revivalproject | [open] Of all the stories he ate...

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[open] Of all the stories he ate...

WHO: Jon & you
WHERE: Library and around
WHAT: Jon deals with the loss of his powers, being screamed at by the moon and- Vampires?
WHEN: During the storm
WARNINGS: Eyes? Vampires
NOTES: TMA vampires are mute and can neither speak nor scream. They communicate telepathically and burn very well.

A - An eye can't see inside itself... Or can it?

The first thing Jon notices is the slight tingling at the back of his mind. A sensation that isn't a new one anymore, but that doesn't make Jon dread it any less as he feels his connection to the Eye flicker and knowledge leaving him.

"Shit." The Archivist mutters as he makes his way to the main entrance of the library. Stepping outside he already dreads to look up, yet does so anyway. He can't help but feel somewhat relieved that what looks back down at him isn't a massive eye, but the moon's leering visage. Jon only scowls back up at it before pointing a chiding finger as well. "Don't you dare!"

But the moon dares. It screams and the Archivist chokes on his own distorted scream as the world around him shatters and reforms. The library opens hundreds of glitching eyes in all shapes, colors and sizes, some glowing, some distorted, some phasing in and out of existence altogether. And Jon sees out of every single one of them. He sees himself barely touching the ground that now also watches. He sees himself unable to do anything but watch himself watch breaking what reality surrounds him.

Anyone daring to approach will have countless eyes instantly focus on them.

B - Lost

The effect of the moon luckily is only temporary, which doesn't make the experience any less unpleasant. Between these bursts of his powers altering reality, Jon is left more or less shambling around, getting lost between bookshelves or the area around the library. He tries to focus. He tries to remember where he was going and what his intentions were for starting to walk. But he can't. He just can't remember and the distress he feels should be obvious in his muttering.

He is somewhere around the hotel when he spots the person. He tries to recognize them, but fails. It must be someone he knows, right? There aren't many people here, this much he can remember.

"Uh... Excuse me?" Jon tries to address the person and they only look at him, not making a single sound. Jon still nods as if he had been given a response and walks closer, relieved to have found someone that can help him. How could he possibly know that this person he is approaching is one of those vampires he has only learned about from the statements given by a self proclaimed vampire hunter.

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That Jon appeared to be just as unprepared for this result suggested that he did, in fact, intend to set a man on fire a moment ago, which had Tony making another vehement, inquisitive gesture at what the hell that was. Jon's question did provide him a hypothesis at least. While any damage that Tony had incurred was entirely superficial from trying to wrestle a weirdo, and he could dismiss, "Fine, always," he rocked forward on one hand to follow Jon as he sat back to touch the other hand to his collar, then his hair curiously, "You okay?" He had no idea what the not-vampire had been doing to Jon before he had shown up, it was entirely possible Jon had every reason to want to set him on fire. "I'm sorry, I should have known--I won't go anywhere, okay? If you need something, you tell me, we'll do it together. By the way, when we get back to your Earth, we're going to sort out this Vlad thing, I guarantee you he's real."

Tony's dismissive reply gets a little huff in response. Of course Tony is fine. Even with his mental capacities faulty Jon remains aware of this little habitual denial Tony tends to portray. Though he doesn't appear hurt from looking at him which is a relief.

Jon shrugs once and lets his shoulders drop before shaking his head. "Had it bitten me, I--" A pause accompanied by a deep frown. "They tear their victim's throats out before draining their blood." And that wound wouldn't have been one he could have survived in his current state. That said Jon lifts his eyes up to raise a single brow at Tony. "You mean- Vlad Tepes?" Common knowledge at least remains easier accessible as well.

Jon described a situation that Tony was not eager to wait here and intimately experience for himself when the guy re-materialized, so after a distant stare in which he was clearly experiencing that horror as intimately as one could on the information that he had, he tugged at Jon more insistently to help them both up to their feet. "Yeah, that one--see, it's weird that you know the details, he's got a misinformation campaign going on to keep you off his back, got everyone convinced he's a fairytale and I bet you he's been in that big, stupid castle this whole time," he said, all much easier to complain about than wondering any further about Jon bleeding out in the fog.

Tony won't find it hard to pull Jon back to his feet. The latter only wants to return to the library and certainly hopes Tony will be more able to find their way back than him. The words still bring a small frown to his face. "Not a fairytale. But he inspired a novel. Read it as a child but even then... It seemed foolish to me. Watched documentaries about the real person later."

Tony was not terribly confident about navigating through the fog, but didn't let that stop him from pulling Jon under his arm again to guide them purposefully out of the alley and...ahead. He'd figure out where they were eventually. In the meantime, he argued, because he knew how to do that very well with Jon no matter where they were, "And since then you've figured out that massive fear-monsters eat people and rip worlds apart, but the story about the guy who was definitely real, then suddenly wasn't real anymore, don't worry about it, that story is foolish?" Jon had definitely told him much less believable stories, against his will. "I'm starting to think maybe you do have a Captain America and an Iron Man and you spend too much time in basements thinking about spiders or whatever."

"...I read a comic about Spider Man when I was a child, but..." Jon muses, but not without an effort to keep his thoughts in line. Were it easier for him to think, he would have pointed out that he literally knew everything concerning his own universe for a good while, but Tony is lucky that this currently isn't the case.

But his own words raise a question for Jon and he looks over at Tony. "Do you have comics of yourself n your world?"

Tony was not going to be any help keeping any thoughts in line, already talking over Jon to complain, "Spiders, again, could have been anyone, had to be Spider-Man, you're very predictable. Is he actually a spider in your universe?" This was not something that Tony actually needed to know, and was more than happy to continue without giving Jon the chance to elaborate on the impression Spider-Man made on him when he didn't even know that Tony existed. "Of course I do. I'm very famous, kids love comics about the guys in tights. Did I not tell you that, the famous part? Maybe not god-king of my own apocalypse famous, but...There were some movies, too. And a soap opera. That one was--uh...too much fun. The actor who played me, we had more in common than the good looks. He ended up being my sponsor, later, recognized the same patterns in me when we were--enjoying ourselves. TV show was pretty good for me, in the end."

Jon walks along, not questioning the path Tony is taking them along but listening to his voice and nodding every once in a while as he tries his best to follow the answer mentally as well. Comics, movies, soap operas... He roughly remembers Billy mentioning some of these things as well.

He frowns lightly. "Being the god-king of your own apocalypse is not something you want..." That's a more dubious type of fame.

Maybe it was a little soon to tease Jon about it, and Tony did tense with some regret and an apology plucked at Jon's arm. That didn't stop him from continuing, "Of course not, come on, that would mean there was no one around to make incredibly flattering movies about me. What a waste." It was only kind of teasing when Tony asked, "That part must have been good for you, right? Everything to see, and no one to look at you."

"That is... Not quite correct. The Eye... Still watched everything. Especially me." But that has been something Jon had been well gotten used to by that time. "What bothered me.... Was that I enjoyed it." An admission. "The power. The domains. The suffering... It... Felt right." He has been a monster in its element. And he has been in charge of everything. He made the rules if he wanted to even though he himself had to suffer just as much as everyone else. It was a world made for him by him.

He shakes his head and peeks down at Tony's hand before brushing cautious fingers against it. "I... I wish there was a way... To have this power. Without having to feed on the misery of others." Which, again, is a remarkably clear thought to grasp even now when he can barely find his way back to the library.

They weren't really getting anywhere anyway, not that Tony could really discern through the fog--it all looked like crumbling walls rearing up out of the misty void, and Tony was without his maps and scans to orient them. It wasn't much of a loss then when he stopped at the touch of Jon's hand, drawing him back so Tony could step in front of him instead, taking him by the shoulders, then the hands before he thought Tony was ignoring them.

"Do you think you can stop people from being miserable?" he asked, and tightened his grip briefly to get Jon to focus for a second on the thought experiment, and not any argument about what that meant about Jon. "Does that, can that world exist, where no one is ever sad or scared, everyone's just blissed out of their minds, 24/7?" It was something Tony had thought about, if he could protect the world from everything that hurt it. He thought about it too much. He hadn't yet devised a way to make that viable. The conclusion seemed obvious enough to him that he continued, "So, if people are going to be miserable anyway, where else is all of that energy going to go? Pure efficiency. And you're not--I haven't seen you do, that thing you did before, to Tommy, you know--if you're still doing that, okay, that's kind of a different equation..." He didn't want to think Jon was sneaking around terrorizing people while he was asleep, but he also didn't think Jon would just set a guy on fire, so he wasn't running entirely up to date software.

A sudden stop and then Jon's mind is entirely on Tony's hands on his shoulders, then taking hold of his hands. Jon looks down for a moment, then back up. That world Tony describes... Wouldn't be terrible. And if a world can exist where everyone is constantly afraid, then... Why not this?

It's not a thought Jon speaks out loud since putting it into words feels like a challenge. A perfectly blissful world would require an entirely different type of ritual anyway...

In the end he shrugs once and shakes his head slowly. "I don't need that anymore... Uh... Hunting." That's the best way to describe it, isn't it.

It wasn't a word that Tony was eager to repeat, but after a brief hesitation he agreed, "Hunting." Having a word for it was something of an improvement over Tony's awkward rambling. Tony was trying to reframe the perspective so Jon didn't feel like some kind of predator, though, so he quickly continued, "So, listen--you're not doing that, it's not you making people miserable. You're just a perfectly balanced machine, my love. When people are hurting, they're scared, they're pumping out the fuel for you to help them with this gift of yours. When they're happy, when you're happy--it's just, we're putting on the coffee, there's not a microwave in sight and you've got all the time in the world to explain some--bug or whatever to me, how much are you thinking about this power?"

He didn't actually know the answer to that, so maybe he was going to regret asking and did look apologetic then for assuming it was a logical argument. Those were the brief times he wasn't thinking about everything that could possibly go wrong himself.

Jon listens and tries not to be too flustered by that little nickname. The angle Tony picked isn't without flaws. There are several flaws to it, in fact. But trying to think about them and lining them all up in his mind is not something that currently comes easy to Jon.

He would like for Tony's angle to be the correct one.

The following part proves to be difficult for Jon to follow and he blinks a few times while doing his best to Follow Tony's words that suddenly land on bugs and Jon opens his mouth to respond only to close it again after a moment. He tries again a moment later. "Wha-- Is... Is this about making coffee in a microwave again?"

The machine was not running very smoothly right now, so it might not have been the best time to ask it to examine its own mechanism. While Tony pursed his lips and gave an irritable sigh, he didn't offer an argument, only shifted his hold to thread one hand securely through Jon's and said, "Let's get you in a bath." Trying to logic out Jon's concerns wasn't going to be as effective or necessary as showing him that Tony was going to care for him regardless. Try, at least. The library couldn't have been far, Tony would find it eventually.

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[open] Of all the stories he ate...

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