Chapter Text
The time had come, and Jon was nervously pacing back and forth in his shitty flat. He half expected Basira to show up and kidnap him to force him to go to socialize. The thing was, he kinda wanted to go. He couldn’t admit it, ever, but he had been lonely. And his assistants, while not as fun as his bandmates, seemed decent enough company, if his short impressions of them were right. But of course, he couldn’t say that. He was partially hoping for Basira to actually go through with her threat and make him go against his will. It’s not like she’d never ‘kidnapped’ him before.
He heard his door opening, and knew before seeing who it was that it would be her. She often got into his flat, although she didn’t have a key from him. Whenever asked how she got in, she would just say ‘Nikola’, and that was that. At least Nikola knocked. Basira just came in and made herself at home.
“Hey, Ashes,”
The woman looked him dead in the eyes, “You know why I’m here, Jonny,”
“Y-yeah, about that-”
Before he could finish his complaint, she ran up to him and grabbed him, pulling him out of the flat and outside into her car, getting some weird looks from his neighbors (whom he never talked to).
He didn’t try very hard to fight her, letting her grab him and push him into the car.
“Never thought I’d hear Jonny d’Ville complaining about going to a bar,”
“Yeah, well, they’re just not the same after dying in one all alone, on some nameless backwater asteroid. Kinda kills the mood for a bit, I guess,”
“Yeah, I can see that happening,”
They sat in an only slightly awkward silence for about five minutes, before Basira broke the quiet. “But, really, why are you so against them knowing you have friends? I mean, I didn’t even see any pictures in your office, which was honestly kinda sad,”
“I…I just…I need them to take me seriously. I need them to, so that they do their jobs,”
“That’s…That’s not how it works, Jonny. That’s just a fucking awful way to look at it, Christ. They’ll still take you seriously if you smile every now and then,”
Jon sighed, “I know, I know, mutual respect, bonding, Georgie’s already given me the speech. But, you know, my way does work! They do their work! Well, except Tim, who does it 75% of the time, and Martin does his work but the quality isn’t great…but Sasha does excellent work! Honestly, she could’ve been head archivist,” the last part seems less directed at her and more at himself.
“Speaking of which- Why do I know nothing about these co-workers of yours? I mean, you’ve mentioned ‘Mah-tin” briefly, but that’s about it, and I am about to forcibly take you to drinks with them, so I should probably know more about them,”
“I do wonder if this is considered kidnapping-”
“Not important! Wait, better question: how did the Jonny d’Ville, the violent bastard, end up working in a dusty archive and dressing like…well, that,”
“I mean, Ashes O’Rielly, arsonist to a new level, works as a cop, so you can’t really be talking when it comes to weird jobs. Speaking of jobs, do you know where the others ended up working? I know the Toy Soldier’s with some circus, and I think I heard Marius is an actual doctor now, and Nastya’s an engineer, but other than those three, I don’t know,”
“Well, I hear Brian’s kept singing, and I think Tim mentioned a job as an…exterminator, I think?”
The silence rose again for the remaining few minutes of the drive, both preoccupied with their own thoughts (Jon with concerns about their destination, and Basira with curiosities about Jon’s coworkers and his weird aversion to them).
-----------------------------------------------------------------(%)------------------------------------------------------------------------
Martin was starting to worry that Tim was wrong, and that Jon wasn’t coming, when he walked in (read: was dragged) with Basira. Honestly, he was surprised Jon was even planning to come at all, though he had gotten the feeling from Tim that it wasn’t exactly Jon’s decision. Tim had texted the assistant group chat circa thirty minutes before they left, informing them of their boss’ attendance.
But, as it turns out, Tim was right. The elusive Jon Sims was joining them for drinks with that statement giver from earlier,…what was her name…B-something.
He looked like he had been physically forced to come here (which he was), frown on his face. Tim waved to the woman, and she pulled him over to where the assistants were sitting in a corner of the room.
“Hey, boss! Glad you showed up!”
Martin thought he heard Jon murmur that he couldn't say the same about himself. He chose to ignore it.
“I practically had to kidnap him to get him here, you’re welcome,” stated the woman (Basira? That was it!) with a completely straight face.
“Practically?” Jon’s appearance here made a lot more sense now. Basira must’ve dragged him here.
“Anyways! Jonny here never really talks about you guys, so I figured I had to meet you myself, since he wasn’t any help in telling me anything except Martin’s, sorry, mah-tins’ mediocre work. Who I assume is you?” She pointed to Martin.
“Ah- yes! That’s me…”
“I really do apologize for him,” she gestured to Jon, who looked very uncomfortable, “He means well, I think. He’s just…”
“Y-yeah, I know what you mean,” Martin smiled at her, and she decided that this man was the best person in the room for putting up with Jon’s bullshit.
“Hey, we’ve been wondering about something. Why do you call him Jonny?” Sasha spoke up.
“Oh!” Basira got a downright evil look on her face, “Because me and him-”
Jon covered her mouth as well as he could. “I am not having this conversation right now, I’m too sober,”
“No, no, continue! I wanna hear this!”
“Tim,” Sasha held him back from practically jumping out of his seat. She whispered something along the lines of ‘ask again when he’s had more to drink’.
Tim gave an exaggerated sigh. “This is our one chance to find out! C’mon, Sash, aren't you curious about his friends?”
“I’d also like to know, if you don’t mind?”
Jon dropped his head to the table, signaling that he was finished with this conversation. Martin glanced at him, concerned. There had been a rather loud thunk when he hit his head, which couldn’t have felt good.
“Is…is he okay?”
“Oh, yeah, he does that sometimes. I just ignore it, he’ll reset in a few minutes,” Basira rolled her eyes at the dramatics of her friend.
Sasha smiled. “Well, we might as well get some drinks while he resets,”
Jon’s head raised at these words. He may have wanted to die, but that didn’t mean he trusted any of the others to order a drink for him. Well, didn't trust most of them to, at least.
“Ah, welcome back to the land of the living, boss!”
“Ow, shit, I didn’t mean for that to hurt so much,” the man rubbed his head.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you curse, now that I think about it!” Martin observed, causing Basira to attempt (and fail) to contain a laugh.
“Really? Jonny, not cursing? Seriously, Jonny, you act like that much of a dickhead?”
“I’m not sure I’ve ever heard him curse either, I thought he just…didn’t,”
Sasha’s agreement was met with even more laughter from Basira. “Oh my god, this is gonna be fun!”
Jon felt his will to live crumble.
-----------------------------------------------------------------(%)------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sasha, being the designated driver, was having a great time watching…everything that was going on. Maybe not as much fun as Tim, who was laughing over a joke that was honestly not very funny.
Everyone (sans Sasha, of course) had had a little to drink by now, even Jon (reluctantly), and it showed. Tim found everything to be the funniest thing in the world, until he heard the next thing, which was inherently funnier to him. Martin had lost his normal nervous energy and was telling everyone interesting facts about tea, with Jon watching with a surprising amount of attention. Basira had handled the alcohol better than the others, and was sitting in the booth, phone camera on, recording a video of the aforementioned tea knowledge, occasionally zooming in on Jon’s rapt attention (though whether he was interested in the facts or the person speaking wasn’t clear).
“We should do this more often!” Tim grinned at the others, interrupting Martin.
See, usually when the assistants went out for drinks, they didn’t drink much. Usually, they didn’t want to feel like dropping dead in the morning, but today their boss had joined, and god dammit they were gonna make it count!
“Agered- Argeed- a- yeah,” Jon stumbled over the word, gave up on saying it, and smiled back at Tim.
“I didn’t know Jon had a personality!” Martin seemingly didn’t realize what he was saying, but Jon cackled.
Fucking cackled. Who knew he could do that?!
“Nice cackle, Jonny, almost on par with the Sleeping Beauty cackle,” Basira said, clapping.
“The sleeping beauty cackle? Was’sat?”
Jon would have stopped Basira from talking like earlier, if he was in the right, sober state of mind like he’d intended to be (for exactly this reason). Unfortunately/fortunately, he…wasn’t. And so there was no one to stop Basira as she pulled out her phone and started looking for a song.
Sasha got out her own phone, which she had been using to record the most interesting of events, such as Jon’s strong opinions on the rules of Uno, or Martin and Tim’s discussion about the worst dates they’d ever had.
“Aha!” Basira found what she had been looking for.
“Do people still say ‘aha’?”
Basira shushed Martin, and pressed play on the song. It started with a slow part, a female voice singing about being ‘trapped within the warmth and the darkness’, whatever that meant. Jon seemed to recognize the song, but appeared to be waiting for something.
“Wait, it’ll get to the good part soon,”
“You’re biased,” Jon nodded to Basira’s accusation, not even ashamed of it.
The female voice stopped, and Jon grinned like an insane man. It looked nothing like the normal him, but was effortlessly done. Sasha zoomed the camera in on him. This would be interesting.
Jon opened his mouth, joining in with the song seamlessly.
“Take aurora in gently, Nastya, let’s see what these Rosies can do!” Tim, Martin, and Sasha all stared at him, “Gotta say I’m in the mood for violence, and I reckon you might be too!”
“What the fuck,” Tim and Martin spoke simultaneously.
“Let’s get this party started, the only way we know. Gunfire and explosions, that’s our cue!”
He looked around the table, “Hello, ladies!” and mimicked gunshots.
And then he cackled. Fucking cackled.
“Is this her?” he spoke with the recording, seemingly only remembering it was a recording when another voice in the song answered him.
“Wow, boss, didn't know you could do…that!”
“Yeah, that was…something! In- in a good way!”
Basira smirked, “God, imagine if they heard Red Signal, Jonny. ‘Professionalism’ my ass,”
Sasha put away her phone. She figured this was more than enough blackmail for sober Jon.
“Hey, you never said why you call him Jonny!” Martin realized.
Sasha changed her mind, pulling out her phone again. This might be interesting to see, and she could always delete the video if it was nothing. But with how secretive Jon had been about it, she got the feeling it wasn’t.
“Oh yeah!” despite the question being phrased towards Basira, Jon answered, “Y’all would never believe it,”
“Since when do you say y’all,” Basira side-eyed him.
Ignoring her, Jon continued, “Me and Ashes here were in a band together! Way back in the day,”
Tim laughed, assuming it was a joke, and it was obvious by the grin the exact moment he realized he was serious. “Jon?! Our Jon, who yells at us for playing Uno, was in a band?!”
Martin just stared at Jon, imagining him in a band. Oh lord.
Tim had pretty much said what Sasha had been thinking. All the assistants had one day agreed that Jon probably listened to exclusively classical music, and she had just accepted it as true.
“What kinda band?” Martin inquired.
“We were space pirates-”
“Immortal space pirates!”
“Don’t interrupt, Jonny. We were space pirates roaming the galaxy fucking shit up. I was the quartermaster, Ashes o’Reilly-”
“And I was Jonny d’Ville, captain!”
“First mate!”
“What was the band called?”
“The Mechanisms! Because, see, we all had these things, like metal whatchamacallits, metal things, in our bodies-”
Basira laughed at his struggle to describe it, but did not offer any help, instead saying that she was sure the others would understand in time. She looked at Sasha specifically while saying this.
Jon of the future would greatly regret these moments, as he did not take notice of Sasha’s phone recording him, preparing to send the video to Martin and, much worse than Martin, Tim.
But Jon of the present hadn’t had a positive night with a friend in a while, so screw future-Jon.
He had another drink.
-----------------------------------------------------------------(%)------------------------------------------------------------------------
The next Monday, they had all had apt time to both recover from the drinking from the Friday before, and to watch the videos sent by Sasha. And, oh god, the videos were…something.
There was one of Jon talking for five minutes without pause about his friend’s cat like it was a child he got to see on weekends, which was just adorable, in Martin’s opinion. He was not at all biased, certainly not.
There was another of people telling Tim terrible jokes and him absolutely losing his shit, over maybe the least funny puns ever.
Another highlight of Tim videos was him and Martin talking about worst dates, such as when he had to babysit the dates’ sister’s kids.
There was, of course, one of Martin sharing his fun facts. Martin didn’t know what to think about the rapt attention Jon paid to him, looking likely to pull out a notebook and take notes. It made him feel a certain way, seeing Jon like that, genuinely interested in something. Same applied to his…aggressive opinions on Uno. Seriously, what is up with him and Uno.
And then there were the Videos. The ones that Sasha took, after Jon had a bit too much to drink and lost some of his filter. The video of Jon singing, and the video of the story of his nickname. The name of his band. Holy shit.
See, after watching the videos, both Martin and Tim had the same idea, which they shared with each other the next day at work, in the employee break room that Jon never used (he seriously needed a break.)
The plan relied on one thing: their ability to make Jon leave his office for long enough for one of them to sneak in. Luckily, it wasn’t as hard as they had thought.
See, Jon was never sent the videos. He had remembered telling them about the band, but was now pretty sure it had just been imagination, as nobody had said anything and it was already lunchtime.
So when Tim ordered pizza and told Jon to leave his office and eat some, or he’d recreate some of the more…interesting fake statements. And with Jon gone, Martin could get in, under the guise of delivering tea like usual.
And so when Jon got back and didn’t immediately see or hear anything odd, he just sat back down, reading a statement he was pretty sure was fake.
Until after about fifteen minutes, he heard music. Music that came from a drawer, which, when opened, revealed Tim’s phone. But the problem wasn’t the music in general. It was the specific song.
His phone was playing fucking Red Signal.