Work Text:
Basira grabs Jon a few of the papers they use for statement givers and a pen that seems vaguely familiar to them and steps out of the room. He starts writing almost immediately, mindlessly mumbling parts of Breekon’s statement as he does so. His handwriting, starting out as a neat print, devolves into the messy cursive that had characterised his notes in university. His hand moves faster than they thought possible, almost a blur, and pain shoots down his arm. He probably should fix his pencil grip. Working on holding their pen correctly to make it less painful to write down statements unwillingly extracted from inhuman deliverymen is such a laughable idea that he drops the pen and lets out a bewildered laugh. Almost immediately a more intense pain flares in their left wrist and they hit their head hard on his desk in his haste to continue writing. Already he’s noticing parallels between Breekon’s and other statements. He’s going to go over this one a lot , he can already tell. It’s going to be one of the statements where he prints out an extra transcript and covers it in highlights and notes detailing possible connections. Were all the real statements like that? Is the urge to research and read and record his urge or the urge of the Ceaseless Watcher?
It feels like his urge. A lot of things feel like his urge. They should stop, put the pen down, figure out if his head and arm feel like hell because of the Beholding or because he’s very low on sleep and has been writing non-stop for a good while while holding his pen in such an atrocious way he can’t believe it didn’t give them more problems in school.
But the thing is, he doesn’t want to. Despite the pain in his hand and the suspicious, almost scared look Basira gave him as she passed him Tim’s favourite pen, he wants Breekon’s statement down in easily digestible words that he can record and add to the many, many statements within the Archives. Within him.
Is it wrong? Jon has scars on his wrists from being tied up in an abandoned wax museum for a month. Daisy , however much Jon fears her, is stuck in an inescapable coffin.
But, then again, he has his own victims. His assistants, trapped in the institute because of him. The statement givers, trapped in mutual nightmares Jon tried so long to deny only for them to be explained in Elias’s smug voice, Christ, Jon wants to-
Jon wants to write. Not punch Elias, not do more research on his powers, he wants to write. The speed at which he’s writing causes their handwriting to somehow get worse, devolving from messy cursive to something more akin to meaningless scribbles. He will be able to read it regardless. He knows what it says. He knows what he felt while writing. Melancholic, bitter, guilty, excited, hungry, hungry, HUNGRY.
Before he knows it, he’s written the final word and is collapsed on their desk. Their left hand is hurting even more, his middle finger has a hotspot on it where it rubbed against the pen. The last time he got a headache this bad was back in America.
Record.
Jon remembers another statement, Trevor Herbert’s, he believes. A sudden awareness of my own desire, Trevor had described.
The tape recorder clicks itself on.
—
Jon’s wrist, arm and head pain hasn’t disappeared by the time he finishes recording Breekon’s statement.
The last thing he registers before losing consciousness his his arm resting painfully on the pen. Tim’s favourite pen, bought from the 99p store, loved for how it flowed when he wrote. Tim never said any of that.
He sleeps for a very long time.