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Jon’s standing in line at a coffee shop, (not the one he used to go to, the one closest to work) breathing in the warm, comforting scent of roasted beans when he realizes he’s staring at one of the workers behind the counter. It’s not just that Jon happens to be staring into the distance as he usually does and the man has simply wandered into his line of sight, he’s actively tracking the man as he makes espresso and steams milk and whatever else it is that baristas do. He doesn’t know why he’s staring at first. Outwardly, the man seems to be unremarkable, mid-twenties maybe, of average height with brown hair and brown eyes. Maybe it’s the fading tan that’s caught Jon’s attention. It’s early October in London, and it’s been chilly and rainy since at least mid-September, so the tan must have been a souvenir of a holiday spent somewhere warmer and with a bit more sun. A beach, maybe. Well, good for him.
The man looks up from the drink he’s making and locks eyes with Jon. Jon catches a glimpse of a tentative smile and then he Sees—
Blackness stretches from horizon to horizon, tiny points of light breaking through the darkness. Stars. The black moves in waves like the sea. The sky reflected in the ocean, or the ocean reflected in the sky, empty except for a tan speck swimming through the water or the air, lost and looking for a shore that had been there only a moment ago—
“Sir?”
The man Jon has been staring at flinches and drops the drink he’s been holding, fear draining the color from his face before he turns and pushes his way through his co-workers before disappearing through a door marked “for employees only.”
“Sir?” The voice of the woman behind the counter sounds strained as Jon turns his attention towards her, but her customer service smile remains firmly in place. “Sir, can I help you?”
Jon forces himself to smile, and then forces himself to keep smiling when the cashier takes a half-step backward.
“Sorry. Changed my mind,” Jon says contritely as he turns away from the counter. He’s aware that people are staring at him, that there’s sweat beaded on his forehead and that his hands are shaking when he places them on the door and leaves the warmth of the shop, stepping out onto the sidewalk.
He breathes deeply, trying to calm himself, trying not to think about the fact that the inside of his mouth tastes like darkness and salt. A taste. That’s all it had been, and not on purpose either. An accident. Maybe he should go back inside and find that young man and apologize for scaring him. Perhaps give him a card for the Institute, in case he wants to make a statement. Or he could wait until the young man takes a break and Jon could get him alone and just Ask the young man what had happened to him and he was so hungry and the statement would taste so good, darkness and salt and fear—
“No,” Jon whispers softly, catching himself with his hand halfway to the door handle, ready to step back inside. He’s hungry, he’s so damn hungry, but he can deny himself a little longer. He makes himself turn around, makes himself walk away on legs that shake, breathing in the cold air and the smell of threatening rain in some attempt to ground himself. He has given into his— appetite before, and more than likely will do so again, but for now he can control himself. For now he can try and pretend he’s not a monster.
————
Daisy has taken up running again.
It had been something she had always loved to do, ever since she was a child. No, maybe loved wasn’t quite the right word. Been driven to do, perhaps, something to quell the restless energy that had threatened to overtake her at times. As she had grown up it had become more of a competitive drive as she had competed with her classmates and other schools, and then a way to stay in shape before, during, and after her police training. It had used to be that if she didn’t run at least three miles before breakfast her whole day had felt thrown off. But now?
Daisy near collapses on a bench, breathing hard and swearing, hands clenching into frustrated fists. Half a mile. Half a fucking mile and her lungs ache and her legs muscles are trembling and twitching as if she’s run a marathon. She feels tired down to her bones and she’s barely even started.
“You can do this,” Daisy tells herself through gritted teeth. “You’re not going to let a little thing like being buried alive for a seemingly endless eternity stop you, are you?”
It’s not just that. She knows it’s not just that, but if she thinks about it too long she’ll start screaming. She’s been weaker since she came out of the choking dirt and darkness, since her connection to the Hunt had been severed, or at least weakened. How much of the strength and endurance she had prided herself on for years had just been that Entity’s influence on her?
Daisy hauls herself to her feet and starts running again. She’s alone on the running path but that’s okay, she can handle that. She can handle being alone as long as she’s upright and moving, even if it’s just pacing in her apartment, though that makes her feel like a tiger in a cage, especially with Basira watching her.
Basira. Daisy mentally gives a heavy sigh because actually sighing would be a waste of breath at the moment and she needs all the oxygen she can get. Basira has been staying over at Daisy’s flat since The Incident, but that’s not exactly a new thing, really. They had started off working together, then one night they had both had a little too much to drink and Basira had slept on Daisy’s couch, and somewhere the bar nights had turned into “watching a movie and eating take-away curry” nights and falling asleep together on the couch, which at some point had turned into sleeping together in Daisy’s bed and Basira’s toothbrush in her bathroom and several changes of clothes in her closet. It wasn’t anything they had ever talked about really, or put a label on. It had been comfortable, in a world that had been growing increasingly lacking in comfortable things.
It’s different now. Now Daisy can’t lay down to sleep, can’t feel the weight of blankets on top of her or even the warmth of Basira’s body next to hers without being back in the choking, crushing, dark where everything had been too close. She spends most of her nights sleeping in an armchair, the television on, the light and sound assuring her she isn’t alone, holding Basira’s hand, her arm stretched between the sofa and the chair. It should be sweet, but sometimes she opens her eyes to see Basira looking back at her like she’s standing vigil over someone dying in a hospital bed. It should scare her that Basira looks at her that way. It should scare her that she understands why Basira looks at her like that.
Daisy stops to rest again, leaning against a nearby tree and looking up at the sky, taking in the dark gray clouds. She should head to the Institute before the rain that’s been threatening actually begins to fall. There had been a time when she had run in all weather, snow or rain be damned, but that time has passed. She feels sick all the time now, achey and shivery all the way down to her bones. If Basira knew she was out running—but she doesn’t. Basira had left the flat early that morning. Well, no, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Basira had stormed out during breakfast after they had suggested, not for the first time, that Daisy should go along with her and help her look for Julia Montauk and Trevor Herbert.
“I can’t,” Daisy had said simply. “You know I can’t. We’ve talked about this before. We agreed.”
“I know, but— Daisy, please. Just this one time—“
“No.” Daisy had felt the slow simmer of anger under her skin. Didn’t Basira know how hard this was for her? “It won’t be just one time. If I get a taste for it, if let it back in—“
Basira had stood up quickly, her hands slamming into the table hard enough to rattle the dishes. “If you let it back in, I won’t have to watch you die!”
There had been silence between them for a long moment, because what could Daisy say? That every time Basira brought this up, it was all Daisy could do to say no? That sometimes she woke up in the middle of the night with her blood whispering to her? That she could still remember all the people and monsters she had killed, how good ending their lives had felt, and how she missed that feeling even as it sickened her and made her stomach twist with guilt?
“I’d rather die as my own self then live as what that thing makes me,” Daisy had said, meeting Basira’s gaze across the table.
Basira had stormed out then, slamming the door behind her, and Daisy hadn’t flinched from the sound or Basira’s anger. She had seen the tears in her eyes in that instant before she had turned away even as she had felt her own eyes stinging. Part of her had wanted to go after Basira and apologize. She hadn’t known where Basira had gone, to the Institute or just for a walk to clear her head, but as soon as she had thought that she had known, her blood whispering to her to get up, to go this way and turn right here and then she’d find her, find the one who was upsetting her—
Daisy had gotten up and cleared away the breakfast dishes, very slowly, very carefully, and then had laced up her running shoes and had started jogging in the opposite direction her blood had been screaming at her to go in, even though it had physically hurt to do so, even though her heart had started pounding right away. Her heart could have exploded right then, as long as it had meant that she wouldn’t hunt the person she cared for most in the world.
Daisy’s phone rings and she knows who it is even before she pulls it out of her pocket and sees the caller ID. The picture that pops up when Basira calls is a selfie she had taken at the bar one night, Daisy’s arm wrapped around Basira’s shoulders, the both of them laughing. A happy, frozen memory.
Could still find her, Daisy’s blood whispers, but the words feel weak and far away. Daisy feels weak and far away too, shivery and aching all over.
“Never,” Daisy vows to the smiling Basira on her phone before the picture fades and the call goes to voicemail. “I’ll never hurt you.”
Daisy taps out a text and then starts running again. She has to stop and rest one more time on the way, but she makes it into the Institute just before the rain comes pouring down in sheets. She counts it as a victory.
————
Jon is halfway through changing out of his wet clothes when his phone rings.
“Just a second!” As if the phone can hear him and will wait patiently until he isn’t trying to extricate himself from a soaking wet sweater. The good thing about wool was that it got warmer when it was wet. The bad thing about wool was that it also got heavier when it was wet. Thankfully, Jon has gotten into the habit of keeping several changes of clothes in his office in case of things like weather or unexpected blood, so at least he doesn’t have to spend all day being soggy.
Ten minutes. Ten minutes would have made the difference between being cold and wet and miserable and being, well, dry at the very least. Miserable couldn’t be helped at the moment, not with the migraine that had crept up on him as he had walked back to the Institute, bringing dizziness and light sensitivity with it. The overcast day had almost been a blessing, right up until the part with the stinging cold rain, but he tells himself he deserves it. He had chosen to go to a coffeeshop farther away than his usual, after all, even if he was trying not to think about why he had chosen it, about the fact that he wouldn’t accidentally be caught by anyone at work if he had—
The phone goes silent for a moment and then starts ringing again as Jon finally frees himself from his sweater and the shirt he had been wearing underneath it.
“Hold on, hold on.” Jon grabs for his glasses with one hand and the phone with the other, wincing as he looks at the too bright caller ID screen. “Basira? What’s—“
“Have you seen Daisy? Is she with you?” Basira is quick and to the point, like a well placed knife to the kidneys. “We had a— I’ve been calling her phone, and she’s been texting instead of picking up, and that’s not like her. So either she’s still upset with me, or someone’s got her phone. If she’s still upset that’s fine, I just need to know she’s okay, so if she’s there just tell me. Please.”
For just a moment Jon Sees Basira walking through a dull gray hallway, her phone raised to her ear, her eyes red as if she’s been crying, or trying not to cry. Knowledge drops into his head, unasked for. The prison. She was at the prison. She had gone to see Elias to— to—
“Jon?”
Jon blinks and shakes his head, then immediately regrets the motion as a fresh burst of pain explodes behind his right eye. “Sorry. Have a migraine. Brain fog.” He takes a breath. “I just got into work, and I didn’t see Daisy on my way in, but that doesn’t mean she’s not here. I could check—“
“Jon?” Daisy’s voice is muffled by his office door. “Jon are you in here?”
Jon has enough time to think that Daisy voice sounds a little shaky before the door opens, which is when he realizes that he had forgotten to lock the door when he came in. If Basira hadn’t called he’d probably have been standing in his underwear right now instead of just being shirtless so he can be thankful for that at the very least. He throws one hand across his bare chest like that will cover anything as he feels his face grow hot.
Daisy looks flushed too, but she had looked that way when she had first opened the door before seeing him, and her eyes look fever bright. “Sorry,” she says, one hand still on the doorknob. “I didn’t know you were— on the phone.”
“Jon? Is that Daisy?” Basira’s voice in his ear asks.
“She just walked in,” Jon says, and mouths “Basira” in response to Daisy’s quirked eyebrow. He watches as she steps inside and closes the door behind her, noting a certain stiffness in her movements, as if she’s in pain.
“And it’s her. Like, really her and not— something else?”
“It’s really her,” Jon assures her. He Knows it’s her, and wouldn’t that have been handy back when Sasha had been— “Do you want to talk to her?” He’s saying that to Basira, but he looks at Daisy while he’s saying it.
“If she doesn’t want to talk to me right now, that’s fine,” Barisa says, but Daisy is already motioning for the phone. Jon doesn’t even ask if she’s sure, just hands her the phone before turning around to grab a dry shirt and sweater. Wearing wet pants isn’t exactly comfortable but, well, he’s endured much worse.
“I’m fine,” he hears Daisy say. “I’ll explain when I see you, I promise. I didn’t mean to worry you.” A pause. “I’m sorry. Are you coming in later, or—?”
Jon rummages around in a desk drawer until he finds a bottle of the over the counter pills he takes for his becoming more and more frequent headaches and occasional actual migraines. It doesn’t do much more than take the edge off these days, and Jon wonders if it’s because he’s developing a tolerance for the medication or if it’s because the headaches have a supernatural cause or maybe some terrifying third option that he doesn’t know about. Either way, he tucks the bottle into his pocket.
“Okay,” Daisy says, lowering her voice. “Love you too.”
Jon straightens up just in time to see Daisy hang up the phone and take a step towards him to return it, wincing as she does so, then swearing when the step turns into a stumble. He’s around the desk and by her side much quicker than he thought he could move, reaching out to steady her. Dry heat radiates from her skin, making him think of deserts, of sand baking in the sun.
“Are you all right?” She’s not, of course she’s not, who is okay these days? Still, he asks.
“I went for a run today,” Daisy says. “Think I overdid it a little.” She hands him his phone and takes a pained step toward the door of his office. “I could use some water.”
“I’ll get it,” Jon says quickly. “Daisy, I think you need to have a lie down. I have a cot—“
“No.” The word is as heavy as six feet of earth. “No. The break room isn’t that far. I can make it. You don’t have to leave me here.”
Ah. Right. “Well, will you let me help you?”
He prepares for her refusal, and is taken by surprise when she throws her arm around his shoulders and leans on him. “Lead the way.”
They had done this before, when he had led her out of The Buried. She had been cold then, barely able to walk, her presence as solid as the earth and stone had been around the two of them. Now she’s hot, like summer heat haze, and even though she’s leaning on him it feels like she’s hardly there at all.
“I didn’t know you’d come far enough in your physical therapy to be running,” Jon says as they make their slow way down the hall.
“Haven’t. Just—“ Daisy sighs. “My blood wanted something I didn’t want to give it. So I ran away from what it wanted. And it worked. It’s quiet now. The rest—“ She gestures at herself with her free hand. “The rest doesn’t matter. It’s quiet now.”
“Oh,” Jon says softly. “What did it—“ He stops himself, feeling the compulsion thick on his tongue, and swallows. “Do you want to tell me what it wanted?”
“No.”
“Fair enough.”
The silence stretches for a few steps and then Daisy’s speaking again. She does that sometimes, says she doesn’t want to talk about something only to end up talking about it a few moments later. “Basira wants me to hunt Julia and Trevor. It— The Hunt, it likes Basira, likes it when she asks, because it knows how hard it is for me to say no to her, how much it hurts me to refuse her. And then this morning, I was upset— no, I was angry with her for asking me and the Hunt, well, I think it figured if it couldn’t get me one way, it’d get me another. As long as I saw someone as my Enemy…” Daisy trails off.
Jon puts two and two together and comes to an awful, terrible four. “Oh god, Daisy—“
“So I ran. I ran and when Basira called I didn’t answer because I was afraid if I heard her voice, if she told me where she was— By the time I got to your office it felt safe, like maybe the Hunt realized that particular tactic wouldn’t work, but before that I couldn’t be sure.” She’s shaking against him now. “I’d die before I’d ever hurt her, Jon, and I hope like hell that if I lost myself and came for her that Basira would put me down, but I don’t want her to have to make that choice. I don’t want to leave her with a broken heart and my blood on her hands.”
“You’re not going to,” Jon says firmly, as if by declaring it he has made it so.
The break room is too bright, but then, any light makes his head throb with pain and his stomach want to lurch. Like his damp pants, it can’t be helped, only borne. He eases Daisy into a chair and fetches a glass, filling it with cold water from the tap and handing it to her before contemplating his own options. The caffeine from coffee might help with his head, but at this point just thinking about the smell of coffee both reminds him of this morning and makes him feel even more sick. Tea then.
There’s already a cup of tea on the counter next to the electric kettle, and while the kettle is steaming as if it had only come to a boil minutes before, the cup of tea next to it is stone cold. Huh. Weird. Jon moves the cold tea to the side, in case its owner comes back for it, before making a cup of his own, occasionally pressing a hand over his right eye in a futile attempt to ease the pain some.
“What about you?” Daisy asks when Jon sits back down next to her, taking a sip of her water. She’s drained most of the glass already. “Are you okay? Because frankly, you look strung out.”
“Thanks,” Jon says, but finds himself saying it with a huff of a laugh in his voice. “I’m not having the best morning myself, though not nearly as bad as yours.”
“Didn’t know it was a contest,” Daisy says. She smiles faintly. “Do I get a prize?”
Daisy’s mood seems to have changed completely from what it had been moments before, and Jon isn’t sure if just talking about what had happened has helped her or if this is just a facade. Either way, he follows her lead. “You win more water,” he tells her, and gets up to refill her glass. For good measure he finds a tea towel and runs it under the faucet as well, handing it to her along with the water. She still looks too flushed for his liking.
Daisy takes both without complaint, draping the cool towel around her neck before drinking more water. “So, what happened? You got caught in the rain, I know that much. And you keep wincing and rubbing at your eye when you think I’m not looking. Your head bothering you?”
“Yeah. Yeah, that’s all part of it. I—“ For a moment Jon thinks about how much he should tell her, then reconsiders. After what she had told him in the hallway, well, why hold anything back?
“There was a man in the coffee shop this morning,” Jon begins, and tells her everything. The taste he had gotten. How he had made himself leave, just how badly he had wanted to corner the man and just take what he wanted.
“But you didn’t.”
“I didn’t,” Jon agrees. “I don’t know how long I can go without something— fresh, but today I didn’t.” He takes off his glasses and presses his hand to his eye again.
“You got something to take for that?” Daisy asks. Without his glasses on she’s a smear of various colors, an abstract painting. He hears a pill bottle rattle. “I don’t know if muscle relaxants help with migraines but I can’t feel anything when I take them. Which is why I try not to take them.”
Jon pulls his bottle of pills from his own pocket and puts his glasses back on. “I’ll take mine if you take yours.”
Daisy contemplates the prospect with a frown, then shrugs, popping open the bottle and shaking one small white pill into her hand. “I guess if anything tries to attack us we’ll just have to depend on Martin to save us.”
Martin. Jon shakes a few pills into his own hand and swallows them, chasing them with his tea. “Have you—seen Martin lately?”
Daisy finishes swallowing her own pill and shakes her head. “He wasn’t in his office this morning when I looked, though— this is going to sound weird.”
Jon doesn’t quite laugh at that, though it’s a close thing. “Yes, because we talk about perfectly normal things all the time.”
Daisy chuckles dryly. “Fair point. It’s just— Okay, you know how you can be walking down a hallway and suddenly you get the sense that someone is behind you, and you turn and there is someone behind you? Even though you didn’t consciously see or hear anything, some part of your brain registered that someone was there, right?”
Jon thinks about school, about how he had always known when bullies had been sneaking up on him, no matter how quiet they were. He nods.
“Martin doesn’t— register anymore.” Daisy says. “I’ll be in a room or walking in the archives or standing in is office or something, completely and totally sure I’m alone, and then Martin will say good morning and scare the shit out of me because I had no idea he was standing right there. And if I stop looking at him he just sort of— slides off my mental radar. Basira says it’s the same for her.”
Jon thinks about the last time he saw Martin, the night he had found out how he could escape the archive, how they could both escape. Martin had been tangible, present, fully and completely there. He remembers his hand brushing Martin’s, remembers Martin pulling away. The Lonely. Is it already too late to save him? Would Martin even let him try, if Jon knew how?
“Jon? You’re shaking.”
Jon looks down at his trembling hands. “I don’t know how to save him. I don’t know if he even wants to be saved. I don’t know and I can’t think and—“
Daisy takes his hands and they are warm in his, not fever hot. “Jon, breathe. Listen to the quiet.”
Jon was the one to tell her that before, wasn’t he? Don’t listen to the blood, listen to the quiet. He shakes his head, nearly frantic. “It’s not the same for me, Daisy. Quiet doesn’t help, I need words I need—“
Daisy has seen so many things, has done so many things, and he can make her tell him. He can say the word and all her secrets will just come spilling out and he can eat and eat and eat until he feels like himself again.
“Jon?”
He can taste her fear it in the way she says his name, cinnamon and blood and honey.
A tape recorder appears on the table. He hears the click as it turns on.
A memory comes to him then. The tape that had appeared on his desk the morning he had officially returned to the Institute after Jurgen Leitner’s death. Daisy trying to interrogate Elias and instead Elias had pulled a statement out of her head. The thought of it had made Jon feel angry and sick at the time and now he wants to do the exact same thing to her and what does that make him?
“Go away,” Jon manages to say through gritted teeth.
Daisy shakes her head, still gripping his hands in hers. “You didn’t leave me down in that coffin Jon, like hell I’m leaving you now. You’re stronger than this.”
“I wasn’t talking to you.” Jon looks down at the tape recorder and summons up every bit of his strength that he can. “Go away.”
The tape recorder vanishes and Jon slumps over the table, breathing hard.
“Told you,” Daisy says as if she hadn’t been afraid at all a minute ago, and lets go of his hands. “Did you know that would work?”
Jon laughs, because it’s either that or cry. “Daisy, I’m amazed when anything I set out to do actually works.” He pushes himself back up to a sitting position, but it’s an effort. “If I had actually tried to—“
“Water glass to the face,” Daisy says promptly. “I think I could have hit you hard enough to do some damage at least. After that I figured I’d improvise.”
Jon takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes, tilting his head back. “Sound plan.” Physically he feels even worse than he did before. Mentally he’s not doing much better, but at least he didn’t feed of the fear of one of hi friends. He’ll take his victories where he can get them.
“Is there anything I can do to help?” Daisy asks. “Besides give a statement, obviously.”
“No statements,” Jon says weakly. “Can you just— tell me a story about something that happened at work? Like friends do?”
There’s a moment of silence.
“I saw a werewolf in the Kensington Gardens once.”
Jon lifted his head to look Daisy in the eye. “Werewolves are real?”
“All the things you’ve seen and read about and this surprises you?” Daisy lifts up her shirt slightly and yes, those certainly look like claw marks along her ribs.
Jon leans his head back again and closes his eyes. “All right. Tell me about this werewolf.”
“Well, first of all, the whole silver bullet thing is a myth…”
————————
Martin is in the break room making tea, watching the steaming water go cold the instant it touches the cup, when he hears Jon and Daisy out in the hallway. He’s standing there the whole time, watching, as Jon and Daisy enter and continue talking. He knows he’s gone intangible again, unseeable, unknowable, but he can’t seem to bring himself to be otherwise, not even when they talk about him, not even when Jon almost gives in to his hunger. He listens as Daisy tells Jon a story about a werewolf. He watches as Jon and Daisy fall asleep, no doubt mentally and emotionally exhausted, Daisy’s head resting on Jon’s shoulder. He tells himself he’s happy they can help each other, find some comfort in the friendship. He’s pretty sure he’s actually glad about that.
He leaves for a few minutes, going back to his office and grabbing a few statements for Jon to read and a few tapes for him to listen to. Martin’s latest statement, his last statement he supposes, stays on his desk. Jon has to find that one when it’s too late for him to interfere with whatever it is that Peter has planned.
Martin leaves the other statements on the break room table for Jon, along with a cup of tea, the last he’ll ever offer, cold despite his best efforts, and he’s about to leave when Basira walks in. He watches her sit next to Daisy and whisper something in her ear, watches Daisy mumble something sleepily and shift until her head is on Basira’s chest, watches as Basira runs her fingers through Daisy’s hair, a gesture so tender that Martin has to turn away and leave the room. Watching them had made him feel like he was starving and they were eating in front of him. Had he imagined running his hands through Jon’s hair once? The memory feels as distant as his emotions.
Back in his office, Martin pulls out a sheet of paper and a pen. In front of him is a cassette tape, already tucked into a box containing his tape recorder, the one he’s been using to record poetry on for years, the one that’s never done the disappearing/reappearing thing. Still giving away pieces of himself, all the way to the end. The actual poetry tapes he’s hidden, and if Jon finds them after, well, Martin won’t be around to die of embarrassment.
Jon, Martin writes. If you’re reading this, you’re alive, and hopefully so is everyone else. That’s all I wanted. That’s why I did whatever it is I’m about to do. So that everyone will keep living.
He’s tucking the note into the box when the second tape recorder appears and he has just enough time to close the box before there’s a voice from behind him, entirely too cheerful.
“Martin! Are you ready to go?”
Martin doesn’t turn as he gets up from his desk, but he swears he can hear Peter’s smug grin. “Sure,” Martin says, and his voice sounds as flat and cold as a sheet of ice on a perfect winter pond. “Lead the way.”