Martin is at his desk. “Oh, hello!”

Lev kisses Martin quickly on the lips. "I love you."

(He is kind of sad that this is the only time he is going to get away with this. Next time Martin will know he's about to do something stupid.)

....!

Martin is just going to blush an absurd amount now. “I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do that?”

"This is true," he says. "I won't do it again."

He starts to leave, pauses, and then looks at Martin thoughtfully.

“...what.”

"Nothing," he says, and then disappears into the Archive before Martin can call him on it. 

Lev locks the door of the Archive, cracks his knuckles, and says, "Hello? Watchful Thing? I'd like to talk. If you care to say anything about, like, who you are, or what you're doing, or what you want, or what you're doing to me specifically, or what my crimson fate is, or anything else helpful, I would really appreciate it."

He takes out a notebook, opens it to a clean page, and puts the pen in his left hand. "I'm going to start with automatic writing because it seems the most aesthetically appropriate although if you want to communicate in, like, ominous Latin chanting or blood dripping from the walls that's fine too." He lets his eyes glaze over and attempts to adopt a trancelike brain state empty of thought, which is kind of difficult because Lev's brain has never been empty of thought in its life.

He feels watched! Nothing else happens!

He pulls out the Oujia board and sets it up and then waits expectantly.

There’s someone there, his brain screams at him. He’s being watched. 

Nothing else happens. 

He's guessing that a similar thing will happen when he opens the Tarot deck, says "if you're influencing this please make the first card be Two of Pentacles and the next three indicate the past, present, and future," shuffles it, and draws, but it is important to try all your ideas.

The door swings open. 

“Really, Lev,” a familiar voice says, “you could have just asked.”

Ack.

This was not at all in his expected space of outcomes. 

He should probably come up with some sort of convincing lie-- if he were Asher he'd be halfway through convincing Elias he was extraordinarily superstitious and read Tarot at every job he'd ever worked-- but lying has never been his strong suit and instead he is left blinking like an idiot. 

“Now. Both you and I will likely end up in more danger if I tell you all the information I have, instead of letting you figure it out organically. Not to mention that—well. The Watchful Thing, as you call it, likes curiosity. Discovery. Seeing how far people will go for the sake of knowledge. It doesn’t like, mm... an intervention that gives you easy answers, all wrapped up in a bow. 

As for what it wants—it wants you to be the Archivist. To gather stories and to learn from them. To seek out more knowledge.”

Lev knows that real life is not the same thing as fiction, but he can't help thinking great, my horror fantasy novel life has acquired a wise and inexplicably cryptic old mentor, and it turns out I want to throw them off a cliff just as much in real life.

"........I feel like literally nothing you have done in the history of my employment at the Archive has led me to believe that it would be useful to ask you things."

“And I feel like nothing you’ve seen here led you to believe it would be a good idea to do what you’re doing, either, and yet here you are. —Though you needn’t worry, Hasbro doesn’t sell anything actually paranormal.”

"Well, maybe if you didn't nonconsensually expose me to mind control that made me more curious we wouldn't have these problems!"

“Lev. We’re on the same side here, or at least I hope that we can be. I’m sorry I couldn’t better inform you of the risks of this job in advance without putting both of us in more danger, and I am genuinely trying to protect you now that you have it. I came here because I am hopeful that you might have some questions I can answer, or that I could otherwise be of help without further endangering one or both of us, because I want to help you.”

"...if you want me to avoid doing dangerous things you should probably tell me what's dangerous to do."

“The Watchful Thing rewards curiosity. It doesn’t want you to avoid things, and if I tell you things rather than letting you discover them there is every likelihood that you will be actively worse off for knowing. You serve it, now, and that’s some measure of protection, at least. The whole Institute serves it, really, though it’s most pronounced in the Archives. I’m also not omniscient, unfortunately; I can’t warn you about every unpleasantness the world has to offer.

I assume you’ve noticed the dreams? It doesn’t want me to intervene any more than it wants you to. It wants me to watch.

Don’t read any books from the library of Jurgen Leitner, don’t buy any antiques owned by Mikhaele Salesa. —Has he showed up in more than one of your statements yet? He will soon, if he hasn’t already.”

".......I knew you weren't a real research institute."

“Observant of you. Most people don’t notice, especially so quickly.”

"Well, I'm an ex-academic, most people aren't and also have kind of confused ideas about academia. --I don't think I've had any statements that mention Salesa."

“No? Well. Consider yourself warned, then. Might also be wise to check any of the statements involving artifacts for mentions of a tall Samoan man who deals in stolen goods. Some of our more interesting objects in Artefact Storage were owned by him.”