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"Jon?"
"Hm?"
"You alright?"
"Hm? Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?"
"You’re grimacing an awful lot."
Jon looked up from the his notes, pen in hand. Daisy was sitting cross legged on the floor, close enough to the wall to lean back and rest if she got tired. For now she sat up straight, looking at Jon curiously.
He grimaced, then winced at proving her point and shook his head.
"I'm fine. It's nothing."
"Sure about that?" Daisy prodded, one eyebrow arched. There was a fondness to it though—God help her.
The eyebrow only climbed at his hesitation, and he had a feeling he wouldn't be able to get away with lying. She wouldn't say anything, he was sure, wouldn't press. But she would know. And he'd been trying. Trying so hard to be someone worth trusting.
"It's just…a pain I get in my arms sometimes. Nothing major."
Her eyes darkened a little and he found himself gripping the pen tighter, ignoring the vague spasm of pain that shot up his arm in response.
"From the coffin?" she asked, tone as dark as her expression. He blinked at her, surprised.
"Oh. No! No," he said, not quite sure why it came out so defensive. "No, it used to happen sometimes when I was at Uni. Though it's been worse since…Did I tell you about the Circus?"
He hadn't meant to say that much, but then again he never did. And he'd been a bit desperate to turn the conversation away from the Buried. Away from the notion that he might have been complaining about a minor ailment from Forever Deep Below Creation when it had taken everything from her.
Daisy shook her head.
"Oh," he said. It was hard to keep track of who he'd told what. "I was…kidnapped by them. A while back."
"You get kidnapped a lot," she observed.
"Unfortunately." He smiled grimly. She didn't. The corner of his mouth twitched.
"But, like I said," he pushed on, ready to be done with this line of conversation. "It's nothing new."
She tilted her head slightly, assessing him. Then she smiled a little. With that same fondness that made his insides curdle just a bit.
"Not surprising," she said. "With the way you sit."
He frowned at her.
"What about the way I sit?" indignant at the suggestion that he was now apparently getting something as simple as sitting wrong.
Both her eyebrows rose then, in amusement and surprise. He bristled.
"You're always hunched over," she said. "It's no wonder you get muscle pain."
"I am not."
"You…" her eyes searched him, humor evident in the curl of her lips. "You actually don’t realize."
He glared at her, opening his mouth to retort. To tell her he knew how to sit just fine thank you. But he stopped up short when she started to unfold herself.
There was a deliberateness to her every movement that had always made her look smooth, even now as her limbs shook in effort. She had a grace to her that had once made her seem that much more deadly. Like tightly coiled steel. The grace was still there, even though the coils had given out.
"Here," she said, circling his desk with measured steps.
When he'd gotten back from the hospital, his desk chair was missing. Never found out what had happened to it, not that he'd really tried. Hadn't seemed very pressing, funny enough, so he'd just dragged over a box of false statements and been using it as a chair ever since. Now he wasn't sure if he regretted it. The tall back and arms would have blocked off Daisy's access.
He stiffened as she rested one hand on his lower back, the other coming to lay over his chest, and pushed in with both to straighten him. A sharp pain jolted along the side of his spine, and he sucked in a quick breath through his teeth, hoping the sound was small enough that Daisy wouldn't notice.
"That hurt?" she said, and he could hear the frown in her voice, even if he couldn't see it. Guilt thrummed in his chest. He started to assure her that he was fine, but was cut off by her fingers prodding along the sides of his spine.
He pressed his lips together as she approached the spot where the pain had originated, determined to keep quiet when she finally hit it. Even so, he couldn't help but jump just a little as her fingers pressed into the pain. His jaw clenched, frustrated with himself. Daisy only hummed and started to explore the edges of the knot. He tried to keep his breathing even, she was barely touching him really, but hissed breaths still escaped him whenever she caught him off guard by nudging something particularly sore.
Her other hand had moved to his shoulder at some point, her warm grasp holding him steady. She gripped a little more tightly there as her ministrations grew firmer, making it harder to control his stuttered breathing.
Suddenly, she drew her hand away and made an unhappy noise that made Jon's heart sink. He opened his mouth to apologize, but just as he did, she dug in hard with her knuckle and all that came out was a choked off sound from the back of his throat. He tried to stifle it, covering his mouth with one hand, the other gripping tightly at the edge of his desk, and she stilled.
Jon closed his eyes, frustrated at his own inability to control himself. Her hand still rested on his shoulder, but her grip loosened, and she didn't move.
"You can tell me to stop, you know," she said, as if suddenly realizing that he might not. "I will."
He let out a breath through his nose and let his head fall forward slightly, hand still half covering his mouth.
"Maybe I don't want you to," he said quietly, before he could stop himself.
Daisy didn't move for a long moment, didn't say anything either. Then her hands finally left him. Jon ached at the loss of her touch and hated himself for driving her away. He always did, eventually.
"Explain that to me," Daisy said, and Jon opened his eyes enough to see that she had come around alongside him, sitting back gingerly against the edge of his desk. He could feel her staring at him. He knew well what it felt like to be watched.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have…"
"Jon." He looked up at her reflexively, caught that gentle, but firm look in her eye. "Please."
He swallowed, throat working painfully as he stared up at her, searching her face for any sign of mercy. She just waited patiently. Eventually he sighed, dropping his gaze and slouching forward, leaning heavily on his arms crossed over his desk. His back ached in a comfortable way, settled back into it's accustomed bend.
"I'm just…tired," he said, feeling it ache beneath his skin and push behind his eyes, "of everything being my fault. My choice."
The word came out with more venom than he usually found he had these days. It seemed to be the last he'd had in him at the moment, leaving him empty and tired to say the rest.
"Maybe I just want something that isn't."
He waited for her to laugh. Or ask with that same gentle curiosity why he believed he deserved a thing like that. But for a long while, she didn't say anything at all. Then she just hummed.
"Sit up for me," she said, and he did, wincing at the spike of pain along his spine. It was a little duller now.
Daisy pushed off of the desk, coming back around behind him and doing the same thing she'd done before, resting the knuckles of one hand against his lower back and the other palm on his chest, pushing him against them until his spine straightened the rest of the way. He hadn't realized there was more to go. She rested her hands on his shoulders, smoothing down the sides of his arms and pulling them apart from where they were crossed on the desk in front of him. He could feel the warmth of her all along his back as she repositioned his arms as she liked, and something soft and primal in the back of his head wanted him to lean back into it. He didn't.
He hissed when she pulled his elbows back slightly, something old and aching twinging between his shoulder-blades, but she didn't even pause, taking him at his word it seemed. When she'd gotten his arms where she wanted them, resting palm down on the desk in front of him, she trailed back up to his shoulders and rested her hands there.
Her thumbs dug in between his shoulder blades and he found himself straightened out again, not even realizing he had started to slouch. He really wasn't good at this whole sitting up straight thing. Hm.
The points of pressure started to climb, hard with the leverage of her hands wrapped around his shoulders, until her thumbs finally pressed into the base of his neck and that hurt. He jerked forward, away from her touch, even as his head tipped forward to give her more access. She just pulled him back into place and continued, undisturbed. He felt his breathing pick up as she doubled down on that spot, his fingers curling on the desk as he fought the urge to pull away.
When she let up for a moment, he caught a shaky breath, thinking she was done with it. Then she rolled her knuckle into it and he choked. He tried to lean away again, too distracted by the pain of it to try and keep himself steady, but her other hand gripped his shoulder tightly, holding him in place despite his best efforts to squirm away.
"Breathe through it," Daisy said, voice quiet and steady. He jumped a little anyway, as if the sound of it had shocked him. He did his best to do as she told him, taking a shaky breath in and letting it out in a hiss against the pain.
Eventually, the sharp stab faded into a dull ache, and he was able to breathe evenly enough without too much effort. He still let out relieved sigh when she finally let that spot go. She stopped for a moment to correct his posture again, then continued her search for sore spots, kneading with her fingertips like a cat pawing at a pillow. When she found the taught line of his shoulders, she huffed what sounded like a fond laugh before pressing in, following the tendons from the bone of his shoulder to the base of his neck, then up the sides.
Then her fingers brushed too close to the front of his throat, and suddenly Jon couldn't breathe.
"Don't," he said, hands coming up to catch her fingers in his own, gripping them tightly with a fear he was always surprised he still managed to be capable of.
A different kind of fear caught in his throat when he realized what he'd done. Neither of them moved. Jon wondered if Daisy could hear his pulse, rabbiting as it was. He was certain that there was a time when she could.
Somehow, despite the fear, despite the voice in his head telling him just let go. she'll do what she wants anyway. make it easier, he couldn't bring himself to let go of her hands. He'd told her to keep going. Maybe she would realize this was different. Or maybe she would lean into the sore spot and he couldn't.
Daisy tugged her hands out of his, and he reluctantly let them fall back to the desk. For a moment, she didn't touch him. And suddenly he wondered if he'd put her off entirely. He heard her let out a breath.
"Good," she said, quietly, and something in him wanted to sob. She touched lightly at the base of his neck again.
"Is this alright?" she asked. He nodded, not trusting his ability to speak. Funny how usually he could never get himself to stop.
She trailed her fingertips up the back of his neck lightly, touch growing firmer when he didn't balk. She pressed along either side of the bones in his neck, dragging the pressure up to the base of his skull, then out along the edge of it and under his ears. He jumped a little when her fingertips dug into the sides of his jaw, more from surprise at finding soreness there than from actual pain. She stayed there for a little while before moving up to his temples.
He wasn't so sure what her purpose was anymore, when her fingers started carding through his hair, but he was a little too lost in it to question it. His hair was getting long again. Almost as long as it had gotten in Uni when his grandmother wasn't around to frown him into going to the barber every other month for the first time in his life. A snarl caught in Daisy's fingers and a tiny breath punched from his lungs at the sharp point of pain. She smoothed it out, dragging the pads of her fingers along his scalp.
Jon didn't feel himself slip away, but he must have at some point. He drifted. Existing only in the points of contact between Daisy's skin and his. He knew about these things well enough. Nerve endings and oxytocin. Bonding hormones. Social creatures. Maybe that was surprising in its own merit. That he was still human enough to forget himself at another's touch.
He wasn't sure how much time passed. When Daisy's hands finally drew out of his hair, they came to rest on his shoulders again. Not pushing, or pressing, just resting. It kept him tethered. Rooted to the ground. For a long moment, they stayed like that.
"You know," Daisy said quietly, pulling him gently out of the fuzz in his head. "It might not be so bad if you sat in an actual chair."
It took him longer than it should have to understand what she meant, but when he finally did, he laughed quietly under his breath. He could imagine her grinning behind him.
"Come on," she said, giving his shoulder a tap. "Let's go take a break."
Jon blinked his eyes open, not knowing when they'd fallen closed. His office looked…the same. It caught him a little off-guard that he was surprised by it. He shook his head a little, registering what Daisy had said. He tilted his head to look back at her. She looked the same too.
"You're going to try to convince me that wasn't a break?" he said, more for the sake of argument than anything else. Daisy smiled slyly.
"Don't think it counts as a break if it involves panting," she said. Jon spluttered.
"I wasn't panting."
"Sure," she said, letting her hands fall away from his shoulders. Something immediately emptied out inside of him. "Just. Breathing laboriously."
He huffed, wanting to curl in on himself in indignation, but something kept him upright. His eyes started to lose focus, just a bit.
"Come on," Daisy said again. "I'm hungry and I want a nap."
"Don't need me for that," Jon pointed out a little distantly, even as he pushed himself to his feet. A wave of sleepiness had him leaning on the desk for support, but his limbs felt lighter, and it wasn't too hard to hold himself up.
"Maybe not," she admitted. "But I want you."
He swayed on his feet when he let go of the desk, and Daisy caught his arm, buckling in turn as she slung it around her shoulders and wrapped her arm around his waist. And like that they walked. Two unsteady creatures, leaning against one another.