Chapter Text
Ever since you found out what he could do, how he can pull knowledge from people, you’ve been having dreams. Nothing too mad, nothing as hazy and charged as the dreams before where you woke up gasping and thrusting, sweating with want. Just. You know. Dreams.
You dream about Jon asking you things. There’s so much you would tell him, if he only asked. There’s so much you want to tell him. Not just about you and your feelings for him, but about him. He sees so much but not so clearly about himself.
It’s the little things. You want to tell him about how you love the way his hair is always a few weeks to a few months overgrown, fringe hanging into his eyes more often than not. You want to brush it away and your fingers near ache with the desire to. There seems to be more white on the sides. You wonder if that’s an output of stress, or something to do with the Beholding somehow. If those powers care about something as insignificant as the Archivist’s hair. Surely no one else assigns the importance to it that you do.
You hear the tape recorders whirring more often than not. You know that the statements help, that Jon seems to get more sustenance from them than from the biscuits and snacks you keep accidentally but not accidentally leaving on his desk. You would give him a statement, if he asked. You would give him anything.
When he starts smoking again, you make a decision. You steel yourself. You print out some facts on what smoking does to the lungs, how it affects the body. You leave it on his desk and wait. Within a few hours, the printouts are carefully folded and placed on your desk. Even this rejection feels like a benediction.
Sometimes you try to write out how you feel, but nothing seems to really capture it. Jon isn’t just Jon, you know this. He’s something bigger than that. He’s the Archivist. When he deigns to meet your gaze, there’s always some part of him abstracted, far away, frozen in some remote concerns that you couldn’t even hope to compete with. The fucked-up part is that you accept this. There’s always some part of you that sighs in ecstatic dejection, ready for more loneliness to revel in. You feel you deserve it, that his lack of regard is your due. On better days, you know this isn’t true. You still bring him tea.
In a workplace where everything is changing and people can be so readily replaced, Jon is your constant. Your faith in him is so large that it displaces all others. There is nothing that can shake it: not Tim’s imprecations, not Elias’ insinuations, not the questions and recriminations and the poor treatment you receive. You decide your task is to help Jon, and you do it.