bakerstreet | picture prompt meme;

One could say John is a bit twitchy around mental institutions. They're spooky, he'll tell you. Right creepy, and that's the end of it. No other bloody reason, sod off for asking. He'll only bother with the things-- inevitably haunted, because Christ Almighty is a Wes Craven fan-- for the right price. Or, inevitably, the life of a child, stolen away into the darkness of its ill-lit halls. When he sees some doddering fool at the entrance, babbling into a tape recorder-- hasn't seen one of those in a while-- he elbows him aside. "Professionals only, mate."

He takes out a piece of paper with a crudely drawn penis on it, and wiggles the fingers of his other hand in an arcane gesture. Hypnosis is symbol, and the paper should look like a badge-- making a member of the police.

Lower level hypnosis is a reliable spell. Works on anyone who isn't already, you know, possessed.

"Missing person case'n all. Let us do our work."

He takes another puff of his cigarette, and slides the paper back into the folds of his trench coat.

Edited (i've heard this is a writing hobby.) 2020-03-28 19:36 (UTC)

He's completed the statement, more or less. Working on supplementals after the fact is a necessity when 'out in the field,' as it were, and Jon would rather organise his thoughts immediately before losing any one of them. The subject - person, he has to continuously remind himself, academia is not a very empathetic field - was kind enough to share their experience and gave him some leads to follow, another attachment to another ritual, hopefully something that won't conclude with another dead end.

So engaged in his work he barely feels the prickle of alertness before an elbow checks his arm. Jon spins, frowning, rounding on a discount door-to-door salesman in a heavy coat and disheveled suit. The tape recorder continues to run unabated, and Jon's eye twitches at the intrusion.

Truly, very little more abhorrent than interruption mid-sentence.

He glances down at whatever was just shoved in his face and feels- an odd tingle, like a pushing at the edges of his mind. Similar to the push he enacts when retrieving statements, the expansion when he reads an old one from the archives, the Knowing. It's blurry, that thing in his face, a flicker of something it wants to be before it no longer is, and Jon stares at a slip of paper with a cock, crudely drawn in pencil. He raises an eyebrow in immediate suspicion.

"...is this a joke?"

"Life's a joke, ennit. Didn't know you were a philosopher." John shrugs, and pulls out a flashlight, idly testing the batteries the way one inspects a snake that might decide to bite. "Place's off limits to the public. Expect a full statement-" His fingers wiggle, again in a strangely syncopated movement- "Never. Go home and watch Gogglebox, hear they've got an old bint with twelve cats on tonight."

There it is again, that pressure. Something that tries to winnow into the edges of his thoughts, a strong suggestion that immediately has him straighten in place, conscious of similar sensations he's felt before. Jon barely hears the man's words - all of it garbage - when all he can think about is the power. It's a compulsion he can easily avoid but the mere presence of it alone has his skin prickling, reminding him of the entities and their servants.

"No."

He says firmly, suddenly stiff. Any humour he had left, not that Jon had much to begin with, is flushed away. When he starts reaching back it pours off the man in waves: depression, self-loathing, trauma. So much trauma. Jon fixes him with a hard look.

"What are you?"

What the hell kind of question is that? And is his hypnosis not working? John grunts, and straightens his posture a little. He needs a smoke, and finds one in the folds of his coat, lighting it with a lighter.

"Scouse," he says, dryly. "Guessing this don't do much." He moves his fingers again, this time more slowly, more obviously.

Jon startles back half a step when a palm lifts, wary and tense when fingers wiggle deliberately. Stronger now, with more emphasis and the accompaniment of an obvious hand gesture. There's intent there and he doesn't like it, though the casual delivery is violently dissimilar from any other avatar who has attempted to crush something in him with one of their abilities.

Jon's jaw tightens and he speaks through clenched teeth, reaching. Looking.

"Let me ask you again. W͚̮̝̭̰̥h̛͓̠̼̞͚̼̱a̩͇͎̮̦͔̭͡t͏̗͇ ̲̭̤̹̣̱̕a͍͈r̟̤͔̪͚e̩ ̗̻̦̗̼̬̤y̧̰̗͔̥̯̩o̬ṵ̱?̩̞̭"

It feels like something reached inside his head, and scooped out everything from his balls to his brains. His mouth opens against his will, and words are pulled out in the shape of fish hooks against his throat.

"Human." And then his hands are on the other man, bunched into fists full of his shirt. John isn't much of a fighter, conventionally speaking, but he's a damn good scrapper when motivated, and right about now, he's livid. "What in the bloody fuck are you?"

Somewhere in the midst of this, he's lost his cigarette.

It isn't something he outright likes to do unless he feels threatened but whatever all that was is clearly a concern, something to avoid or engage with caution. What Jon often forgets is that people tend to react negatively to being encouraged with his watching, and it surprises him when two fists get handful of his jumper, crushing into him, pressing him into one of the columns outside the asylum. Sandstone thuds against Jon's spine and he swallows hard, not much of a fighter in his own right.

Fuck.

"Human." He gasps, even if the word feels like a lie on his tongue. "But I'm not the one trying to pass a piece of paper off as- what were you trying to make me see? A badge?"

John relents, slightly. He was young and almost this stupid, once. Using compulsion spells on bloody anyone, Christ. Lucky he's not dead, this one. His hands find new homes, deep in his pockets, and he stares daggers at the space just to the left of the other man's head.

"What's in there," he says, slow and deliberate, "ain't for regular folk. Trying not to get you bloody killed, I was. Damn tempted to shove you in arse first, now."

Anger is safer to hold onto, but the slight shake of his hand as he lights another cigarette betrays another emotion.

It's funnier still that he just accepts it, releasing Jon's jumper, leaving him be. Still furious in some way, and it was a gross overstep of privacy, but tit for tat. Jon needed to know after feeling a compulsion pushing at his mind, fighting the desire he has to See everything.

"I know it isn't for regular folk, that's why I'm here." Comes the defencive response, and Jon begins patting his own jacket down, looking for something. He pulls a crumpled pack of Silk Cut out of his satchel and exchanges it for the tape recorder, the red light of which is still on.

Jamming a cigarette into the corner of his mouth, Jon fumbles his lighter and takes a heavy drag, exhaling smoke and feeling his own spine even out again, mind no longer swimming. His thumbnail scratches at the paper packaging.

"Are you one of them?" A pause, scrutiny in his brow again. "An- avatar?"

John considers that, and does some brief mental calculations. "You're either into some real new age tosh," John murmurs, "or you've been reading the Magnus diaries."

Most people think their archive is crap. John is hesitant to rule out anything he can't see for himself, and in twenty years of trying, he's never been able to break into the place. If anything stands for its potential truth, it's that.

Jon is in the process of relaxing when he nearly inhales his damn cigarette, fixing the man opposite him with a stare more critical and wide-eyed than before. It takes all of his waning patience and self-restraint to not pull the information from him immediately, to not Ask over asking.

He isn't an avatar, that much is certain, but where else has he found this information? A Leitner? An overzealous and oversharing victim?

"What do you know about Jonah Magnus?"

John shrugs. "He had some odd ideas about the occult. Thought you could bundle 'em all up into a sort of... astrology, like. Everything stems from a type of fear. Rubbish, if you ask me, but that's the thing about magic." He takes a puff from his cigarette. "Belief's what makes it work, not logic."

He looks the other man over. "Guessing you're a practitioner?"

Rubbish, if you ask me. Jon didn't, but the thought alone pulls a grim smile to the edges of his lips. It doesn't make sense, either which way: the man can do things, yet he isn't tied to an entity. He shows blatant disdain for them, and yet possesses some sort of power all his own that doesn't fit the characteristics of any that Jon knows.

"Not quite."

He wishes he could call himself a practitioner of magic, instead of someone who came into his abilities against his will and unaware. 'Magic' alone sounds like complete bollocks.

"At least, that isn't how it was pitched to me."

"Pyramid scheme? They'll always get'cha, mate." John considers it tit-for-tat, roughing up and hypnosis for compulsive speech. He turns his back to stoop by the door of the institution, an old, angry padlock holding it closed.

He could lockpick it, but it's mostly rust by now. With a sigh, he pulls a piece of paper out, and places it on the lock. Burning a pattern into it with his cigarette, he looks up at his companion.

"Got a name?" He says, and then, "or is it better if I don't know, eh." He coughs out a smoker's laugh.

Edited (wow, words.) 2020-03-30 18:52 (UTC)

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