#*makes a thing*

"Not the whole time. And not the whole picture." Gerry admitted, sliding his hands into his pockets. He was almost shadow-like, framed by the smoky, foreboding sky. Somehow, even from so far away, the distant glow of the panopticon turned the roots of his hair green. "Just how much did you know? For how long?" Jon pressed, his panic starting to turn to anger. It was somehow even more frustrating that Gerry didn't look defensive, just accepting. Almost resigned. "Technically, I knew from the first moment we met. I've spent my whole adult life stopping rituals, and the Eye has always been very accurate in the knowledge it gave me to help with that. It showed me strengths, weaknesses, loopholes. So when I looked at you for the first time, and Knew that you were the one - the avatar I'd never defeat - I had to accept that." "I wasn't-" "Not yet, no. But you'd become the Archivist, you were already on your way, and I knew that. Before we met, I'd been planning to keep an eye on you. Wait and see if you'd have the same inclinations as Gertrude. But once we actually met, well. Beholding made it very clear there was nothing I could do to stop what was coming."

"So you didn't even try." Jon's throat was closing, a tremble running through his frame. He didn't know whether he wanted to cry or punch Gerry in the face.

"Oh, not so. This is me we're talking about, I figured if you were going to end the world, I might as well not make it easy for you." Gerry grinned his trademark easy grin, and Jon had never seen it fail to reach his eyes so spectacularly. "So I got to know you. Stuck around the institute, did my best to befriend you, to figure you out."

Jon had already experienced the whole world changing in the course of a few words, but it seemed like it was happening again, on a more devastatingly personal scale. Images of days past, of quietly shared laughter and hands being held and foreheads being kissed slid through his mind like the softest kind of carnivorous brainworm.

"So you lied." his voice had gone flat, dull. "That whole time, you just-"

"No!" Finally, Gerry's frustratingly stable expression cracked, his eyes wide and concerned. "Not the whole time! I just... My intentions weren't so great at the start, that's true. But the thing about pretending to get to know someone is that you actually end up getting to know them. And, well... Sometimes the heart does funny things, I guess." He'd pulled his hands out of his pockets, and now he scratched at the tattoos on his knuckles, a nervous habit that he only ever did when he was struggling to articulate a painful truth. "I lied, in the beginning. But I never lied when I said I cared. Or when I said I loved you. By then, I was lost. I didn't care anymore about what you were destined to be."

Jon swayed on his feet - or was that the worm-filled earth gently shifting under them? Almost against his will, he tipped forward, until he was slumped against Gerry's chest in a familiar position. Large warm arms enveloped him, and against all odds, Jon's trembling began to lessen.

"How?" he whispered.

"Hm?" Gerry hummed, his face buried in Jon's hair.

"How can you overlook something like that enough to..." He couldn't fully articulate the question, couldn't make his leaden tongue work. He felt even more choked as he heard Gerry's soft laugh, rumbling through his chest like a distant storm.

"The world was kind of screwed anyway, right? Even if people like me were there to stop every ritual, think about it. The Extinction was coming, slowly or quickly. Something was going to break. I figured, maybe this is it. Maybe humanity's pushed the bounds of nature too far, and we need to be damned, or else drown in our own oil and filth." He pressed a warm kiss to the top of Jon's head. "And if the one to make it happen was the man I loved, then so be it." His voice grew softer, gentle in the way that could soothe Jon to sleep, back when he still needed to sleep. "Welcome, apocalypse. I've been expecting you."

Guddo Naito!