Work Text
Hello, Jon.
I’d apologize for the deception, but none was really necessary, was it? You’ll read anything that’s put in front of you, these days.
And I would say that I hope this letter finds you well, but there’s no “hope” involved; I know exactly how and where it will find you. After all, I put you there.
Are you comfortable, in the mire of gluttony and indulgence you’ve found yourself sunk into? You certainly look as if you are. Enjoying yourself immensely, I imagine. No matter how much guilt you might feel about it, or disgust, or self-loathing. Those are really just vestigial emotions at this point, aren’t they? Stunted, rudimentary things, wholly dwarfed by the great bloated mass that is
pleasure
.
What I’m about to tell you really ought not to be news to you, at this point. You’ve always had a knack for the more active gifts the Beholding bestows, rather than the passive ones, but really, Jon, Knowing is as simple as it gets. A child could do it. The
assistants
pick it up, for Heaven’s sake. It’s just like a muscle, it won’t grow if you don’t exercise it, and while I certainly understand that exercise is a bit beyond you these days, I know that curiosity isn’t.
Haven’t you wondered? Haven’t you wanted to know? Hasn’t the resentment built sufficiently to spur you on?
Of course, it’s entirely possible I’m just wasting ink and you’re already fully aware of what I’ve done to you. It isn’t as if you could confront me, your mouth being otherwise occupied. Given how powerful you are by now, and how exquisitely well-fed I’m keeping you, it would take almost no effort at all to discover on your own everything I’m about to lay out for you.
But, since you seem to take such delight in disappointing me, I imagine that this will be a nice little treat.
You simply must understand that I had no choice, Jon. Obviously I didn’t want to do this to you, or to myself; obviously I would have preferred to keep my direction…much more subtle, allowed you to come into knowledge and association and all the various scars you needed to pick up, literal and metaphorical, in a far more organic manner. That was the original plan, that was one of the reasons why I chose you as my Archivist after the debacle that was Gertrude Robinson. I really did have faith in you, you know. Unfortunately, it seems a great deal of it was misplaced.
Things were going
so
well up until after Jane Prentiss’ siege on the Institute, weren’t they? The incident itself went off without a hitch, but everything that followed it, and everything leading up to it…good god, Jon, what a mess. Frankly, it all blurs together, doesn’t it? The discovery of the unfortunate Ms. Robinson’s body, the machinations of the Stranger within and without the Institute, the way the knowledge of the fact your predecessor had been murdered interacted with the symptoms of the very clear PTSD you declined to seek treatment for, Jurgen Leitner’s presence in the tunnels and his rather half-hearted attempts to make contact with you -
(Yes, Jurgen Leitner. You just missed him. Did you know that? Isn’t it a delicious morsel? I can nearly hear you stifling a belch.
It’s rather reminiscent of custard, on my tongue. How does it taste to you?)
It was really all getting to be too much. Oh, don’t misunderstand me, I had no objection whatsoever to most of it. Your growing paranoia. Your distance from the other employees of the Institute, even those within your own department, was in fact quite useful to me. It’s simply that you were getting more and more erratic, making worse and worse decisions. The potential of you hurting yourself worse than you already had, or bringing harm upon the Institute…well, further harm. Derailing everything and forcing me to start over from scratch, something I’ve had to do far too many times already. It was just too great.
I do hate to repeat myself, but you left me no choice, Jon. No options for yourself other than to be handled.
This may come as a shock to you, but I serve only one god, and that is the Eye, not the Spider. I can’t be expected to manage you to
that
extent, not with everything else that was going on at the time. I needed you to be easier to control. To be weaker, at least for the moment, so I could mark you as you needed to be in a…more controlled environment than those you were currently inhabiting. To have far less time and energy to spend on all of that plotting and scheming and sneaking around I’m sure you thought was very clever.
To be
tame
, in other words.
Nasty, feral little thing you were, really. You must admit I’ve gentled you down considerably, much more than I expected to be able to. I wasn’t entirely certain at the beginning just how successful I’d be, but I knew exactly how I was going to do it.
That said: I did not expect it to be nearly as easy as it was. I barely had to do anything; it might’ve even happened on its own, albeit much more slowly. After all, you were already gaining weight, weren’t you?
It’s a natural process for those who have received the blessings of the Dread Powers. A transition from ordinary human metabolic processes to a phobivorous diet. I’m afraid the metaphysics are beyond me, but it happens quickly. As we feed, so is our god fed. And being that the Eye feeds on information, on narratives, on
knowing
, avatars such as you and I have a much easier time of it than those who belong to more discerning Entities.
Obviously.
I’ve managed to strike a rather healthy balance between functionality and indulgence over the years, one that clearly pleases the Watcher - and one that did not come easily, mind you, I left one or two very large vessels behind. But you, Jon, my…you’ve really let yourself go, haven’t you?
Of course you have. It was plain from the get-go you had no self-control whatsoever. Part of the reason I chose you, truth be told, although I certainly couldn’t have predicted just how well it would wind up serving me.
But I’m getting ahead of myself. I do apologize.
You had such a backlog, when you took over the Archives. Thank Gertrude’s dereliction of duty for the veritable buffet you sat yourself down at. Working such long days, recording one statement after another, poring over the information and research that your assistants brought you. Glutting yourself on it. Do you know how many nights I watched you
waddle
out of here, stuffed to the gills on other people’s tragedy and horror? And you didn’t even know what it was that was bloating you so. Worried you, didn’t it?
You could’ve gone to a doctor. They wouldn’t have been able to help you, but you could’ve. But you were so very single minded, wedded to the job…which, of course, just exacerbated the problem.
Your curiosity and greed did you no favors, either. Taking files home with you? Tsk, tsk, Jon. Surely you know what a bad habit it is, snacking before bed. Makes the pounds just pile on.
You’d already plumped up quite nicely by the time Jane Prentiss came along. I’ll admit I didn’t notice, being busy with an awful lot of other things, but I did take a look back, and…it looked good on you, you know. That small belly, just barely beginning to strain the buttons on those cardigans you were so unbelievably fond of, the little love handles, the slacks you were beginning to outgrow but kept stubbornly wearing. You were far too thin before. Probably would have grown even thinner if you weren’t getting your nutrition from alternative sources.
(I won’t mention the seam you burst during the worms’ incursion. No need to kick you while you’re down, is there? Although you really should have known better than to crouch.)
I know it troubled you after, the way that you were
still
gaining weight even though you were barely eating. Barely felt the need to eat. But you had bigger things to worry about than the number on the scale…high as that was climbing.
That was what made it simple to trap you. I just gave you everything you wanted to know. Or, well, a decent chunk, at least. Most of what Leitner would have told you, certainly, so you ought to thank me for that; you wouldn’t have liked him.
You didn’t even question who might have left those files on your desk, or why. Just sat down, and gorged yourself utterly stupid. At which point it was hardly any effort at all to turn on the tape player I’d also left in your office.
Poor thing. So full you couldn’t get up, no matter how hard you tried. Just too heavy, weren’t you? Couldn’t do anything but sit there, helpless, and let me feed you. And whimper.
You’re ever so good at that, you know.
I doubt you were in any shape to notice, so you probably don’t remember, but after that tape ended (one of Gertrude’s, answered a few more of the questions I knew you had), I came in. You were breathtaking, Jon, truly a monument to that old chestnut: “Curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back.” I took the liberty of soothing your pain a little, letting you sleep.
Delightful, the way a belly filled with nothing but information can still slosh, isn’t it? You’re intimately well-acquainted with it by now.
You didn’t leave the Institute much after that. Too full, most nights. Just slept in your office. And then there came a day when you didn’t leave at all.
Did you realize, when it happened, that that was the last time you were going back to your flat? I wonder.
It was quite a simple thing to see to, in the end. Just turn on another tape (or two, or three…) every time you got a little too - mobile. Keep you too full to walk very far, too full to think. Let everything come to you, as it should be.
I really couldn’t have done it without your assistants. They helped me keep you nice and round, grow you nice and rounder. Honestly, you probably have “NotSasha” all by herself to thank for a few stone; she overfed you out of malice, but still. A shame we had to lose her, but I’m hardly running a sanctuary for wayward monsters. Tim and Martin still did an excellent job of tending to your gluttony, even if they didn’t exactly know what they were doing…and then, sadly, just Martin. Tim is missed, but I can tell you with surety he felt no regrets. Neither do I. Of the two of them, it turns out Martin is actually the better assistant under these circumstances - who could ever have predicted that?
You probably know by now how he felt about you, even while you were being so heartlessly cruel to him and calling it “constructive criticism.” Perhaps you’re feeling some sort of hope, so allow me to dash it. You’ll find no help from that quarter. There were some growing pains, if you’ll permit me yet another joke at your expense, but despite some initial hesitation, he’s come to quite enjoy the new you. Volunteered to become your primary caretaker, in fact…never mind that the position would have been his regardless, since I do regrettably have duties beyond catering to your massive appetite.
You owe so very much to some truly serendipitous psychosexual fixations on his part, Jon. It’s not the average librarian, promoted to archival assistant or otherwise, who sets so enthusiastically to rubbing an overburdened gut the size of yours.
I do hope you won’t resent me (any more than you already do, at least) if I tell you just how very much I’ve also enjoyed watching you fatten up. Oh, certainly there’s a sort of vindictive satisfaction after all your various difficulties and disappointments, but it’s more than that. I’ll admit to some vicariousness, watching you stuff yourself, a paeon to the sort of gluttony that I can no longer allow myself. But even the act itself of your rapid growth, watching your thighs spread, your face become chubbier and chubbier, your breasts develop, watching you outgrow clothes almost faster than poor Martin could get you into them and watching you hit one milestone after another - ecstasy. To be perfectly plain. Even without Knowing, I can practically hear the churn and groan of your belly almost anywhere in the Institute, and it brings me such joy, the knowledge my Archivist is so very well taken care of.
Do you recall the first time you broke a chair? I remember it very fondly. How pathetic you were, trapped on the floor, too sodden with stories to even think of getting up…how Martin fussed over you. His proclivities really should have been obvious to you then, Jon, but you never were terribly observant when it came to your assistants.
Don’t you dare try to pretend you didn’t get any enjoyment out of it yourself. Remember that I Know these things.
Oh, yes, I can practically hear you moaning. I have no doubt you’d be utterly insufferable if you took any time between statements anymore.
Oh, no, I don’t like this at all, Elias, you evil, cunning bastard. It’s sickening, it’s disgusting, I hate myself. I didn’t want to. I didn’t mean to. You made me. Please stop.
Do you really want me to?
Perhaps some of the pleasure is involuntary. You can’t control the cravings of your body or your unconscious mind, something I’ve been forced to grudgingly admit in recent decades. And maybe you did resent it. To begin with.
But I’ve made a habit of watching you, Jon. Watching and Watching. You might glower, you might moan, you might sulk and pout, but I’ve seen the rest of it, too. The way you pant and beg Martin ever so sweetly - no wonder he likes you better now. The way you hum to yourself after finishing a particularly juicy statement, the way you savor the, well, savory notes of the Flesh, the brine of the Lonely, the Desolation’s smoke. The way you touch your belly when you think that you’re alone, taking great handfuls of the rolls and squeezing.
You know, you can quit, if you really want to. I’ll release you, tell you how to get the Eye to let you go, and you can walk away. Well, not
walk,
not right away, but the weight will go quickly once you’re no longer a phobivore, and I’ll choose someone else. Someone easier. It’d be in my best interests, too.
Go ahead, give it some thought. I’ll wait.
Well?
…no. I didn’t think so.
Good boy.
You are coming along ever so nicely, Jon. I couldn’t be more pleased with your progress; the Eye is practically purring, something I’d assume you could feel yourself if not for how late of a bloomer you tend to be with things like that.
I think you’ll be very happy to hear that a time is fast approaching when you’ll never need to stop eating at all, when you won’t have to rely on Martin or myself for information to feed upon. There will very soon come a day when everything in Creation - Fear, avatar, ordinary human being - is just as much of a slave to that greedy gut as you are yourself. Nothing will escape your gluttony.
Just imagine your ultimate size.
That excited you. I know it did. There is no use pretending you are not the creature of base consumption I have made you, Jon. That you allowed me to make you.
But I’ll leave it at that. After all, you do need
some
material for future meals, don’t you? I can hardly have you wasting away on me.
And I don’t want you to pop right now.
I do hope all of this functions to whet that growing appetite. There’ll be another letter soon, you can look forward to that. I must confess to some curiosity of my own, regarding how big you can get before things…coalesce, we shall say. It isn’t as if you’re human anymore, after all, and it isn’t as if it will affect my ultimate goal.
I think you’ll find quite soon that the pupil of the Eye has no need to move.
Regards,
Jona
Jam
*
Elias Bouchard
* P.S. Look into
that
, why don’t you.
Eat your heart out.