Chapter Text
It’s with a sinking feeling that Jon wakes up to find the lights still on and him still seated squarely on the couch, curled loosely around his dead laptop and half dead phone and some slightly crumpled files. Christ, how is he still tired when the clock reads at least five hours since he passed out without even getting to his bed? When he still has another hour before his alarm will jar him awake again.
He should be hungry, he didn’t get around to making food last night. He isn’t.
Everything feels a little sideways. A little off-balance. Wrong.
Coming down with something? Or just deep in sleep debt. Who’s to say?
Although he thinks he may need to accept his fate when he wakes up on his desk a few hours later. He’s fairly certain that he just fell asleep, not fainted. But, by then, he’s woozy enough that he isn’t sure.
He presses his hand over his hammering heart. Willing it to calm down. He has so much to do. He can’t leave. Even if he only manages to organize a few files, it will still make tomorrow easier. Any little bit he can manage, he has to.
The words on the page of the file he’s working on blur. He rubs at his aching eyes.
So far, no other symptoms. Could just be a flare up. Could be exhaustion catching up with him.
He tries to feel his own forehead. Results inconclusive.
Why does he bother?
He tries to get up to refill his water, but has to lay down immediately as the room tilts and his head pounds. He can’t tell if’s about to pass out in the literal sense, or if his aching body is just seeking out more rest in the most demanding and irritating way. He’s so tired. He’d sob if he could find the energy.
He wakes to Tim patting his face.
Jon lets out a very embarrassing sound. Warm hands on his face, patting gently, seeing how far gone Jon is. Not so far gone that he can’t come back. But his eyes judder and threaten to close again against his will. So tired. It takes all his concentration to keep them open for an almost reasonable amount of time between blinks.
“Hey, boss? How ya feeling?”
Jon tries for words, and misses by at least a kilometer. He just wants to go back to sleep. Is that really so much to ask? Just wants to sleep until he feels like a person again.
And he’s missed Tim’s fussing. A sturdy presence in his life. Solid and reliable. There when you need him.
A very comfortable, buff, body-pillow.
Jon curses his overtired mind. This is not what he should be thinking about at work. Certainly not as a boss. After work hours, if he ever has the energy and availability to make it to another drinks night, maybe. If he’s ever invited. If he ever doesn’t have another late meeting with Elias, as if Elias is well aware of his friendships ad doesn’t approve. Always claiming that this is more convenient and won’t get in the way of his work and that really, Jonathan, one can’t cozy up to his assistants like that, imagine the HR complications.
“Jon?” Of course Sasha and Martin have crowded into his doorway now, and Jon still can’t gather himself enough to reply.
How can he still be so tired? He has done nothing but sleep.
But, he’s been dragging all week. Since staying late to tackle the document storage room this past weekend. Hit even harder by attempting to record some of the statements. And he’s still baffled by the need to digitize. Why is that so important? Why does it matter? Sure, it would be more than helpful in the future for accessibility reasons, but it just doesn’t make sense to haphazardly record before they can get everything in some sort of sensical location. It isn’t accessible if no one can find anything. It doesn’t even make sense to have them stored on tapes? Those don’t fit nicely into the stacks like the crisp manilla folders. They will have to be stored elsewhere, anyhow, and if half the files are on tape and half are on the computer, it just further complicates everything. It doesn’t make sense and it takes all of Jon’s not inconsiderable will power to not complain to Elias about it every week, during every impromptu meeting that Jon swears Elias has a schedule for if he could just figure out what that schedule is.
“Jon can you talk to me? Did you hit your head?” Tim again. Still. Hasn’t stopped. Gently talking to him and trying to catch his eyes, fluttering, forcing them open.
Jon tries to draw the words from his lips, but they stumble across sleep slack lips and a clumsy tongue. “M’fine. Lemme sleep.” Eloquent. So much for his years in Am Dram.
It reminds him of the night he couldn’t sleep. The day his third year’s ghost story was set to open. So sleep deprived, he snuck a nap on the intact prop bed (not to be confused with the one with a gaping hole cut into it), scaring the shit out of the stage hands when they found him. Mouth full of cotton, head full of lead.
Jon wishes he still had the fortitude to run on lack of sleep and nicotine and stress. Well he runs on two of those, except he really isn’t running well right now, is he?
Tim tugging on his legs. Propping them on his chair. “’S not the legs. Jus’tired. Head’s fine.” Tripping over words. Stumbling over them like a cold reading in an audition. He never could makes the words flow without practice, and even then, his cadence has always been a little off.
He wishes he knew why. Hours or practice. Running lines every day, twice a day. Trying to make words sit nicely in his mouth, make them polished and truthful and owning them. Letting the intentions of the characters and director wash through him, making deliberate choices.
That’s another thing about the statements that he can’t figure. Not quite. Like he can’t think about it without his mind slipping off it. A rag sliding off polished stone. Water off a duck? No, that’s ludicrous. What what he thinking about?
“No fever,” he hears Martin whisper, too loudly. His hands are warm. Softer than Tim’s. But Martin bites his nails. Jon can see it. It’s a disgusting habit, but he knows Martin is trying to stop. Trying all sorts of nail varnishes and lipsticks to deter him. It’s almost working and part of Jon wants to acknowledge this and praise him for his hard work. Changing ingrained habits is always more difficult that imaginable. Even the habits that don’t lead to any sort of chemical dependence.
“I think I’m going to drive him home,” Tim says after leaving room for Jon to defend himself and come up with a semi plausible reason for his current state.
“Elias? Can’t get fired. Can’t!” He’s tugging at Tim’s shirt with too much desperation. “Can’t!”
He can feel himself starting to wheeze as he works himself up. Feels Sasha deftly reaching over Tim to retrieve Jon’s inhaler from his desk, Tim easily taking it and shaking it and putting it to Jon’s lips to depress and inhale and hold and have the air torn from him, letting his airways relax again. Bringing him almost around again. He’s marginally more aware and awake now. Marginally.
“Go home, Jon,” Tim says a few beats delayed as Jon tries not to let the dizziness and exhaustion take him. He can’t stand the thought of admitting defeat. From his own body, too. His face splits in a jaw cracking yawn. Tim laughs at him. Lightly. It doesn’t hurt. “Hmm. Maybe I should drive you?”
Jon doesn’t have it in him to argue.
Just barely enough in him to be thankful he doesn’t get another “surprise nap” while Martin guides him to his feet and Sasha gathers his partly disassembled bag. Shoving his detested coffee and laptop and scarf into it, but leaving out the stack of statements he’d planned on taking home that night. Obviously not going to happen. In fact, he’s reasonably certain that Tim will take him back to his place and fuss over him. Not that Jon would mind at this point. He can barely stand.
He’s listing to the side as Tim guides him to his car. Tripping over his feet. Martin trails after him, seemingly waiting for Jon to collapse. He isn’t goin to. No matter how hard his heart is pounding. Not today. Firstly, he isn’t sick. Just tired. Secondly, this is now how he wants Martin to learn he has POTS. There is a way he should do this that won’t be as mortifying. Although he’s suspicious he’ll avoid telling Martin until he literally swoons into his …very lovely arms.
Jon falls asleep on the ride to Tim’s. Hardly roused to get him into Tim’s flat. Guided to the soft and welcoming bed, and he’s asleep again before Tim has tugged off his glasses.