Chapter Text
Jon is surprised to return to the Institute and find its halls cold to the touch.
On his first day out of the hospital, it had been raining. Georgie had driven him home then, at his request, to the Magnus Institute, although she vehemently refused walking him in. Standing there, contemplating the old building as though a friend, equal parts his captor, the rain had soaked through his clothes, seeping underneath his bones. As the wind blew past him, Jon shivered on instinct, but there was no feeling attached to it. His feet weren’t numbed where his soaks had taken in the water from a puddle, his fingers moved with precision, not a single hair in his body raised to try and shield him. Other than a general annoyance at being wet, his body did not react to the cold.
He assumed, after a few weeks, that Death had claimed a part of him that could feel cold or heat, sleep or hunger for food. Much to his surprise, then, that one late afternoon, as he came down from the height of recording a bland statement, his body was shaken, root to tip, by a shiver that ran through him and settled at the base of his neck.
Jon snapped his head behind him, to find a clear wall. He was not foolish enough to believe for a second that the walls did not have the capacity to make him feel seen, but his body told him that wasn’t it. It wasn’t the piercing, ever-present weight of eyes on him, a crowded audience waiting on him for a show he didn’t know the script of. It was, and continued to be, as the temperature dropped even further, setting his teeth clashing, cold, his body’s physiological reaction to it, which Jon had assumed dormant.
Just as quickly as it came, however, the feeling disappeared. The Archives returned to their meek twenty-one degrees Celsius, a bit of information Jon could have easily lived without.
A stack of papers was unceremoniously dropped right before his eyes. Jon lifted his eyes over his glasses to glower at the back of Melanie’s head as she walked away, carrying a storm with her.
“What are these?” Jon asked before she had a chance to leave. The woman froze to the sound of his words, and he watched in real time as Melanie tried to pinpoint the feeling of being compelled. Did she feel any particular way about the question, did she ache to tell him, did she need to tell him? She must have decided that no, he hadn’t compelled her, because when she turned, her expression was hostile but not murderous.
“Statement requests from the head office.”
Jon glanced at the top of the pile. It was a simple telegraphed note printed on Institute paper, and read for a statement number, with a signature Jon had never before seen in his life but new immediately to be Peter Lukas’. It was curt and tidy, without any of the flair Jon had grown used to seeing in the “B” of Elias’ signature. If Jon didn’t know any better, he’d think Mr. Lukas had typed his name in Word to pass it off as his signature before having the document printed.
But Jon knew better. He knew he had seen every single Lukas’ signature by reading Peter’s, that if he held any other Lukas’ signature and this note against each other under the light, they would have perfect superposition, excluding the given name.
“What does he want with these?”
Melanie shrugged her shoulders with a short motion. Her weight rested on one of her legs, arms crossed over her chest, several feet from Jon’s desk. She wasn’t moving any time soon, neither to get closer nor go away. He might be the last person Melanie would rather be talking to at the moment, but he was enough person to be the last. Which meant that he was. Basira had clocked out, Melanie didn’t want to be alone.
“Beats me. Maybe the office’s chilly and he needs fuel for the bonfire.”
Jon snorted over the pain her words ignited behind his eyes.
“Gertrude would have been proud.” Jon hesitated. It was a big pile. “Could you help me fish for these?”
The look Melanie gave him wasn’t the happiest he’d ever seen her, but it wasn’t the grimace of someone who was going to yell at him again.
“Sure.” Melanie yanked the first few papers from the top of the pile and swerved into the shelves, disappearing into 2006-2008.
The paper itself was cold to the touch. Not damaged in any way, Jon noted, running pensive fingers through it on his way to the box he knew the statement was in.
“Did Mr. Lukas give you these?” Jon asked. When there came a questioning grunt, he repeated the question and heard Melanie laugh.
“I’ve never seen that man in my life! Found his assistant haunting the hall outside and he handed them over.”
Jon paused.
“Assistant?”
Melanie surged into his isle, carrying two files of statements already.
“Who did he get to be his assistant?”
Melanie’s knuckles whitened where she crumpled her hands around the request notes. Jon, who was still staring at the same box but hadn’t moved in a while, did not notice, and thus, failed to realize how her patience was running thin. How the scent of blood had become heavy in the air between them.
“No one I know, I think Lukas brought him with him.”
“How come I never seen him?”
The statements hit Jon in the back of the head, spreading over the floor at his feet. Jon clocked the pain much later, but still he cowered back from Melanie who, looming above him, seemed ready to kick him senseless.
“Fuck it if I know, Jon!” she screamed. Jon raised both his arms in front of his face and tried to say something, but Melanie stormed off, slamming the door on her way out.
In the aftermath of his heartrate going down from the scare, Jon sat in the floor, assistant all but forgotten.
*
“Daisy?”
Jon jolted awake, his head all but falling against the back of the couch as Daisy got up and ran in the wake of Basira coming into the room. His grumbling and annoyance at being woken up, when falling asleep was such a difficult process these days, went ignored by the two women. They were engrossed in their own odd dance of affection – Daisy trying to touch Basira’s forearm for no particular reason, just to be near her, Basira pulling that arm away to write something on a clipboard, then catching a glimpse of Daisy’s puppy-dog-eyes and guiltily reaching to pet her shoulder and pull a string of hair out of the way of her ear. A complicated dance indeed, and Jon wanted to sleep.
“Martin’s asking that you go meet with HR.”
A growl automatically formed in the back of Daisy’s throat, and she clipped her mouth shut to keep it at bay. When she spoke, the noise of her throat sounded more like a whimper. “Again…? You did tell them I wasn’t doing that anymore, right?”
Basira’s lips thinned under the scrutiny of Daisy’s eyes.
“Right?”
“I meant to.” The woman replied, curtly “Tell them you need more time to think about it.”
“I don’t need time, Basira, I am not hunting anymore.”
“You might-”
“I don’t…” Daisy inhaled a sharp breath and closed her eyes. Jon could hear her counting under her breath and feel the blood recede from her veins. He marvelled with it, every single time, and ached for the level of control Daisy had over herself. He purposefully didn’t think about all the times he hadn’t even tried. “Don’t make me argue about this again, Basira, please.”
Basira held her with a cold gaze, refusing to meet her pleading eyes.
“We need them to keep sending the write-offs.” She replied after a pause “In case something comes up.”
With that, Basira left, and Daisy’s body sagged. She had, frustratingly, explained multiple times why she could not hunt anymore. Basira had told her, just as many times, that she understood. And yet, she kept on acting the same way she had before, preparing for a hunt, for the eventuality of one like it was inevitable.
Daisy flopped back on the couch with a whine and blindingly palmed for the earphone.
“Who’s Martin?” Jon asked, handing her the piece. She slid it into her ear, feigning sleep before her head even fell into his shoulder. “Daisy.”
“The Head’s assistant.”
Jon’s heart skipped a beat.
“You know him?!” he exclaimed, and Daisy made a sound like sure, and pressed a finger to his lips, pressing play on the show they were listening-slash-sleeping to before.
Jon, for his part, did not hear a single word of the episode after that point, his mind racing with the realization that he might be the only one that did not know Martin, the assistant. He wasn’t sure of the why, but the idea irked him beyond belief.
*
The Eye was, as usual of it, unhelpful, in a more infuriating way that ever before. Even attempting to look for this assistant in the institute gave him a headache and a runny nose.
*
“Mr. Lukas is not available at the moment.”
“Ah, that’s a shame. Maybe I could leave word with his assistant…”
“You may leave word with me, Mr. Sims, I’ll be sure to deliver.”
“It’s… It’s important, I’d rather not delegate.”
“It is my job, Mr. Sims.”
“Is there maybe a number I could call?”
Rosie gave him a looped smile and scribbled an extension number on a post-it and held it over the desk.
Jon couldn’t even act surprised when the line connected to buzzing static, held the call for three seconds and terminated by itself. He balled the post-it into his coat jacket, fuming.
*
Jon climbed to the third floor and burst through the doors of the Head’s office. It was cold and wholly empty of any evidence there had ever been people in there.
That one had been a fluke, he’d never expected it to actually work, but he’d been running low on good, hearty statements for a few days, or they just weren’t filling him as they used to. He felt the onset of a headache and returned to the Archives, hungry and defeated.
*
“Why does it bother you so much?”
“It doesn’t.” The latte was scalding. Jon didn’t realize this because it burned his tongue but inferred it from the horrified look Georgie sent him as he swallowed the drink. Slowly, he removed the cap and blew on the liquid, more for her comfort than necessarily his own.
It was late, again, but Jon wasn’t going home anymore, so it didn’t matter what time he clocked out. He knew the time because Georgie was here to pick up Melanie, because she insisted Melanie, and the others, although she wasn’t as pushy with them for some reason, maintained a normal workday, clocked in at the necessary hours and clocked out as soon as their shift was over. Routine, she said, helped with normalcy, which in turn helped with sanity. He'd heard the same spiel years ago, when Georgie would suplex him off his desk at three in the morning to keep him from spending another night studying.
The cafeteria was mostly empty, but every once in a while, a soul would come by to pick up their lunch from the fridge. They didn’t say anything, unnerved by Jon’s general presence, which he couldn’t possibly blame them for, or growing used to the distance that permeated the office in the wake of the Lonely’s takeover.
“Do you want to hear my opinion?” Georgie asked.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Of course you do.”
Jon shivered, and wished it was that simple. He nodded.
“I think you should leave the matter well enough alone.” Georgie broke up her muffin into small chunks and picked the chocolate pieces hidden in the batter. “If you are struggling with unsolicited knowledge, the idea that some things slip underneath your spooks radar should bring you some comfort, right? That you’re still human enough to make mistakes, forget things.”
“’spose.” Jon muttered. Another person entered the cafeteria and Jon nodded their way, as he had everyone before them. Again, he was ignored, they didn’t even meet his eyes. They put water to the kettle and stood in waiting. “I just can’t stop thinking… What if they’re dangerous?”
Georgie snorted.
“Course they are, working with that thing, they’ve got to be.”
“So, it’s not unreasonable for me to know what we’re up against!”
“Has that ever helped you before?”
Jon hesitated, looking for a retort he didn’t have. Preparation, in his short-lived experience of seeking out avatars by himself, had not resulted in particularly safer interactions. If anything, it made him dread meeting them on the way, worsening his nerves.
“You’ve got much bigger problems than an allusive co-worker, Jon.”
Regrettably, Georgie was right, and Jon knew as much. He slumped over his latte, under the weight of his predicaments, but incapable of letting the matter go entirely. It was in his nature, and had been far before the Archives, to know more than he should have. Growing up Jon took a secret glee in being the one in the room to know some stupid, obscure fact, to be asked “how’d you know that”, for the answer to be hours spent scouring Wikipedia for, quote-unquote, fun. It was, he realized recently, insufferable, but it made him feel- God forbid, it made him feel special. Interesting.
As he mused, as the latte continued to burn the skin on the way down his throat, Jon idly watched the person pour the boiling water into a mug, with a precision that bordered on obsessive. The scent of fresh tea leave could be felt all the way where Jon was sitting, and reminded him, oddly enough, of seaweed, the juxtaposition of dirt and salt, plant and fish. It was much softer than any of that, only the vaguest hint of salt over aged black tea leaves. Jon watched this person return a small metal box, could have mistaken it for chewing tobacco, funnily enough, into his heavy rain jacket.
Melanie came into the cafeteria and greeted Georgie – and glowered at Jon – but Jon wasn’t paying attention to them, nor his coffee, anymore. He could not let off the stranger on the other side of the room, from the instant it clocked him that they were, in fact, a stranger.
A man of unassuming features, pale in complexion, he stood out in the oddest ways and yet, Jon missed him entirely until he was out of the room. It took the man leaving for Jon to realize he’d been wearing a raincoat inside, to realize his hair was shot through in white, so completely it wasn’t even clear what colour it had been before.
Despite this, he couldn’t possibly have been much older than Jon himself was, even with the darkness underneath his eyes, his face was clean of any marks of age. And then there was the matter of the eyes, or rather, the lack thereof. Not that the man had sunken holes in place of eyeballs – that would have- that would have been something – but rather that he wore a set of glasses which took up most of his face. They were dense, or similarly opaque, in such a manner Jon wondered briefly if he could see from the other side, hiding his eyes from view. Clever, Jon thought.
As his hands unclenched from his forearms, from unconsciously bearing himself against the cold, Jon knew, more than he knew, that the man was Martin and that, now that’d he’d had a glimpse of him, Jon would not rest until he knew more.