Chapter Text
“--and he told me it wouldn’t be professional to cut my hair,” Melanie fumes. Jon has to look up from where he’s carefully pouring the cream to actually catch any of what she’s saying. He’s certain he missed a couple of talking points, but, well, Oliver tips well for his latte art. It’s worth missing a little bit of Melanie’s latest grievance.
“Hold up,” he tells her, sliding the finished cup onto the serving counter and calling out, "Latte for Oliver Banks?”
The man drifts out from the corners of the shop, some place Jon barely noticed, looking as exhausted as he always does. Sometimes, Jon wonders about him - with his gaunt face and exhausted eyes - but, well. He's a regular for a reason. He thanks Jon softly and leaves a large tip per usual, and then he’s gone. The rest of the shop is empty, and, if Jon’s lucky, then he can pass off any incoming orders to Melanie for the next ten minutes and get off his shift without touching another machine.
“Alright,” he says, grabbing a nearby rag and starts wiping down the counter just for something to do with his hands. “This is about Benji? The cameraman?”
“Ryan,” Melanie corrects. “He’s been a piece of shit about this show since the beginning.”
Jon digs through his memory and pulls out, “Didn’t he start it?”
She scoffs and waves a hand in a big, irritated gesture. “That doesn’t give him the right to steamroll over everyone else- steamroll over my own fucking appearance. Fine, he never wants to branch out. Fine, he wants to muddle data. But christ, he’s moved onto classic sexism? He’s not even in charge of the project anymore, I’m the fucking face of the show,” she snaps with a little less fire, rocking back on her heels. “If he’s going to tell me what to look like, he can at least bother to show his face on the platform.” Jon gives a little sympathetic nod and sneer on her behalf: from what he’s heard about them, Melanie’s coworkers (well, her other ones) are real pieces of shit.
“I’ll kill them for you,” he offers lightly, and she snorts.
“I’d do it myself if it wouldn’t cost me the channel.” Then she sighs, rolling her eyes. “You’re lucky that I ran out of steam while you were busy, I can’t-” she grasps at the air, making a mocking choke gesture and shaking her head. “They’re so infuriating!”
And the clock chimes on the hour. “The worst,” he agrees, straightening. “Your steam has impeccable timing, though, as I’m afraid my shifts up.”
“What? No,” she whines, sliding back into a more playful tone. “You’re leaving me here all alone?”
“As I do every Wednesday,” Jon replies, lofty and yet apologetic. “And Thursday.” He moves around her to clock out as she stands and adjusts her uniform, tugging the apron on properly instead of strewn wildly over her.
He’s not half a block from the shop when the texts from Georgie start rolling in.
From: Georgie Barker
> jonny boy. love. we need bread
> i am cooking and we are in fact out of bread can you
> get some
With half an eye on the phone and half looking out for a suitable bread-buying location, Jon types out some dry agreement and sends. He can swat her for calling him Jonny later, he figures, much more focused on how inevitably delicious all meals cooked by her are, and how long he can save the leftovers, when a weight slams directly into his back.
It’s a hefty force, and nearly sends him sprawling across the sidewalk. Jon braces himself just in time, muscles going wound like a spring as he spins to snap at the offender. Said offender, who...
Isn’t even looking at him. Ass. The man is tall and ginger, tall enough that Jon has to crane his head at this close a distance, and is peering in terror over his own shoulder. “Could you watch wh--”
“Sorry,” the man cuts him off, voice pitched close to ranges only dogs could hear. “Sorry, sorry, I can’t--”
And then he’s gone. Sprinting surprisingly fast, he breezes right past Jon, at such a speed that Jon feels like he should be sputtering on the kicked up dirt from the man’s exit.
Of course, that only happens in cartoons, so Jon just stands there like an idiot for a moment. He blinks first at the man’s back as he turns a corner and disappears from view, and then back at where he was clearly running from, wondering what could have possessed him to take up such a sprint. For a moment he entertains the thought that he should be running too, and that’s when he spies the phone. Dark screen reflecting the sun, with one big crack running through from top to bottom on the left, and a slightly older model than Jon’s own.
It’s the man’s phone of course, it certainly wasn’t there before. He leans down to grab it before he even considers another option and slips it into his back pocket, both interested in the phone and yet more interested in getting Georgie’s bread at once.
Once he shows up at their flat, armed with bread and a number of Jon-preferred snacks, the phone is forgotten in favor of hovering over Georgie as she cooks. “How was work today?” she asks in a mockery of cheerfulness, planting both hands on his chest to shove him away from the stove.
“Objectively my shifts with your girlfriend from hell are the best ones,” he says with a shrug, only pouting a little as he hops up to sit on the counter- and that is when he gives the phone a second thought.
Wriggling it out from his back pocket, Georgie’s response is lost to the curiosity, and then the brewing fear. Ah, dawns on him, as he turns the thing around, I just stole a perfect stranger’s phone. He grimaces, and tries to bite back the shame. Objectively it isn’t the stupidest thing he’s ever done, and he keeps that in mind as he powers it on. There lies more confirmation that the big ginger man owns the phone- he’s in the side of the lock screen photo.
Specifically, he’s the blurry left side. Obviously mid-motion, tugged by the girl stage center into frame, his expression reads something dopey and surprised. The man on the other side of the girl is smirking at the camera, gesturing with a thumb to his two companions.
“Jon?” prompts Georgie, letting him know he’s missed something. “I said, did you--” she turns and pauses. “...Is that yours?”
“The phone?” he holds it up, as if she would be referring to anything else. “Um. No?” She blinks at him. “A man ran into me- and I do mean that quite literally, Georgie- and dropped this. He was gone by the time I noticed, so I just...” he pauses. “Ah. Stole it. I suppose.”
Georgie stares at him with undisguised, if confused, fondness for a moment, crossing to put the plates on the table. It smells of something cinnamon, and Jon hops down to join her, unable to parse the expression on her face, but he’s used to that. At worst Georgie’s odd looks for him read as condescending, but usually they’re just Georgie- her fondness despite the ways they don’t understand each other. “Well, you’re planning to return it, aren’t you?”
“Well, yes, but unless you can identify him from the photo alone I doubt I’ll have much luck.” He opens the phone to the photo from before and slides it across the table to her. “You put out a Twitter poll to your wide audience,” he snorts. “Hope one of his friends sees it.”
“Some people use Twitter on their computers, you know that, right Jon?” she asks, endlessly amused. Then she scoops up the phone, presses the home button. “Just text his contacts.”
“Why? It’s completely unnavig-- the phone is locked, Georgie, and- the site is completely unnavigable on desktop. The app is bad, too, but lord.” Georgie holds up a finger to quiet him and then turns the phone to face him- the phone that is very much open. The home screen is some chibi image of a dog lounging on a pale background. There’s a text bubble with speech in it, but the app symbols make it unreadable. “Did you... hack his phone?”
Georgie stares at him one more time. “There wasn’t a password.” A silence passes between them in which Jon goes steadily more scarlet with embarrassment. “So. Contacts! Easy peasy, and you can get the guilt of grand theft cell phone off your conscience.”
“I-- yes, thank you Georgie,” he admits begrudgingly, taking the phone back and setting it down. “I’ll text his contacts when we’re finished here.”
“You go grandpa,” she deadpans in return. “Speaking of my Twitter audience...”
Apparently there’s been a recent surge of people making fan accounts of What the Ghost, including several new impersonation accounts, one of which is doing, as Georgie calls it, The Most. “They’ve got the accent down well for someone who’s pretty obviously American,” he comments, when he shows some of the videos they’ve posted.
Jon holds off on further looking into Mr. Cellphone Man until dinner is over and they are each safely shut up in their own rooms. The Admiral has chosen Jon tonight, with some unsubtle coaxing and treat rewards, so he’s snuggled securely against the blades of Jon’s shoulders where he curls around the phone in bed.
It turns out the dog in the home screen image is saying 'meow,' which Jon scowls at. He’s not judging the man based on one bad animal meme and an unfortunate encounter, but yes he is, actually.
It just isn’t a good joke, alright?
His curiosity, and a little animosity, sends him deeper into the phone’s files. Nothing noted in his calendar, his weather app is set for London, Santa Monica, and Sheffield, a reminder set daily that reads 'write,' set some years ago and going forward to the indefinite future.
For a moment Jon considers the photos app and the notes app, and carefully avoids them. He can acknowledge a stranger’s privacy enough to not look at those, at least.
Instead he opens the text messages.
From: tim
> [unread] alright sorry for the fucken essay but its late and i miss…
From: sasha
> [unread] Me and Tim are checking out the pride night at the...
From: elias bosschard
> Best wishes.
From: miss bensley
> Of course, son.
The last message Jon considers to be relatively recent is from the ‘Miss Bensely,’ which stretches back two months ago, and he barely opens it before closing it again. She’s the receptionist at a nursing home, apparently, and Jon tightens the vice grip on his own curiosity before looking any further. Elias ‘Bosschard,’ reads something about expecting Martin back in on Monday unless he requests vacation time, two weeks ago.
Both Sasha’s and Tim’s are from the last two days. He lets his eyes skim over Sasha’s message intentionally and tries not to note the implications of pride night, once more for privacy. Or, the illusion of it, anyway.
Tim’s, from only the night before, he can’t help but open.
From: tim
>annd week two of no word from marto. cool cool cool cool cool
>listen i don’t know what the hell me and sash did to you but you can’t just ghost us like this. like u understand why thats upsetting and concerning? yeah? you get that?
>ugh i really don’t mean to be aggressive but i REALLY don’t know what to do here. you know how fucking scary it is that our only contact with you is once-a-month sobbing phone calls? that visitors are mysteriously no longer allowed in the archive? you look like shit when i happen to catch the barest glimpses of you and sorry to say it but thats
>its upsetting, martin! its upsetting. is something going on? did we do something? seriously are you upset with us
>ill fucking make amends or apologize and never talk to you again or whatever just give me SOMETHING here
>literally anything.
>ugh
call me, meet with me, something. i wont even be mad. i love you, dumbass, and im here for you. just give me something
>alright sorry for the fucken essay but its late and i miss you. good fucking night, please text me back.
...Ah. Jon is beginning to regret opening this. Not regret, not really, but- geez. He rolls over and eases the Admiral up against his chest, grimacing into his fur. He’s obligated to respond now, isn’t he?
Admiral purrs against his chest, disrupting the monotone rasp of Jon’s breathing in the night air. He could make excuses, say that it’s too late to message someone, but it’s not, and besides. It’s a lost cause, Jon already knows he’s going to respond. Two separate pangs rattle his chest, sympathy for Tim and a biting empathy for this ‘Martin.’
Jonathan Sims is not a man known for maintaining consistent or healthy levels of communication with people. Ignored rants and im here for you, text me back, please are uncomfortably familiar to him, winding something taut in his chest.
To: tim
Hello. <
Do you know the owner of this phone? <
From: tim
> MARTIN!
> oh. you’re not martin, are you.
> uh, yes, he’s a friend of mine. you have his phone?
To: tim
No, I’m afraid I’m not. <
He left his phone, do you know where I could return it to him? <
From: tim
> aauhhg uh geez. he works up at the magnus institute, in london, ask for the archives?? is he in london still?? idrk where he lives anymore
To: tim
Can’t have gotten that far from London in the hours since I saw him. <
The Institute is on my way into work, I’ll drop it off tomorrow. <
Thank you. <
From: tim
> awesome and cool
> can i ask a kind of unfair favor of you?
> tell him to call me
Jon sighs, burying his face in Admiral’s fur once more, before giving Tim the affirmative and goodnight. Though Jon finds rather quickly that he can’t sleep, despite the deep exhaustion of interacting with strangers washing over him. He flops onto his back and stares at the inconsistencies in the ceiling, before getting the phone out and searching the map for the Magnus Institute, plotting his route in the morning around it.
He’s familiar with the Institute, of course. He was obsessed with it when he was young, kept up with it on and off since he could first work a search engine, returning to its home page on sleepless nights thinking of spiders. Dreaming of telling his story to someone, of having someone listen and understand in case Mr. Spider ever came back for him, is what kept him going for a number of years.
Then he moved to London, and it became feasible. He even considered applying, reviewing his CV to apply for a research position, but he just... couldn’t. Despite applying to every other research position he could find, despite the Institute being within walking distance of his flat, something stopped him. Something thick in his throat whenever he considered going near the place, something prickling on the back of his neck and stilling his hands, something nauseating in his gut.
He’d stood in front of the building working himself up to tell his story for almost an hour once, just watching from across the street. In the end, he couldn’t do it. He’d glanced around him for anyone watching and left as fast as socially acceptable, making it all the way back to his flat before having the panic attack that had been threatening him.
Still, Jon’s never told anyone about that. Georgie accepts his odd quirks with no questions these days, and just jokes gently about being the man of the house when Jon needs a spider taken care of.
He opens up the photos app and then closes it immediately, hanging from the last thread of his concern for Martin’s privacy. Instead he locks the phone and views the opening screen.
Jon tries to refrain from assuming too much, but he thinks betting that the people in the lockscreen are Tim and Sasha is fair. They seem happy: supposedly- Tim with one arm slung around supposedly-Sasha, all dressed nicer than Jon does on a daily basis.
Then again, Martin works at the Magnus Institute and Jon tends not to leave the house but for work at the coffee shop. Different people.
He studies their smiles a little longer, and then guiltily re-reads Tim’s rant, before forcing himself to set the phone down and turn into the covers. As he lays in the dark, he can’t help but picture Martin. Tim and Sasha too, but- Martin.
He can’t help but wonder what made Martin run like that, can’t help his mind from picturing… his mind drifts immediately to some emergency phone call from the hospital about a loved one. Sasha, maybe, only because speaking to Tim means it probably wasn’t him. In the end he shakes himself out of it, resolutely tells himself that- that fantasizing about strangers is creepy, and to go to bed.
Jon sleeps... restlessly