It took me a moment to get it this time. "Wait, do you mean, on me?"
"I can't trust anyone else."
Damn him if this didn't immediately crush whatever initial resistance to the idea I had.
And I still trusted him.
"Alright. Alright. So… do you mean, like, now?"
"There's no time to waste."
That much was true. I took in a deep breath, gathering my determination. "What do you need?"
"Let's sit down." He led me back to the loveseat. "I thought about something small and harmless, like invoking sleep on you."
I nodded, folding my hands on my knees. "Yeah, this would require some magic intervention, since I feel as awake as it gets right now. So. You would just tell me to sleep, and if it works, I will? Then you will have to wake me up in time to meet with the anti-closeters."
"Anti-closeters?"
"Well, the witches who want to 'walk out of the closet'. Tell the world about themselves. I didn't come with a better way to call them yet," I said. "I have to ask if they have any idea about this themselves."
JJ chuckled. "I see. Names are indeed very important in swaying public opinions. Don't worry, if this works, I won't let you oversleep, though I believe you will benefit from a nap. As for the mechanics… It's not about what I say, but about how. I found that it's actually even better if the person I address doesn't understand my words."
"That's different from the hypnosis I heard psychologists and such use. In stories, they always tell stuff like… follow the pendulum with your eyes, count to three and you will sleep, answer the questions, remember this or that…"
"These people, just like me, work with a person's mind, but they can only access it through the surface, through the senses. It's an ingenious technique, but it has a lot of limitations. A person has to be receptive to it in the first place, or made receptive with the help of certain substances. While I simply use my voice as a means to carry my power into your mind," At my surprised and impressed look, JJ smiled. "I studied what humans call traditional techniques of hypnosis as a part of perfecting my own abilities. I believe that perfection, or the closest one can come to achieving it, comes from studying object from all possible angles."
"It's just a surprise how much you know sometimes," I murmured, feeling a little sheepish. "I guess on some level it still doesn't register in my head that you are centuries older than you look. Hell, it's hard for me to imagine that Ghost is older than he looks. And to make it worse, he acts like he's half that, sometimes. I wonder if he's older than a century or younger."
"He's certainly… unique. Now, ma chèrie… Are you ready?"
I nodded. "Yes."
"Just relax," JJ advised. "If this works… it will be less uncomfortable if you just go along."
I closed my eyes and tried to, but it was hard. Even if I trusted JJ to not do anything harmful, the sheer not knowing how this will feel like was daunting. But nevertheless, I leaned back into the soft cushions and forced my muscles to soften. It was much harder to stop my mind from thinking tense thoughts, or to make the knot in my gut disappear.
It was a blessing that JJ didn't make me wait. He said something in French. I didn't understand words, but his tone was low and soothing. This magic voice caressed my ears, as it always did, but this time, I felt more behind him. I felt it pulling me after, sucking me in until even the words themselves disappeared, and there was nothing left but that voice.
This stunning, stunning voice. It made me feel warm and fuzzy inside to hear it so close to my soul, to feel the gentleness in it. There was another intent, too. The voice wanted me to do something. To sleep, I understood, with a clarity that wasn't connected to exchanging sounds with the help of flips of skin and muscles in and around our mouths.
I knew that the voice only wanted me good, and I didn't resist.
⠀⠀
I woke up in the same place I fell asleep, on the loveseat in what I had accepted as my room, if not the one I grew up in. My head was lying on JJ's shoulder, and my nose was filled with the floral scent of his shampoo. For one drowsy moment, I wondered when did I fall asleep. Then it all came back to me.
I jerked up and immediately regretted the rapid motion as my neck cried out in protest. Wincing, I rubbed at it. "What time is it?" was my first worried thought. But a single glance at my phone told me it was still only just past twelve.
JJ turned to me and looked closely into my face, as if inspecting it for the signs of trauma. "I was just going to wake you up. I hope you had a good nap. This was my intention, but I didn't put any other suggestions into your mind besides one to fall asleep. Do you feel fine?"
I rubbed at my eyes and tried to answer this question to myself. Besides the drowsiness that came right after a nap, I felt as well as usual, which it just what I told him. "It was much less… invasive, than I was afraid. Even nice, I'd say," I had to add, remembering that feeling of closeness that descended on me then.
He smiled with relief. "Then it really works. Astounding, and in a way, scary." He chuckled, looking at his hands. "To think I have a sort of power in me that lets me control even the all-powerful and feared arch-witches… This can make a man's head grow huge! Good thing that I have the threat of being hunted like a beast to keep me in check."