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When Georgie opens the door of her flat, Jon is sitting on her sofa.
His head is tilted at an odd angle, like he’s listening to something. He doesn’t seem to notice her; Georgie follows his gaze and sees the Admiral hiding underneath a table, eyes wide and terrified.
She coughs. The Admiral startles, bolting for the still-open door. Georgie hastily slams it shut, and the Admiral hisses at her, before curling around her legs to use her as a human shield.
Jon doesn’t even twitch.
“Jon?” Georgie takes one step forward, despite the Admiral’s protests. “Hi?”
There’s a slow blink, like the shutter closing on a camera.
“I don’t think the Admiral likes me now.” His tone has an air of thoughtful contemplation. His eyes drift to her, but just as quickly drift away, looking around the room as though everything is equally uninteresting.
His gaze only sharpens when it lands on a door — a door that definitely wasn’t there this morning. It’s an old, dark wood, with ornate carvings that seem to change whenever she blinks. The handle is a worn shade of bronze, moulded into the shape of an eye. It wants her to open it.
Well, this probably isn’t good.
Georgie exhales, assessing the situation. Then she raises the bags of groceries she holds.
“Since you’re here, come and help me put the shopping away.”
Jon shifts his head in what could be a nod. As he stands up, she gets the impression that his limbs are unfurling; he has too many joints and none of them are in the right places. He takes a bag, and the plastic warps under his fingertips.
Neither of them speak as he follows her into the kitchen; the Admiral firmly underfoot. The sound of Jon’s footsteps doesn’t match up with his movements. Georgie is starting to get a headache, but she thinks better of commenting. She’ll wait until her shopping is away before she presses the issue.
The silence isn’t exactly pleasant, but it’s domestic in a way she knows how to cope with. They both move at their own pace; Jon considers each item for several seconds before putting it away. Georgie brushes past Jon once, and it sends her reeling with disorientation. She watches him, careful to avoid touching him again.
Her eyes must be playing tricks on her. Or possibly, they’ve stopped playing tricks on her. As Jon puts groceries away, his appearance begins to resolve into some kind of order. It’s as though putting things in the correct places is helping him put himself in the correct places. By the time they’ve finished putting the food away, Georgie can even look him in the eye without getting a headache.
He looks like a mess. His hair is stubbornly unbrushed, the fabric of his shirt is creased beyond repair, and there are dark circles entrenched under his eyes.
Georgie pauses, considering her options.
“Are you okay?”
Jon’s gaze settles onto her. In sharp contrast to earlier, the glint of his eyes is too piercing. She feels as though she’s being examined and categorised, then filed away among a thousand other faces. She crosses her arms. If he’s trying to intimidate her…
“No,” Jon says flatly, like he thinks she’s being an idiot.
“Don’t be a prick. I’m fine with you showing up here, but you need to tell me things. Especially when you look like— like a mess.”
Jon is statue-still and silent for a solid minute. Finally, he laughs. The sound is pained, but so very Jon that she finds her shoulders easing.
“You said— anchors. Don’t isolate yourself, or things will get worse.”
“Was I right?”
Jon shrugs without moving his shoulders. She’ll take that as a yes.
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“Yes and no.” Jon pauses in consideration, twisting his hands together in a familiar nervous gesture. “Mostly yes. Things… make sense, right now.”
Well, that’s something. She doesn’t know if it’s a good or bad something, but it’s something. If she’s honest, Georgie isn’t sure she wants to be told about whatever’s happened, but it’s Jon. If he needs someone to listen to him, she’ll listen. Just like any other friend.
“I’ll make some tea; you go and sit down. You look like you need a rest.”
Jon laughs again, low and weary. She hears him wander through her flat and settle down on the creaking sofa. Georgie exhales, releasing the tension that’s built up in her muscles. With one foot, she nudges the Admiral towards her bedroom. He’s had enough stress for one day — she’ll grab him some treats later.
Rationally, she knows she shouldn’t be taking this in stride. Her fight or flight response may be pretty much nonexistent, but she can recognise a dangerous situation when she’s in one.
If she’s honest with herself, she’s not even sure this is Jon. Between evil corpses and evil mannequins, it’s not out of the realm of possibility that something could be imitating her ex-boyfriend. Jon showing up after a month of radio silence is normal enough, but looking like a migraine in human form? Less so.
It’s a question of trust, she thinks, as she finishes up in the kitchen. Trust, and whether there’s anything she can do either way. Her supply of self-defense weapons isn’t exactly booming. There’s an old rounders bat under her bed, but that’s all.
Georgie sighs. She picks up the two steaming mugs, and walks through to the living room.
(Hopefully he’ll still take his tea the same way, Jon or not.)
Jon is picking at a loose thread on a blanket, absently twisting it between his fingers. As she enters, he glances up at her and smiles.
“Thank you, Georgie.” He takes the offered mug with an expression of tired gratitude.
In for a penny, in for a pound; Georgie pulls off her shoes, kicking them to the side as she sits down next to him. The tea isn’t quite right — she had things on her mind, after all — but it’s good enough to help her let her guard down. It was a long enough day even without this whole situation.
Jon doesn’t actually drink any of the tea, she notes. Instead, he shifts the mug in his hands and watches the liquid swirl. His brow is wrinkled, either in confusion or fascination — the expressions have always looked very similar on his face.
“So,” she says, because he’s clearly not about to start a conversation. “Do you want to tell me what weird stuff happened this time?”
Jon exhales. The movement is unexpectedly jarring: it’s only then that Georgie realises he hasn’t been breathing.
“I want to. I promise. But… it’s muddled. This wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m not right.” He scoffs, and the sound echoes for longer than it should; bitter laughs layered on bitter laughs. “Michael was tied to the Eye, but not like J— like I am. Was. Am.”
“Should I know who Michael is?”
“No. At least, I don’t think so.”
Georgie pauses, considering whether she really wants to pursue that line of questioning. Probably not. She has enough supernatural experiences in her life already.
“The Eye… So is all this—” Georgie gestures at him with her free hand, “—because of your whole evil god situation?”
“Yes and no.”
She raises her brows. Jon shakes his head, putting his undrunk tea on the table in front of him. He doesn’t speak, just twists his hands together. His eyes go unfocused, half-lidded.
Well, she’s clearly getting nothing concrete on that avenue. Georgie sighs, letting her head fall back against the cushion behind her. Her eyes fall on that dark wooden door again, and she presses her lips together with a glance back at Jon.
"Should I ask about the door?"
“Probably not.” Jon runs his hands across his face with another unnatural-looking sigh. For a moment, Georgie thinks she’s imagining the way his fingers have started to look warped again. Then he stretches, and there isn’t a single part of him that bends in the correct place. It’s a good thing she’s got a strong stomach, because it’s deeply off-putting to watch.
Jon looks her in the eye, and whatever he sees makes him wince — though she’s no longer sure what he’s wincing with. He pulls his limbs closer to his body, making himself smaller, as though that will somehow help.
It doesn’t, but… he’s making some kind of effort, she’ll give him that.
“I’m sorry, Georgie.”
“It’s— it’s fine.”
Georgie takes a deep breath and meets his gaze. His eyes are the same muddy brown they’ve always been. She thought it was cute when they were dating; now it’s just a refreshing dose of normality. He blinks at her, clearly unsettled by the extended eye contact.
On some impulse she can’t name, she reaches out and takes one of his hands. The disorientation isn’t as bad now she’s prepared for it. She doesn’t look down as she tries to map his fingers with her own.
They don’t make sense. Of course they don’t make sense. The warmth of his flesh is somehow insubstantial, like she’s dreaming the contact. Joints and muscles stretch off in ways that are definitely impossible. His fingers are the only part of his hands that feel solid , and even those are wrong; they come to a long, needle-sharp point.
Jon watches her.
No, he studies her. His eyes dart between her hands and her face. Georgie knows this look. He’s trying to assess her reaction, to catalogue it so he can predict future behaviour. It’s a little more uncomfortable now, with a face that doesn’t look like a face and eyes that see too much, but it’s still classic Jon.
“This is pretty weird, you know that, right?”
“Yes,” he says, with a strained laugh. “That seems like an accurate way of putting it.”
The last headache has only just faded, and Georgie is already getting a new one. Great.
“I am sorry, Georgie. I just needed…” Jon smiles, his eyes going soft and sad. “Well, an anchor. A safe port in the storm, I suppose.”
“That’s me?”
Jon nods, pulling his hand away from hers.
“You— You’re safe. I could hurt you, but it would be pointless. And— I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“Is it?” The question sounds so genuine, an open curiosity in the tilt of his head.
“Yes.” Georgie sits up straight. She’s definitely glaring, but she’d prefer to think of it as a righteous scowl. “It’s good that you don’t want to hurt people. You’re not a monster, Jon.”
Jon laughs and laughs and laughs. The low-pitched echo of it resonates in her fillings.
“I think we’re a bit beyond that now, Georgie.”
As if to demonstrate, he stretches again. It’s like his body is a fusion of a thousand contradictory Escher paintings, and every part of him is sharp and swirling with unguarded malice.
Georgie looks at the whole of it, refusing to let herself hesitate. The pounding headache that’s building is worth the way Jon seems to relax at her scrutiny. Everything gets a little bit less acid-trip.
“It was you,” he continues, suddenly quiet, “or the Archives.”
There’s a sudden lump in Georgie’s throat. It’s not as though Jon usually values her company over his job. She forces herself to swallow it down. Stay focused, Georgie Barker.
“Are you going back there?”
“I… I don’t know. I don’t think I have to go back. I don’t know if I want to. But I don’t know what I’ll be if I don’t go back.” Jon looks down, twisting his fingers together in a fractal of scarred flesh. “It would ground me, to be there. But I don’t know if I want to be grounded.”
“I thought I was grounding you?”
“You’re different, Georgie,” he snaps, irritated by something. “You care. You aren’t hungry for— for knowledge, or madness, or fear. You just want to help.”
“Yeah. I do.”
“Well, you are helping. Which might damn me in the long run, admittedly.”
“Oh, that’s good to hear.”
“It’s— it’s complicated.” He runs a distorted hand through the soft waves of his hair. The grey at his roots scatters across the rest of his hair like static. “I— I should probably go.”
Georgie feels a wave of relief, followed immediately by a wave of guilt. She clamps down on both feelings with extreme prejudice.
“You can stay if you want,” she offers. She already knows he won’t take her up on it.
“No, I’ve— I’ve got to figure some stuff out.”
Jon stands up, groaning under his figurative breath. He takes one glance at the untouched mug of tea in front of him. It should be cold by now, but steam still rises from it, curling and twisting in the air.
There’s a moment’s stillness, then Jon leans down and presses a hesitant kiss against the side of her head. Nausea rises in her throat as the world turns nonsensical around her. Everything shifts and blurs, and her eyes begin to water. Despite that, his rough-lipped touch is gentle; Georgie can find it in herself to smile at him.
“Take care of yourself, Jon.”
His eyes — too many of them, dotted across his body haphazardly — wrinkle at the edges in a smile. They blink — all in unison — as he turns and opens the door that shouldn’t be there. She gets the briefest glimpse of a long, windowless corridor. Then it’s gone, and Jon is too.
As the remnants of dizziness fades, Georgie feels something warm dripping from her nose. Her hand comes away with a streak of crimson.