Chapter Text
Jon had not wanted to go to the mandatory counselling. What Jon wanted to do was get back to work. The circular wounds left by the worms didn’t stop him from being able to read, and he knew they were still cleaning up the mess from the attack, and the thought of all those strangers in his archives made him twitchy.
However, in order to get back to work before the “recommended medical leave” was over, company policy demanded he attend a counselling session to ensure his desire to return to work wasn’t just a trauma response or some rot.
Which was why Jon was so surprised by the result of the session. The psychiatrist had spoken to him for less then 10 minutes before asking if Jon had ever had a diagnosis for ADHD. Jon had scoffed saying that was preposterous, but the psychiatrist persisted. And the more the man told Jon about the various symptoms the more Jon’s firm belief that the man was wrong began to waver.
Jon had always been under the assumption that ADHD was purely related to being able to focus on things, and as Jon had often caught himself focusing so intently he forgot to eat, he had simply assumed it wasn’t possible for him to have an attention problem.
As it turned out- focusing to the exclusion of all other things, like food or sleep; was a major hallmark of ADHD, and not in fact a thing that everyone did. And apparently there was a reason that Jon had had such a dreadful time with procrastinating on school assignments until the last possible minute.
The psychiatrist had of course recommended a variety of different prescriptions Jon could try, but in the wake of Prentiss’s attack, the idea of doing anything to alter his brain chemistry with Gertrude’s killer still out there made him far too nervous. So the psychiatrist had recommended joining a gym. Apparently regular physical activity could be very useful in managing symptoms for adults with ADHD.
Jon didn’t really have much of an excuse not to try either, one of the perks of his new promotion to Head Archivist had come with a corporate membership card to a nearby gym. Since Jon lived close to where he worked, he figured it couldn’t hurt to give it a try. Besides, having needed to run for his life from Prentiss, Jon figured getting a little stronger in case of future emergencies couldn’t hurt.
Which is how Jon found himself standing in a gym, feeling very out of his depth and very self conscious of all of the plasters still littering his skin. He had no idea of what to do or where to start.
“Hi there! I haven’t seen you around. You new?” Jon tensed at the voice on reflex, still jumpy in general. The woman who spoke looked like she could snap Jon in half. Not from bulky muscle like he had seen on body builders, but lean hard muscle. She probably wrestled bears on weekends. He glanced at the rainbow on her water bottle and double Venus symbol. Then again, maybe no wrestling of bears.
“Uh, yes. New, um, corporate membership,” he muttered. He wanted to disappear, feeling deeply embarrassed by how obvious it was that he didn’t belong here.
“Nice. Well, welcome! My name is Becky, if you’d like, my friends and I kind of help each other out with work out routines. You could join us?”
Jon nearly said no on principle, intending to spend an embarrassing hour on the treadmill, shower, and then never come back here as long as he lived. But he happened to glance over at the ‘friends’ Becky had pointed to. It was a collection of five people. One of them waved in Jon’s direction. They were wearing a shirt that said they/them. Jon couldn’t stop himself from relaxing just a little seeing it. He had been beaten up for being queer in high school. It had been one of many reasons he had never bothered going to a gym. But looking at the group, he didn’t think there was one straight person among them, and it was a surprisingly comforting thought.
“I, um, I suppose I could-“ he began.
“Great! I’ll introduce you!”
He left the gym as part of a new group text and with an invitation to join them again on Wednesday. Jon was tired, but he felt good. Better then he would have thought. For the first time, the hum of anxious energy that seemed to live just under his skin was a little less sharp. Jon slept through the night for the first time since the Prentiss attack.
By the end of the month, Jon was going back nearly every day. His paranoia over the death of Gertrude Robinson was growing, and with it a horrible sense of anxiety. He felt like he was being watched constantly when he was at work, and he knew his coworkers had noticed his jumpy behaviour, and probably his suspicions of them.
The only place he didn’t feel so anxious was with Becky and the others at the gym. Actually getting to the gym itself sometimes felt like a Herculean task, especially when he had to drag himself away from his work to do so. But once he was there and was greeted by whichever of the posse had shown for the day, he was always glad of it.
Jon had always been a pretty skinny guy, so there wasn’t really a great deal of weight for him to loose. So his time spent at the gym began to show in other ways. Jon hadn’t even really noticed until he used the bottom of his shirt to wipe at his eyes and one of the girls gave him a wolf whistle. He knew she didn’t mean anything by it. Her girlfriend was standing right next to her grinning.
“What?” He asked a bit annoyed, and worried that perhaps it was all the scars? He couldn’t recall removing his shirt around them before, perhaps he was being mocked? But that didn’t make sense, Julie was usually so nice-
“Looks like you core workouts are really paying off! You got the start of a nice washboard there Jon!” Julie said.
“What?” Jon asked again in confusion, cautiously lifting his shirt and glancing in the mirror. She was right, Jon could clearly see some sharp lines that had not been there before. Which was… interesting. Jon shrugged it off. He needed to get back to the exercise. Cathy had promised to give him a boxing lesson, which was much more interesting then anything about his body.
***
Jon found it was difficult to be paranoid about his coworkers when he felt so good. He had never been so much less anxious. He hadn’t had a panic attack in weeks and he actually slept through the night most nights. Though he did still have the occasional dream about some of the statements he was recording. The trouble was, his normal schedule of daily gym visits meant that there was no way for him to check out the tunnels on his own and look for clues about Gertrude’s murderer.
He had tried to let his gym friends know he couldn’t make it, but they badgered him until he confessed that it was a work thing, and no it wasn’t strictly mandatory, and fine if Cathy promised to show him how to do the hold from last week he would come.
The one time he tried to go down the tunnels to explore, emerging shaking and scared, he found 13 missed calls and his voice message box full from worried lesbians. Now that Jon thought about it, maybe going a few rounds with Laura at the gym would be a good idea. Help him work out all the nervous energy from his jaunt in the tunnels.
He thought about spying on his coworkers, trying to learn more about them, rule them out as suspects. But doing so would require him to either give up going to the gym as often, or give up sleeping, and while before Jon would have gladly given up sleep if it meant getting answers, he was reluctant to now. He had never felt so energized now that he was actually sleeping through the night. And he knew just how easy it would be to fall back into old habits. Besides, he knew his crew of lesbian (and non binary) gym rats would probably bodily drag him back to the gym anyway.
Secretly he was grateful for it. It made it easier to make the decision. It didn’t stop him from being suspicious of his coworkers of course, but at least he kept that to business hours.
Actually he found it quite helpful to talk it through with his new gym friends. The suspected murder of Gertrude Robinson had been a hot topic of conversation in the gym for a while, with there being plenty of members of the Magnus Institute taking advantage of the corporate membership. So it wasn’t exactly a secret, and Jon wasn’t as good at hiding his paranoia as he thought he was. The lesbians were the ones who suggested that maybe Jon should investigate the tunnels with his assistants one on one, and if they looked like they knew where they were going, he would know to be suspicious. It was a good plan, so Jon did just that. He very quickly ruled out both Martin and Tim. There was no possible way Martin was that good an actor, even if he had been very attentive to Jon’s needs. Becky had pointed out with a laugh that someone caring about him shouldn’t be cause for suspicion, unless it was suspicion of a crush. Which, Jon immediately decided not to think about.
Tim he ruled out for a very different reason, because as Jon subtly tried to watch Tim, he could see Tim doing the same to him, both trying to determine if the other could have possibly been through the tunnels before. It was such a ridiculous situation that Jon ended up letting out a startled laugh. And after explaining why to a suspicious Tim —whose skeptically squinted eyes only caused Jon to laugh more — they both ended up laughing about it.
They had never really been close friends, but it had broken the tension to bring them back to where they had been before. Though Jon was sure to keep his new suspicions of Sasha to himself. He had thought about following her on her lunch breaks to see where she was going, but he found that these days he was eating a great deal more then he used to, and he actually needed his lunch breaks to eat. Still, their conversation about the table in artifact storage and her behaviour in the tunnels made him nervous. Which he combated by more aggressive boxing with Cathy.
The more research he did, however, the more he began to suspect that Sasha wasn’t actually Sasha. He had no way to confirm it though. None of the remaining tapes from the attack on the archives had Sasha’s voice. It wasn’t until Melanie mentioned the new girl that Jon finally accepted that the woman he knew as Sasha was a replacement.
Jon knew he had to do something. He knew it was probably a bad idea to do it alone, he had seen one of the new members at the gym get into some real trouble just the week before by lifting without a proper spotter. Jon figured maybe it would be a good idea to have support on this. So he called Tim and Martin into his office when Sasha was on her lunch break, and presented his findings.
He had been very thorough in his research of the Not!them. Tim understandably didn’t take it well. He punched a hole in the wall of Jon’s office. Martin flinched violently.
“How did I not see it? It’s been 8 months! How did I not notice she’s been gone for 8 months!” Tim nearly shouted in that way people yell when they are trying not to.
“Tim it’s not your fault-“ Martin began.
“No. It is, I could have at least noticed.
Jon noticed for Pete’s sake!!” Jon tried not to take offence at that.
“Tim I understand you’re upset but-“ Jon began.
“No. We have to kill this thing. How do we do it?” Jon couldn’t help but agree.
“I think the table in artifact storage might have something to do with it. I don’t know what, but I know she’s been by to, to stare at it.” Tim nodded.
“So we destroy the table then. Alright. I’ll bring my axe to work tomorrow.” Tim said, eyes filled with steel.
“Guys! It- whatever it is, we don’t know enough about it to know for sure that would kill it. What if it just makes it angry and we don’t have a back up plan? And we still don’t know for sure it isn’t her without those tapes,” Martin said, quickly stepping in and attempting to be the voice of reason. Neither Tim nor Jon looked convinced, but Jon reluctantly agreed that more information was probably a good idea before making a rash decision. Tim agreed to follow not-Sasha on her lunch break to see what he could find out. But he was firm that once they knew for certain how to kill it, they were going to kill it. Sasha deserved nothing less then the most complete avenging of her death.
“Do, um, do you need help moving the bookcase over?” Martin asked after Tim left.
“What for?” Jon asked confused.
“To cover the hole Tim punched?”
“Ah. Hmm yes I suppose it would be a good idea to cover it.” Jon said standing. He casually shifted the bookshelf over a foot or so to the left. Martins eyes widened. The bookcase was a good two feet taller then Jon, and Martin knew from the last 8 times he had helped friends move that books were very much Not Light. But Jon had barely grunted. What was more, when Jon had shifted the bookcase, Martin had caught the slight straining of the fabric on Jon’s sleeves as his biceps flexed. It was a little overwhelming. Martin left the office, his cheeks burning.