[Lyall tilts his head to one side slightly, a wry look on his face. At the very least, it is no longer a measured look.]
I think you know that I'm not one for yelling.
[He has, in fact, never raised his voice the entire time they have lived together. Lyall can be commanding or brusque on very specific occasions. In a very intense situation he might bark an order. But on the whole he is a quiet man.]
But you are correct. I do find it upsetting. [After a moment, though, he sighs.] And worrisome. I understand the why, I think. But I do wish you hadn't taken this course of action.
[Elias had certainly presented it as no other alternatives beyond just leaving Agnes to rot in prison.]
I'd already- He said he'd let her out if I gave him the Institute and the Archives... and me with them. I turned him down. This time, he just-he just wanted me, and he let me put in stipulations. Protections.
[It sounds, Lyall thinks, exactly like Elias has been playing a long game. Wearing Jon down with a completely unacceptable offer to a lesser evil. He also does not think Jon needs that pointed out to him.]
We will have to figure out a recourse if he does not keep to those stipulations.
[He assumes Jon will not simply break the agreement in that case, not if it means Agnes returning to jail.]
He murdered Gertrude when she was planning to do it. It would hurt me... but it might hurt him, as well. We're both servants of the Eye. That much destruction of what belongs to it is going to be painful.
[Lyall considers that, head cocked to the side slightly. He doesn't....know the measure of Elias' character, except for what Jon has told him. Is he the type of man to be daunted by pain? Or would it only make him angrier, more resolute.]
It does seem like an extreme action to take. A bit more consideration might be necessary.
[In short: thought before action. And speaking, perhaps, of large and violent gestures....]
No. I expect he could kill Elias if he wanted to given the nature of his abilities that could render Elias human again, and his immunity to the Beholding. I don't think it wise to kill Elias. Not when when Tim is here. It might kill him, as well. Gertrude, too, come to think of it.
[It wasn't a question with any judgement actually attached to it. Lyall has kept information from Alessandro before by Jon's request and as long as he thinks it isn't going to come back to hurt his partner he does not necessarily mind doing it.
So. All he does is nod in acceptance.]
Yes, that is perfectly understandable. If collateral damage can be avoided, then it should be.
I'm not sure what he's going to actually do with the power. I think he likes to make me anxious more than actually do anything to me. [Jon grimaces, tone bitter.] I'm just a toy to him now. He got what he needed out of me back home.
I wish- God, I don't know. I almost wish he did have some use for me here. At least then I could... fight it?
Sometimes - in fact, I would argue very often - uncertainty can be more harmful then any sort of direct action.
[His own expression shifts to something faintly disapproving. Not of Jon, of course, which his next comment should make clear, as he agrees with his assessment.]
I wager that is exactly the circumstance he wishes to foster.
He's such a fucking bastard. He couldn't just get his ritual over with, you know? Oh, no. He had to monologue through me. He went over every detail, every point where he placed things just so that I'd get the scars or the power he needed me to. He made me read that out, experience that pleasure and satisfaction with him. I know exactly how he felt when he was writing that, planning everything.
[Lyall continues to look very unimpressed. It of course sounds...familiar, although Woosley was usually far more interested in physically harming him rather than dragging things out emotionally. He was not that cerebral a man. But he had had his moments...
Somewhat unconsciously, a small shiver runs through him but Lyall doesn't seem to notice it happen. He's focused on Jon and Jon's situation.]
He is, undoubtedly, an awful excuse for a person.
[...Well, "person" is debatable, but Lyall isn't going to call him anything else to Jon's face. Too aware of any implications there.]
He's just- he's a monster. He is everything that I never want to be. [So much of what Jon fears he might become if given enough time.] Everything he's ever done was because he's a selfish brat who didn't want to die or find himself at the mercy of the things he and his colleagues had studied.
[He looks up at Lyall again. He's never entirely sure how to feel about someone having more faith in him than Jon has in himself.]
Just because you can see the oncoming train doesn't mean you can get out of the way.
[Jon sighs and runs his fingers through his messy hair.]
I don't know. Martin said- I mean, I only had a taste of what it was like after the change. I don't know what I'll become in a world where- in a world that was meant for something like me. Elias... he said I'd get used to it.
[Lyall has no idea if he is retreading ground that someone else has already visited when debating this with Jon, but he forges ahead just the same.]
There is a difference between what one feels and what one does. [This truly is the discussion from Aziraphale's salon, or at least part of one that Lyall had.] I highly doubt there is a person in the world that hasn't had a thought or impulse that was upsetting to them. What matters is the action.
There's always a choice in my world. It's just not always obvious or both alternatives might be unpalatable, but it's still a choice.
[He wraps his arms around himself.]
Helen Richardson was a woman who came to the Institute to give me her Statement. This was before I knew what I was doing to people when I listened to their stories. She'd encountered a strange man with a yellow door. He'd trapped her in endless, impossible corridors after making her step through the door. She'd somehow managed to find her way out, to get to me, looking for help.
I knew who she was talking about. What she was talking about. The Distortion. It was calling itself Michael and wearing the body of a man who was once named Michael Shelley. It had helped us with another avatar invading the Institute. But I had its victim. Ms. Richardson left and Michael turned up a moment later. I tried to tell him I wouldn't let him hurt Ms. Richardson, but... she was already gone. She'd left, you see? Through a yellow door.
I never saw her again. Not her, but a few months later, Michael made a mistake. He'd come to take me from someone else who'd kidnapped me so he could feed me to his corridors. It was a selfish desire, born from the hatred Michael Shelley still had toward the Archivist, toward my predecessor, Gertrude Robinson. He'd been her assistant and she sacrificed Michael Shelley to stop the Spiral from completing its apocalypse ritual. She'd bound the Distortion into a human form. Michael, but not Michael Shelley.
[Jon draws in a breath.]
The Spiral had larger plans for me, I suppose. Michael's revenge distracted him and he lost control. And then... Helen appeared. Not Helen Richardson; though, it was wearing her body. The Distortion had chosen a new host. She was a new avatar like I was, confused, worried, still human enough to want to rescue me because Helen Richardson had liked Jonathan Sims.
She helped me and from that point on I-I rejected her-it... whatever the Distortion is. Every time she tried to reach out to me, to talk about what had happened to her, what she was having to do now, I just turned her away. I was scared and angry. That thing was wearing her face.
She didn't have anyone else. So, she stopped caring. She made the choice, said it was easier, freeing. If I'd just- [He shakes his head.] Most avatars don't have what I did, people who gave me a reason to keep trying to be human. Without that, without them... I probably would have been like her, like Elias.
I could still become that, just enjoy enjoying it.
[Yes, alright, choices exist in all worlds. Lyall amends his argument.]
Let us say, then, that you were manipulated into the choice and would not have chosen it otherwise.
[He believes, at least, that's true. But then Jon has his story to tell and Lyall listens quietly.
That was a choice, certainly. One he can see Jon making. (Not the best choice, of course, but it seems like Jon recognizes that.) At the end, he just nods.]
Yes, you could. Of course. But I don't think you will. Especially if you have, as you've pointed out, tethers to humanity.
[Jon's not so sure of that some days. The longer he spends as the Archivist, the harder it is to imagine how things could have ended any other way, even with forewarning. He'd had just been insatiably curious, anyway, the boy who followed to see what happened... exactly what his patron needed.]
Thank you. [A pause.] For being one of my tethers. I know this whole... pack thing was to help you out, but... [Jon rubs his face.] It helps. You're right.
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craftylikea) wrote2019-09-17 10:48 pm
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I think you know that I'm not one for yelling.
[He has, in fact, never raised his voice the entire time they have lived together. Lyall can be commanding or brusque on very specific occasions. In a very intense situation he might bark an order. But on the whole he is a quiet man.]
But you are correct. I do find it upsetting. [After a moment, though, he sighs.] And worrisome. I understand the why, I think. But I do wish you hadn't taken this course of action.
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[Elias had certainly presented it as no other alternatives beyond just leaving Agnes to rot in prison.]
I'd already- He said he'd let her out if I gave him the Institute and the Archives... and me with them. I turned him down. This time, he just-he just wanted me, and he let me put in stipulations. Protections.
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We will have to figure out a recourse if he does not keep to those stipulations.
[He assumes Jon will not simply break the agreement in that case, not if it means Agnes returning to jail.]
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[That would piss Elias off. It would also be virtually impossible for Jon to do and likely to be excruciatingly painful, regardless.]
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Would that put him off? It seems...unlikely.
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[Lyall considers that, head cocked to the side slightly. He doesn't....know the measure of Elias' character, except for what Jon has told him. Is he the type of man to be daunted by pain? Or would it only make him angrier, more resolute.]
It does seem like an extreme action to take. A bit more consideration might be necessary.
[In short: thought before action. And speaking, perhaps, of large and violent gestures....]
Are you planning to inform Alessandro?
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No. I expect he could kill Elias if he wanted to given the nature of his abilities that could render Elias human again, and his immunity to the Beholding. I don't think it wise to kill Elias. Not when when Tim is here. It might kill him, as well. Gertrude, too, come to think of it.
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So. All he does is nod in acceptance.]
Yes, that is perfectly understandable. If collateral damage can be avoided, then it should be.
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I'm not sure what he's going to actually do with the power. I think he likes to make me anxious more than actually do anything to me. [Jon grimaces, tone bitter.] I'm just a toy to him now. He got what he needed out of me back home.
I wish- God, I don't know. I almost wish he did have some use for me here. At least then I could... fight it?
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Sometimes - in fact, I would argue very often - uncertainty can be more harmful then any sort of direct action.
[His own expression shifts to something faintly disapproving. Not of Jon, of course, which his next comment should make clear, as he agrees with his assessment.]
I wager that is exactly the circumstance he wishes to foster.
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He's such a fucking bastard. He couldn't just get his ritual over with, you know? Oh, no. He had to monologue through me. He went over every detail, every point where he placed things just so that I'd get the scars or the power he needed me to. He made me read that out, experience that pleasure and satisfaction with him. I know exactly how he felt when he was writing that, planning everything.
It's- revolting.
cw: abuse reference
Somewhat unconsciously, a small shiver runs through him but Lyall doesn't seem to notice it happen. He's focused on Jon and Jon's situation.]
He is, undoubtedly, an awful excuse for a person.
[...Well, "person" is debatable, but Lyall isn't going to call him anything else to Jon's face. Too aware of any implications there.]
cw: abuse reference
He stopped being a person a long time ago.
[If Lyall is too polite to say it, Jon isn't.]
He's just- he's a monster. He is everything that I never want to be. [So much of what Jon fears he might become if given enough time.] Everything he's ever done was because he's a selfish brat who didn't want to die or find himself at the mercy of the things he and his colleagues had studied.
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There's actually a faint look of pride on his face, though, at the rest of it.]
I think the fact that you recognize that means you won't be like him.
[Lyall does not accept the idea of Jon as a monster. He simply does not.]
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Just because you can see the oncoming train doesn't mean you can get out of the way.
[Jon sighs and runs his fingers through his messy hair.]
I don't know. Martin said- I mean, I only had a taste of what it was like after the change. I don't know what I'll become in a world where- in a world that was meant for something like me. Elias... he said I'd get used to it.
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[As opposed to, say, actively working to manipulate Jon. Yes, that sounds very likely.]
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There is a difference between what one feels and what one does. [This truly is the discussion from Aziraphale's salon, or at least part of one that Lyall had.] I highly doubt there is a person in the world that hasn't had a thought or impulse that was upsetting to them. What matters is the action.
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Have I told you about Helen?
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[Come now, Jon.
But, he does look faintly curious at the question.]
I don't believe you have.
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[He wraps his arms around himself.]
Helen Richardson was a woman who came to the Institute to give me her Statement. This was before I knew what I was doing to people when I listened to their stories. She'd encountered a strange man with a yellow door. He'd trapped her in endless, impossible corridors after making her step through the door. She'd somehow managed to find her way out, to get to me, looking for help.
I knew who she was talking about. What she was talking about. The Distortion. It was calling itself Michael and wearing the body of a man who was once named Michael Shelley. It had helped us with another avatar invading the Institute. But I had its victim. Ms. Richardson left and Michael turned up a moment later. I tried to tell him I wouldn't let him hurt Ms. Richardson, but... she was already gone. She'd left, you see? Through a yellow door.
I never saw her again. Not her, but a few months later, Michael made a mistake. He'd come to take me from someone else who'd kidnapped me so he could feed me to his corridors. It was a selfish desire, born from the hatred Michael Shelley still had toward the Archivist, toward my predecessor, Gertrude Robinson. He'd been her assistant and she sacrificed Michael Shelley to stop the Spiral from completing its apocalypse ritual. She'd bound the Distortion into a human form. Michael, but not Michael Shelley.
[Jon draws in a breath.]
The Spiral had larger plans for me, I suppose. Michael's revenge distracted him and he lost control. And then... Helen appeared. Not Helen Richardson; though, it was wearing her body. The Distortion had chosen a new host. She was a new avatar like I was, confused, worried, still human enough to want to rescue me because Helen Richardson had liked Jonathan Sims.
She helped me and from that point on I-I rejected her-it... whatever the Distortion is. Every time she tried to reach out to me, to talk about what had happened to her, what she was having to do now, I just turned her away. I was scared and angry. That thing was wearing her face.
She didn't have anyone else. So, she stopped caring. She made the choice, said it was easier, freeing. If I'd just- [He shakes his head.] Most avatars don't have what I did, people who gave me a reason to keep trying to be human. Without that, without them... I probably would have been like her, like Elias.
I could still become that, just enjoy enjoying it.
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Let us say, then, that you were manipulated into the choice and would not have chosen it otherwise.
[He believes, at least, that's true. But then Jon has his story to tell and Lyall listens quietly.
That was a choice, certainly. One he can see Jon making. (Not the best choice, of course, but it seems like Jon recognizes that.) At the end, he just nods.]
Yes, you could. Of course. But I don't think you will. Especially if you have, as you've pointed out, tethers to humanity.
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Thank you. [A pause.] For being one of my tethers. I know this whole... pack thing was to help you out, but... [Jon rubs his face.] It helps. You're right.
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I'm very glad to hear that.
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