Work Text:
London, England, 1826
The last thing Jon remembers is pressing his lips against Martin’s, holding him tightly with his arms wrapped around the back of his neck, one of Martin’s hands cradling the small of his back, and then the other hand plunges the knife into his chest. Martin’s cheeks are wet, but Jon gets one last glimpse of his face before his world goes dark and he can no longer See.
He wakes up, or at least he thinks he does, eventually. Jon gets the impression of soft blankets, pleasant warmth, and a wonderfully warm and soft body next to his. Happily, he drifts off to sleep again. It isn’t until a few hours later when his eyes blink open that he manages to string thoughts together into words.
Where is he? He isn’t anywhere he recognizes. The room is relatively dark, there’s enough heavy wooden furniture that any sounds are muffled and the air is still, and outside of the heavy, downy blanket it is cold . Light peeks out of curtains drawn on the other side of the room. All this, Jon can observe without moving more than his eyes.
Shifting just slightly to his other side, he can see the person sleeping beside him, though without more light he can hardly make out details of their face. But blurry or not, he can make out enough that the little bit of him that hoped this was Martin shriveled up and died. It was replaced with pure, unadulterated fear when he realized it was a complete stranger, and then a sweep of unthinking mindless terror when the man’s eyes opened and he was pierced with the grey eyes that belonged to Elias .
Jon’s heart lurches, he makes a choked off noise but clamps a hand over his mouth before he can say anything stupid. He scrambles backwards onto the floor and quickly gets up and takes two large steps away from the bed without ever turning his back on him.
Things slot together quickly. There was no mistaking Elias’s eyes, of course, but they were in the head of a stranger. His name was never really Elias. When Jon looks at the bewildered, sleepy man sitting up in the bed, he suddenly recognizes the rest of his face from the various portraits of the Institute’s founder hanging on the walls.
“Jon? Are you alright?” the man asks, with a tender, caring voice Jon is positive he’s never heard before. Jon flinches, drawing his arms in defensively.
“You’re Jonah Magnus,” Jon states.
“Yes, Jon, it’s me. Jonah. Did you have another nightmare?” His voice has genuine concern. Jon just stares at him, disturbed, frozen. “You’re awake, now, you’re safe. It’s just me. We’re at home, in bed. Everything is alright.”
“I– No– what ?” Jonah Magnus starts to get out of the bed, and Jon takes another quick step back as he notices the man is shirtless, though he does seem to be wearing full length trousers. “Y–you’re half undressed,” he says intelligently.
“You’ve got my shirt.” Jonah smiles coyly and gestures at him. Jon looks down and finds himself wearing a soft button-up shirt that’s slipping off one of his shoulders. Underneath it, he is wearing nothing. He makes some kind of embarrassed noise, examining the shirt, and Jonah crosses over to stand in front of him. He looks up only when Jonah’s hand is inches away, and it presses against his forehead.
“What are you doing?” Jon snaps, leaning away.
“I’m checking your temperature,” Jonah says. “You’re a bit warm. Are you feeling alright? Back with us in the real world?”
He checks again, he still remembers Martin, and killing Elias, and the apocalypse, and opening the door. He remembers his friends and how they all died. He does not remember Jonah Magnus in his original body, wearing his clothes, or getting into bed with him, or where they are . It’s somewhere he’s never seen before. He doesn’t Know. The only thing he does Know, which the Eye seems alright with sharing, is that this is the real Jonah Magnus. The fact that he feels the Eye still, and can seemingly access its knowledge and powers, comforts him somewhat. He’s gotten used to being able to defend himself, for once. If his connection to the Eye felt cold and lifeless, he would feel vulnerable and afraid. Unless Martin was with him. Then it would be okay.
But Martin’s not here. He only has an overly familiar Jonah Magnus standing close in front of him, eyes flickering around, examining him. He, himself, looks oddly vulnerable. His eyes aren’t as piercing, he looks younger, he’s smaller than Elias was. He doesn’t tower over Jon anymore. His face has naked concern for him. It reminds him of how Martin looks at him.
“I– I’m alright,” Jon says, and Jonah’s shoulders visibly untense. “Very vivid nightmares, like you said. Could you keep telling me about where we are, to, to ground me back in reality?”
Jonah smiles fondly. “Of course. Come sit in bed with me, then.” He gently tugs Jon back into the bed, a tall, four-postered oak framed bed. Jonah leans over the side and strikes a match, lighting a candle next to the bed. The firelight flickers but provides enough light to make out Jonah’s face. Jon cautiously follows. Jonah holds up the covers while he crawls underneath, secretly glad to be back under the warmth. His bare legs and his feet were cold from the wooden floor. Jonah arranges the arrangement of blankets over them both as he settles in, finally putting his arm around Jon’s shoulders. It all feels completely normal. Odd.
“Let’s see. We’re in London, in England, in my bedroom, the year is 1826, the current king is King George IV.” Jon suppresses his initial reaction to learning the current year, and keeps himself carefully still against Jonah’s side, even leaning closer. “My name is Jonah Magnus, I am the head of the Magnus Institute, which I founded. Your name is Jonathan Magnus, you were one of its first employees, and you helped arrange our organizational system, do you remember?”
Jon hadn’t heard anything after the name Jonathan Magnus . “My last name is– it’s– Magnus? But surely we’re not– oh–” he breaks off as he looks down at his hands and notices a simple, elegant silver band around his left ring finger. Panicked, he grabs Jonah Magnus’s left hand and finds a thicker golden ring to match his. Jonah is smiling. He takes back his hand and gingerly tucks Jon’s hair behind his ear. “But we– well, it’s not exactly legal for us to get married, is it?”
He thinks that if it’s really 1826, then same-sex relationships were illegal and could result in jail time. There’s no way that a wealthy white man of status would marry a brown South Asian person besides that; also likely illegal. He wonders how the Jon from this timeline wound up here.
Jonah laughs, a quiet, rolling sound. “We didn’t exactly invite the king to the ceremony, Jon.” He doesn’t want to be married to Jonah Magnus, he thinks petulantly. “Can you tell me what you remember, love?”
Martin called him love . Hearing it in a stranger’s voice makes him feel ill. He shakes his head. “I remember who I am. I remember who you are. I don’t– I don’t know where we are or how I got here.”
“I think I’d better call in a doctor.” Jonah slides out of bed and slides the thick grey curtains open, letting in early morning sunlight. He’s shrugging on a robe and is out through the door, closing it behind himself, before Jon can gather himself to protest.
Is he wrong? Is what he remembered an illusion, the nightmare world he created just a false memory, or a real nightmare? What proof does he have? Jon searches over his body for answers. He hardly has any scars, which makes his stomach do a concerned flip, but he pulls the shirt up and searches for marks he remembers. The most prominent one is the one he’s not technically ever seen before: the white gash where Martin plunged the knife into his chest. He breathes a hefty sigh of relief. There was proof his memories were real.
Jonah, he– he's won, he's gotten a world where he can conjure whatever reality he prefers. This is the world according to Jonah's making, isn't it? He brought his old body back and he brought Jon into his bed. Their plan to stop him failed.
~
Jon’s been trying to act as though everything is normal, aside from the amnesia he was diagnosed with by Dr. Jonathan Fanshawe. He’d only barely held back from grabbing Dr. Fanshawe’s shoulders, shaking him, and yelling at him to run away from Jonah while he still could. He thinks he stamped that down and schooled his reaction fast enough. It’s often more suspicious to know something than to not know something, so he’s also been playing dumb a bit.
Nothing he tries can prevent the way he flinches any time Jonah gets too close to him, or when Jon feels him rifling through his thoughts or feels the presence of the Beholding. He tries to contain himself. Jonah doesn’t need to know that Jon’s afraid of him, or that he already has a strong connection to the eye, or that he is aware of Jonah’s supernatural abilities. He’s much less practiced and more obvious about it than Elias had ever been. Compared to the Jonah Magnus he knew this one is, somehow, much less threatening. Jon finally had the upper hand, and he had it thoroughly. (Unless Jonah was lying.)
The issue: Jonah always notices when Jon flinches or tenses or acts nervous. He can probably taste his fear rolling off of him, if Jonah is that far along in his avatar stages. But what comes over his face is always a look of genuine worry, with just the slightest bit of hurt, until Jon saw it enough times to recognize some betrayal in Jonah’s eyes as well. Jon gets apologetic, and they both carefully avoid physical or eye contact.
Jonah takes lots and lots of notes on Jon, who has to be even more careful about his words and what he gives away. He was very invested in figuring out the cause of Jon’s amnesia, and what exactly he remembered, and what he didn’t. Amnesia is an easy thing to pretend when nothing around is even remotely familiar to what Jon knew before.
“So you don’t remember me, Jon?” Jonah asks. Jon shakes his head, no. “But you knew my name?”
“I… I knew you were Jonah Magnus. But I don’t remember being with you, or what my life was like before you,” Jon says. If he sticks just barely adjacent to the truth, the lies will be easier to keep track of. But he’d better not make himself sound suspicious. “I also recognized some of your other friends. Perhaps I can only recognize people I used to know, but I can’t conjure up any memories of them.”
Jonah shakes his head. “No, you didn’t recognize them, you recognized their names. But me, you knew the second you saw my face. Now isn’t that romantic?” He smiles and takes Jon’s hands, stroking them with his thumbs. “But perhaps it’s not. If you do remember me, you clearly don’t remember me as your husband, or your hero, or your lover. You remember me as someone you’re deathly afraid of. I’d like to figure out why.”
Jon takes his hands away and takes a step back. “Could it be that I’ve heard of your reputation? Or that you’re an… intimidating figure, in the academic world, and…”
“You’re not one to be intimidated, love.” His eyes soften. “Please, tell me the truth: why do I terrify you so? Why am I the villain in your memory?”
Jon was at a loss for words. He was scared of Jonah Magnus because he knew that he became Elias Bouchard, who essentially tortured him for years and years, but he was scared of Elias because secretly, he was Jonah Magnus. What is Jon supposed to do when the real villain of his life, his enemy, Jonah Magnus who ended the world and used Jon to do it, was a wildly tolerable man? Jon enjoys his company, somehow. As long as he doesn’t make any sudden or threatening movements. And as long as he’s not lying.
“Jon? Why are you afraid of me ?”
“I– I– I don’t know!” Jon blurts out. “I don’t– I feel like I have to be.”
Jonah smiles wearily. “That sounded very honest. Thank you, Jon.” Jon realizes that Jonah must have used some compulsion in the question. “I theorize that your instinctual and emotional responses have not vanished with your memories.”
“Alright, so then what you’re saying is… I’m instinctively afraid of you.” Jon narrows his eyes. Jonah’s smile drops; he eagerly waits for Jon to finish, and he crosses his arms over his chest.“ You know exactly why I would feel that way about you. And I think you’re glad that I can’t remember.”
He chuckles, preparing to dismiss the concept and continue lying to Jon.“I wanted to be sure about the extent of your remaining memories, that’s all.”
"No. What did you do , Jonah?"
Jonah's eyes go wide as saucers and he brings a hand to his mouth. Jon realizes immediately what he's done and what he's revealed he can do. He freezes. "Oh, my," Jonah says, breathless. He's clearly fighting the compulsion, but in the end he gives a sharp gasp. "I never intended for your amnesia, but now it seems I accomplished my ultimate goal after all."
Because Jonah isn't done Answering, Jon can't move or even take his eyes off of him. Jonah relaxes into the compulsion, comes closer and brushes Jon's hair away from his face, and traces his thumb below one of Jon's eyes. Jon twitches.
"You used to love me, Jon. Very much. You were my closest confidant, a man I trust more than anyone in the world. You were the only one who understood my quest for all the knowledge of the world, and you embarked on that quest with me. We discovered the Beholding together– I can see by the look on your face that you still remember the Beholding. That's good. Has it been whispering to you yet, Jon? Can you feel it now inside of your mind?"
"Yes, I can." Shit, compulsion again. Jon needs to get used to not being the only one imbued with the Eye.
Jonah smiles, self-satisfied, with the expression of a proud artist looking down on their work. Jon thinks rapidly and tries to formulate a response that doesn't reveal the actual truth.
"You… you performed some sort of ritual with me. To… connect me to the Beholding?"
"More or less," Jonah says. Jon raises an eyebrow.
"And knowing you, I'm guessing that you failed to explain the requirements of the ritual beforehand, and I'm guessing that it was something I objected to. Is that what happened ?" Jon layers compulsion into his voice again, more than Jonah could probably resist at his stage.
Jonah answers promptly, "Yes. I offered you up and sacrificed you to my God. Now I believe It lives inside of you, along with all the knowledge and power in the world. I’ll also admit, I really am quite ecstatic my husband is still alive."
Jon wrenches his eyes away to look at the ground. The first thing he feels is outrage; on behalf of the Jon of this universe, who had married Jonah Magnus, been manipulated by him, and in the end, was essentially killed by him. He Knew that Jon was gone forever now, replaced utterly by a strange doppelganger who was an extremely powerful vessel of fear, the linchpin of the apocalypse, and was from the distant future from a different timeline. He was really no better than the thing that killed Sasha, trying to deceive the old Jon's family and friends (perhaps just Jonah) into thinking nothing was different. Jonah would expect Jon to struggle with the Eye's powers just as he did the first time, but now Jon was so practiced with his abilities that faking difficulty would be a struggle in itself. Perhaps his ritual to stuff the entire Beholding into Jon's body worked, and had summoned a Jon that was already the embodiment of the Eye. A Jon who had nowhere else to go.
"I expect it will take some time before things clear up and settle inside your head. That's why I believe your memory is so selective now, though I'm still flattered that you remember me of all things. There's simply too much knowledge to sift through, and I know that you're frightened of it now, but it will get easier with time. You've become something so much more than yourself."
Jon finds it laughable that Jonah is attempting to do his manipulative speech offering help and obscuring the truth, when Jon knows so much more than him now, and he knows more about Jonah and the world of the entities than he would for hundreds of years. Jonah, making a fool of himself, and never knowing it.
Well, he'd wondered why this timeline's Jon would be afraid of Jonah. Jonah had killed him. It made sense. But now-Jon had very little to fear save from the extent of his power being discovered.
Jonah holds out his arms and offers an embrace. Jon doesn’t know what to do in response, but the slightest lean forward sends him near enough for Jonah to draw him in close.
~
A few days later Jon wakes up and the first thought he thinks that day is, The only reasonable course of action now is to kill Magnus before he can hurt anyone.
Then Jonah rolls over, kisses the top of Jon’s head, and gets up to go fetch their breakfast. He opens the bedroom door, and the smell of eggs and bacon is already wafting in from the kitchen. He prefers his servants to stay out of his private bedroom, so he reappears a moment later carrying the trayful of food himself and placing it before Jon. It becomes incredibly difficult to contemplate murder in soft morning light with such perfectly made toast.
It wasn’t the Beholding which made him think like that, but he was hearing things which sounded like the Beholding was trying to tell him things. He heard faintly the day before,
Thomas Jefferson has just passed away
. The paper this morning confirmed it. Since then, he’s heard other little factoids, especially when Jon concentrates on a question he feels the Beholding would have answers to. Usually his questions are about the era’s technology and how to use everyday objects.
It very casually drops,
Martin was found alone and taken to a charity hospital. He’s still unconscious.