and as he does, the sharp edge fades into the raw and the bitterness of the Hunt. "But not the brother she knows now. Percy is softer and younger, without the edge and the darkness the years have given him. Cassandra knows what comes next and she anticipates the thud of arrows in her chest. Welcomes it even." Here he can taste the smoke and whiskey of the End permeating. "But it never comes and she watches as her brother falls instead, powerless as always to protect him. And then it's just the bodies. Of him. Of their friends. Of this new family that she has. And Cassandra is terrified, but she stands and readies her bow and for once does not let her fear rule her. She is no longer a scared child."
He takes a deep breath, blinking his eyes. It is not all at once. One set blinks. Then the other. His eyes are always open. He shakes his head. He's not done yet. The tape recorder is still whirring along and there is still much that needs to be said.
"Morgan has always been curious about humans," he says, and he can immediately taste the Stranger on his tongue, but that's par for the course with Morgan. The Stranger doesn't taste of anything specific so much that it tastes slightly strange. Off brand cereal and slightly oversteeped tea. Not wrong enough to comment on, but just enough to notice. "Particularly their emotions, as those were quite alien to her." He laughs, quietly, at that little joke.
"She came here, unlike many, of her own accord. She wants to understand. To make sense of this place and the way the humans react to it." One blink. Two. Three. Runs his tongue along his teeth to try and chase away the taste of the Stranger as the Beholding mixes in.
The Eye doesn't have a taste of fear because he is the Archivist and he is of the Eye. It's Martin's tea and the warmth of his grandmother's curry. It's warm and welcome and familiar. The Eye is a feeling of home and the buzz of static. Part of him wonders that a fear can seem so warm.
"Morgan has always wanted to understand. To know. It drives her, pushes her into things best left alone."
Blink.
"Morgan doesn't feel things the way people do," he says, "so she can be forgiven for believing herself immune to fear." He doesn't count the blinks as he keeps his eyes open. "She's brilliant but still young in so many ways. And foolishness and recklessness are qualities of youth."
"She doesn't expect the hotel to affect her," he says, and the Vast and the Dark dance on his tongue, deep, rich flavors, difficult to describe in their complexity. "She sees the Apex briefly, but logic dictates that it cannot be there - cannot fit within the confines of this space - and Morgan is nothing if not logical. That might be a fear, but it isn't pressing here. It's not one she can give into. The hotel adapts."
"There will always be a part of her that worries she doesn't fit," he says. "That she isn't real enough. Human enough. Morgan would have been, but she isn't Morgan. Not really. Alex looks at her, but it's more looking through her and she wants badly for him to see her." His tongue goes cold with the frigid bite of the Lonely, cool and almost refreshing. "She knows he'll never look at her as more than a science project. An experiment. But she knows that there are people here who do see her, who know her and value her, and that helps her to push past the oppressive loneliness."
"She worries she'll hurt him one day," he says, "that she'll give in to the part of her that isn't human, the part she doesn't want to be, and hurt him."
He blinks and blinks again. Again. Again.
"He is cruel but she wants to be better than him and worries that she isn't. She worries that no matter how human she is, that cruelty will always be a part of her. That it's the one defining characteristic that is shared between typhon and human. That she will always have this capacity for horror and violence and that she will never be able to leave it. Alex has taught her enough of callous cruelty for her to know it is always a possibility."
There is a shift and his eyes track it.
"She closes her eyes, takes a breath to steady herself and reassures herself that she is better. She has worked hard to be better. She opens them to a familiar apartment and a sinking feeling in her stomach. Hello, Morgan. Because of course she's in the simulation still. Of course she never left. She may have made progress, but it won't ever be enough. She won't ever be enough. For all she plays at being human, she'll never leave behind the truth of what she is. This isn't something she can outlogic or outwit or outrun. There is no escape from herself."
The Spiral pops against his tongue like rock candy and a sharp sour flavor, tingling and snapping around his mouth in sharp bursts.
"What is there to escape to, after all?" The words are sharp. "After all, the more human she becomes the more she sees that humanity is no different. She could be as human as any of them and they would still see her as a monster. Because they can't see that they are monsters. There is no winning for her. There is no way to succeed. So why try? Why not give up? Why not give in? Why not be every horrible thing they think of her because they cannot look at themselves and see their own horror?"
Blink. Blink. Blink.
"Morgan shakes with the knowledge that she can never leave herself behind, not enough to matter, so she leaves in the only way she can. Curling in on herself and hiding from her fears. A mug clatters to the floor and the room goes silent. The Overlook has taken what it wanted."
He breathes deeply, coming back into himself, but not fully leaving the statement. It's not quite done yet. There are still things for him to see and he speaks without truly registering the words, even as he moves forward and collects the mug, cradling it gently in his hands.
"The Archivist drinks in the fear of the hotel's victims." Oh. He closes his eyes, feeling the static sharpen inside him. He is buzzing with it now, can feel it in his teeth and his bones. "He witnesses their struggles and their suffering and he feasts on it. And as he does, he is forced to acknowledge that any humanity he had left was abandoned long ago. Perhaps when he completed the ritual to end the world. Perhaps when he died in the Unknowing and came back as something other. Something wrong. Or perhaps before. Perhaps he was lost the moment he read his first Statement."
"His feet carry him forward, through halls and corridors." He is moving even as he speaks, hands stroking the mug in his hands as though petting a cat. A comfort for Morgan and for himself. "He moves until he finds a large mirror at the end of one of the many hallways. And he looks at himself. And he sees. What he has become. What the Beholding has made of him. And he is unsurprised. He always knew deep down he was a monster."
And Jon stares with countless eyes, all glowing and green and seeing and splitting his skin, and he Knows this is not a vision from the Overlook. "He sees himself for what he is for perhaps the first time. And he recognizes himself. Knows himself. Statement ends."
He comes back to himself, blinking with too many eyes. His hands shake, but he feels better than he has in a long time. He hates that fact, feels a sense of revulsion at the way it proves he is a monstrous thing. Taking a deep breath, he walks out of the hotel.
He'll be back later. Of that, he is certain.