(no subject)

John may be putting too much faith in the internal consistency of Darrow's own patchwork history. There's no reason for any given book in the library's reference section to agree with the others, and odds seem decent that they won't. But he's always in pursuit of new lines of investigation, and his social media trawling has had diminishing returns for some time, now. Might be worth doing things the old-fashioned way, at least until it outright proves itself to be a useless venture.

After bumping into Luke back here, it really shouldn't surprise him to see anyone else. But it's been some time since he's seen Regan, and the circumstances were so unforgivably awkward — and so foreign, now, to the way things have become — that he can't help feeling as if he owes her an explanation. Or, if nothing else, an interaction that isn't bloody agonizing.

John lifts his hand to get her attention, then waves a little uncertainly. It's very possible that she'll want nothing to do with him, and he's not going to foist his company on a bloody teenage girl. But there's no harm in a 'hello,' probably.

The wave catches her attention as planned, but when she sees John, she finds herself freezing. God, the last time they'd talked had been so awkward. She can't believe he actually wants to talk to her again. He must've thought she'd seen him and didn't want to be rude.

Well, now she doesn't want to be rude. She waves back, a tight smile on her face. She tries to think of something to say, some polite thing to ask, so at the very least she doesn't seem like some rude teenager. Greta doesn't need to hear about it, and she doesn't need to start doubting herself as a parental figure, either.

She looks guiltily at the shelves, and decides to give up on her search for now. She probably shouldn't fixate on these things, anyway. Maybe talking to John will be a good thing.

"Hey," she greets properly. Can he still understand her? "It's... been awhile." Ugh, she's so awkward.

His ability to understand ASL remains distinctly weird. With the spoken or written word, the translation always feels a little more seamless, to the point where he barely notices it unless he concentrates. This is different; the understanding is still clear enough, but the signing itself is too novel to be easily glossed over, and he watches her hands closely before lifting his gaze back to her face.

At which point he realizes a response is in order. "Oh, er..." he holds up a finger before digging out his phone. Christ, it'd be useful if the Beholding allowed him to sign back with any fluency. But taking information in is more intuitive than conveying it, and he suspects any means of conveyance would be... uncomfortable, for whoever was on the receiving end. At any rate, now is not the time for experimentation, and Regan would hardly be an acceptable guinea pig either way.

He taps at his screen for a few moments, then holds it forward a bit cautiously.

It has. I'm sorry things were awkward last time.

It isn't his place to apologize on Martin's behalf, but he knows he hadn't helped matters much, and he can certainly apologize for that. He gives her a few seconds to read, then pulls the phone back to type a bit more.

I hope you've been all right.

It's still strange to her that he can understand her, but not answer her. She steps closer so she can read the screen without squinting, and waits for his second message before answering.

"It wasn't really anyone's fault, I guess," she answers, though she still blames herself. That second part, though...

She is alright, technically. But things have been... So weird. She wants, desperately, to talk to someone who hasn't been involved. She wants to talk about Richie, and going to Jamie's home, and how she still has trouble sleeping because she's afraid she'll find herself back there, surrounded by those creatures.

She could talk to Greta — and has — but there are some parts she can't bring herself to share. She doesn't want to scare her.

"...I'm okay," she says, because she is, even if it doesn't always feel like it. "You? And Martin, have you guys been okay?"

Regan's initial response is... diplomatic, and John would have a hard time suppressing a snort if he didn't still feel guilty about it all. His chief concern is that Regan not blame herself: there would have been no driving Martin back towards the Lonely if he hadn't already been working with Peter in the first place, and that all predates their arrival here. It's not her fault that she happens to come from a world that so tidily encapsulates a fear that may or may not exist back home.

But that's getting into the weeds. A more efficient means of reassurance might be just answering her question, and John nods quickly, a hapless but genuine smile flitting across his features.

We're doing well, thank you. He taps his thumb against the edge of his phone's case before concluding that she isn't a child, and that he might as well elaborate. We're together.

He turns the screen towards her a bit sheepishly, cheeks prickling in a faint blush.

She doesn't know what to say about that when she sees it. They're together. It... makes sense, she supposes. They'd seemed awkward and tense the last time she'd been around them, but there'd been that sort of energy between them. Why he's blushing is another question, but she doesn't want to make it awkward by asking.

"Good," she says instead. She seems to remember suddenly that they're in a library, and she blinks and looks at John. "What brings you here? Don't you have, like, a whole archive at your disposal?"

John blinks at her question, then snorts. A proper explanation will take some typing, but he doesn't want to blow her off because communicating is inconvenient. Even if he didn't have some rather deeply rooted opinions about the sharing of information, not making the effort would still feel asinine.

Still, he holds up one finger to indicate that this might take a moment before turning his attention back to his phone. When he next shows it to her, there's a proper paragraph.

Most of the files given to us by the city are rubbish, at least in terms of clear or useful information. Even if they weren't, they only pertain to immigrants such as ourselves, not the city itself. Everything we know about the city, we've had to research ourselves. Bit of a wild goose chase, as even "official" sources tend to disagree with one another. You could say I'm attempting to cross-reference.

Once she's read it, he gestures a bit sardonically to the stacks they're both stood in. His hopes aren't what you could call high.

She makes a face as she reads that, and nods understandingly at his gesture. "I guess I'm here for that, too. I'm trying to find out if this place has any information on that weird sleep thing I put everyone through." She hesitates to add that she wants information on the creatures, too, because she doesn't know how much Martin's told John about them.

It's a sensible enough approach, though John isn't sure how much success she'll have here. The books he's read that are specific to Darrow's history or ostensible peculiarities are occasionally bewildering but predominantly dull. They may be rife with internal inconsistencies, but they rarely touch on anything truly bizarre or supernatural. John's online research has been more productive on that front.

You may have more luck online. Or at the Archive, for that matter.

He shows her the screen with a small, wry smile, before adding: Darrow doesn't readily admit to its own oddities.

She's ready to ask if he'd be okay with her using the Archive for that, but then he's pulling his phone back and typing something out. She reads the new message, then rolls her eyes with a wry smile of her own.

"I guess it wouldn't. It's a little creepy, like that." She hesitates, then says, "Would... I be allowed to look at stuff in the Archive? Is it... I guess 'public'?" She feels dumb for asking, but she knows that, at the library, at least, everything she'd find would be public information, something she'd be allowed to access and use. Is the Archive the same?

Considering that he just offered The Archive, he can hardly claim to be surprised that she's asking. The question does give him pause, though, as he considers how best to answer, and the actual substance of what they might ethically provide.

The files are straightforward enough: they already have policies in place that limit access, but given how inexplicable the contents tend to be, it's no great loss. It also goes without saying that she shouldn't be reading Statements, which is a little less fortunate from a purely academic standpoint. First-person accounts might be the most salient information available regarding Darrow's shared dreaming phenomenon, presuming that's her only area of focus.

But he also has his own research, a growing collection of files and notes on things both rumored and substantiated. Even leaving the Statements out of it, there might be something there that would interest her.

You could certainly look at some of what we've collected. The personal files we store on the city's behalf are confidential; you're only welcome to view your own. But I've been amassing my own research, and you might find some of it useful.

Was it just the shared dreaming you were curious about?

Privately, he thinks the greatest wealth of information might lie in conferring with the other people she dragged along for the ride. But he can also understand why she wouldn't be terribly keen to ask them. Christ knows that when he shares a nightmare with anyone but Martin, the last thing he wants to do upon waking is track his victim down and compare notes.

She hesitates before answering, and maybe that's all the answer John needs to know that, no, she wants to know about more than just that. She wants to know if she's safe from the creatures, here, or if she'll somehow accidentally bring them to the city, somehow. If John and Martin are from the same place, if Richie and Eddie and the rest of the Losers are from the same place, then that means it's possible for other people from her own home to show up. Does that include the creatures? Is John capable of knowing that?

Does she want him to know about it?

She makes a little face, then shrugs. "It's... I think that's enough for now, anyway. I just want to feel like I can sleep again, without worrying about waking up somewhere I don't belong... again."

John nods, then snorts, soft and without humor. Ideally, he'd like to provide some reassurance. But that wouldn't feel particularly honest, not here.

I think the last thing Darrow aims to be is predictable.

He considers Regan for a beat or two, unable to shake the feeling that there are things she's not saying, information that is being withheld. Whether it's pertinent or merely personal is harder to judge, but he's not about to start interrogating her via text.

Instead, he tries: Do you want to go to the Archive now?

She reads the message, then nods. "Actually, yeah. It... wouldn't be a bother, would it? To go right now?"

Technically, it's John's job, and she'd be stepping into his place of work, potentially getting in his way and disrupting him or his colleagues.

On second thought, maybe she shouldn't. It's not his problem, and she can always come back to the library later. She doesn't want to bother him, or any of his coworkers, and she's already been enough of a bother.

She's always a fucking bother.

"Nevermind," she says at that thought. "I'll just... hang here." She turns back towards the shelves, tucking her lips between her teeth to stop them trembling.

He's halfway through typing out a bland but sincere reassurance when Regan cuts him off with an abrupt about-face. John frowns, bewildered; he might be able to imagine several reasons why Regan might want to postpone her visit, but it's not as if any were indicated. The library isn't likely to offer her anything more helpful than what she'd find at the Archive, regardless.

But the thing about wondering why is that he often gets an answer, and his frown deepens. Christ knows why she's convinced that she's a bother — from what he knows of Greta, he'd like to think it's not an attitude she's running into at home — but it's not the case now. He may not be effusively welcoming, but he's also a poor liar. If any of this were truly bothersome, he wouldn't have made the offer, or he would have framed it as a later-date thing to begin with.

John sighs, then sets his phone on the shelf, freeing both his hands. He doesn't know ASL as well as Martin does (or did, at any rate), but the sign for 'bother' was distinct: a sort of chopping motion. He meets her eyes, then shakes his head before carefully mimicking the sign. It's a little slapdash, but he presumes the meaning is clear: No bother.

She watches him, eyes going a little pink where the tears are trying to well. No bother, he argues, using her own language like it's important she understands. It makes her chin tremble and she looks down. She doesn't sniffle, or sob. It's still too instinctive to stay quiet, even after all this time. But she swallows hard, and she looks at him and nods.

"Okay," she answers. It's hard not to believe him when he says it like that.

Besides, she feels like he'd be a terrible liar. He's too awkward to be anything but honest.

Oh, Christ — is she about to cry? Regan ducks her head, but not before John sees her chin wobble, and he hastily averts his gaze, putting undue focus into retrieving his phone. He might be able to handle Martin when he's upset, or even Luke, but a teenage girl is well outside his wheelhouse. And that's even if you discount the troubling optics of a young girl bursting into tears over something a tall, heavily-scarred adult man has said or done to her (which he rather doubts any witnesses would be so graciously inclined to do).

But Regan recovers herself, quick and silent in a manner he realizes must be borne of ample practice. No room for hysterics in a world where any audible sobbing would only attract a pack of hungry monsters. A sympathetic wince briefly flickers across his face, but this isn't the place for that, either. She's asked for research assistance, not his pity.

So he waits for her to look back up at him and respond, and then he inclines his own head towards the door, his eyebrows lifted in a nonverbal 'shall we, then?' before he starts to head for the exit.

Once they're outside, the sunlight and fresh air making everything feel a little less fraught, he lifts his phone again before realizing he doesn't quite know what to say. Small talk has never been his forte, and he's wary of inadvertently setting her off again (or, more likely, just embarrassing himself or her — or both). Martin, he thinks, would ask her if she was all right. But Martin would know how to comfort her if the answer was 'no.'

Everything is a little better in the sunlight. She takes a breath and uses her sleeve to wipe her eyes, then looks over at John, putting on a brave face. She gently taps his shoulder with one hand, lifting the other in a fist against her chest. Sorry. She's apologizing for making it awkward.

Because she had made it awkward. John doesn't want to deal with some kid having a stupid crisis. He'd approached her out of politeness, and she'd made things weird. But she's fine, now, and the least she can do is apologize to him.

"I'm okay," she adds. "Things have... just been weird. Obviously," she scoffs.

John studiously avoids watching her as she wipes at her eyes, figuring that might spare her a little embarrassment, but he glances down when she taps his arm. The apology is a little too familiar — how many times have Martin and he volleyed needless mea culpas back and forth, all for the dreaded crime of experiencing an inconvenient emotion? — but before he can address it, her explanation piques his interest.

Things in Darrow are often weird, and it doesn't all fall within the Archivist's — or, indeed, the Archive's — purview. But that doesn't mean he isn't curious. And if the idea of being a bother is such a concern to her, perhaps his curiosity isn't something he needs to stifle.

He frowns down at his phone as he types, then shows her the screen.

You have nothing to apologize for.

Do you want to talk about it?

She does. Of course she does. All she's wanted is to talk about it since she's got here, but every time she tries, she feels herself clenching up. She doesn't want to overwhelm people, or scare them, or make them feel like she's a burden — or worse, a freak. So she gives them the bare minimum. Richie knows a lot, because he'd gone to that weird dream thing and even died in it. And that's another thing, isn't it? This place dragged her and her closest friends to the fearscape that is her life back home, and then brought them back like it was nothing at all. How is that fair? How is that okay?

Greta knows most of it, too, but the horror in her eyes as she learned more and more was enough for Regan to slowly stop — not because she thinks Greta can't handle it, but because she doesn't want her to have to.

It's hard enough raising a magical child. It's hard enough learning ASL so she can communicate with a Deaf girl who's just sort of decided to live with her. She doesn't need to worry about the Deaf girl's sanity, too.

So, of course she wants to talk about it. She wants to tell John everything. She wants to talk about her parents, about Beau, about Marcus. She wants to talk about the dream thing, that threw into sharp relief the fact that Regan is a freak.

That's why she gives him a tight, wan smile and shakes her head.

"No, it's okay," she says. "I'm okay."

It's probably just as well that she can't hear the dubious huff of air he expels in response to her second attempted brush-off, which is no more convincing than the first. He isn't unsympathetic. He hasn't forgotten his own teenage years, and while he imagines his own recollections of being a pain in the arse are more reality-based than Regan's current perceptions of herself, he's certainly familiar with the general headspace. Add to that the fact that he's already gathered a Statement from Martin regarding the situation in her home universe, and it all paints a rather ironic picture: Regan demurring, repeatedly and quite possibly to her own detriment, to spare him some horrible knowledge that's already in his possession.

Another ostensible perk to their lopsided communication is that it ought to preclude him being blunt, but he'd have to sit down and pull out his laptop to communicate with any real nuance. Besides, something short and to the point might be more effective. So he lifts his phone again, typing for only a few moments before angling the screen her way and giving her a pointed look.

No, you're not.

There's a puff to his cheeks and lips that's quick, and probably a Hearing person wouldn't even have noticed it. But Regan relies on facial cues and body language to communicate, even with Hearing people, so she sees it, even if she can't hear it.

It puts her on the defensive, immediately, and so when he types out a message, she's already ready for a fight. She expects the message to be dismissive: that he'll answer her with sarcasm and call her out for being whiny or childish or dramatic. Or, worse, that he'll have a pitying response and tell her to go home to Greta.

So when she sees the message, it makes her balk, just a little. She has to read it more than once before she actually understands the words she's seeing.

He really doesn't mind. She's not being a bother, by talking to him about any of this. If she were, he'd have brushed her off by now, sent her on her way, and forgotten about the entire exchange. But every turn, he's made it clear that she's valid and welcome, and, sure, it's not that Greta never did any of that, but Regan hadn't wanted to give her any more to deal with than she already has. She doesn't have those same qualms with John.

Her next breath in is shaky, but she shakes her head.

"No, I'm not," she confirms.

It would be a bit cruel to say that he's satisfied by the admission, as if there's no better way he might spend an afternoon than by bullying a teenager into confessing her own trauma. But it's been a long time since he traded in convenient fictions, and he has no interest in the ones Regan might cook up. If she didn't want to talk with him at all, that would be one thing. But it's clear that something has been gnawing at her for some time, and it's a relief to see her admit it plainly.

He spends a few more seconds typing. Martin told me some of what happened in your shared nightmare. I wouldn't expect anyone to be 'okay' after that.

'Some of' is a little disingenuous; Martin had given him as complete a recounting as the Eye could draw from him. But Martin's perspective was still just his own, and the time he'd spent in Regan's world had been relatively brief no matter how you measure it. Christ knows what other horror stories she might have, ones that have nothing to do with last year's events.

She looks ashamed at the mention of it, like it could, in any way, be her fault. But she doesn't start crying again, at least. Instead, she lifts her hands.

"It wasn't just a nightmare. That's where I came from. That's how I lived. For almost two years, with these monsters that hunt every single sound you make."

John frowns a little, though not in overt horror so much as just thought. He'd gathered as much from Martin's Statement, already; it's not as if he was under the impression that Regan had invented the scenario into which she'd dragged them all. But there are still plenty of details he didn't, couldn't get from Martin — enough so that the idea of getting them from a more direct source is still... well, it would be ghoulish to say it was appealing, but the draw is still there.

They've reached the Archive, at least, and John pushes the door open and cants his head in invitation. Once they're inside, he opens his bag and pulls out his laptop, setting it on Kat's unoccupied desk so he can open a fresh document and begin to type.

The stories I've been compiling tend to be horrifying, to varying degrees. I don't say this to minimize what you've been through, but to assure you that I am difficult to shock. I wouldn't recommend that you give a Statement, but if you want to talk about it off the record... you could say that I'm a professional listener.

He shifts the laptop towards her so she can read it, then shrugs once it looks as if she's finished.

He types significantly faster on his laptop than on his phone, so Regan doesn't have to wait very long before he's showing her the screen. She reads it over, then again a little more slowly. She looks at John with a small, nervous frown furrowing her brows.

"Okay. Yes." She hesitates, then adds, "Is it... It's just you and me, right? Nobody else is gonna sit in, or something?"

John notes her concern, and starts to reach for the keyboard again before hesitating. The immediate, obvious answer is 'yes' — it's not as if any other people will be joining them, and John doesn't intend to translate aloud onto a tape or anything. There won't be anything for anyone to overhear. Hell, even if Martin were to sit in, John's gathered that his grasp of ASL has slipped enough that much of what Regan might have to say would probably be missed.

But he is also too entangled with the Eye to fully trust the idea that he can keep its gaze turned away simply by denying it the little ritual of a Statement. Insisting that it is just the two of them feels a little like a lie by omission.

John sucks on his teeth for a moment, considering, then leans back over the laptop.

More or less. I suppose I should start by telling you a little more about where Martin and I come from, but we should probably sit, first. Do you want tea or anything?

She has no idea what 'more or less' is supposed to mean, but the way he looks before and as he types makes her think the answer isn't as simple as 'there's a camera' or something. She frowns a little as she reads it, then nods.

"Sure," she says. "Tea's fine." She's used to it now, from Greta, but she also isn't sure she wants to ask for something like coffee (or if he'll even let her have any, if she were to), or soda, or something. No need to be any more of an imposition than she already is.