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Daisy was sharp. It was a fact of life as true as the sun was hot or the earth was round: Daisy was sharp. She was all cutting edges and rough words and angular expressions that, without fail, signaled or followed something unpleasant for everyone involved— even for Daisy herself. Jon was under no delusions that Daisy wouldn’t sooner rip his throat out (as if she hadn’t tried before) than accept his hand.
But it didn’t make a lick of difference in the end, because he couldn’t leave well enough alone to save his life.
And most everyone knew it.
It wasn’t exactly a surprise when he dragged himself, choking on earth and minus one rib, out of the coffin with Daisy in tow. Honest. Sure, Basira and Melanie might have acted surprised and all, but they couldn’t really be. Even when they knew Jon less than others he could name (others who’d left mountains of tape records over the coffin, and whose image brought up a particular aching pain in Jon’s chest) they had some idea of what he was like by now. Utterly reckless.
But, Daisy’s presence was the more pressing matter at hand. Basira in particular paid Jon little attention after she’d realized Daisy was alive and— okay, not well — but alive. Melanie hadn’t been there at the time of their grand escape and…
Martin didn’t show. Not that Jon expected him to, but if he’d had an ember of hope still burning that he might’ve, then nobody needed to know.
Jon stared at Daisy as Basira ushered her away.
Daisy was sharp. But she seemed… all undone now. Not quite dull— he suspected it’d be impossible to take away all her fierce qualities— but lost. Her blade had been chipped.
‘ I can’t feel my blood.’
She’d apologized.
Multiple times, actually, and earnestly. Jon’s hand wandered up to the scar on his throat. She wouldn’t look at him, he noticed, as she exited the room and left Jon to follow or get left behind in the chaos, but she was staring just over his head. As if she couldn't bring herself to quite face him.
Her hair was past her shoulders. Its signature brazen blonde was turned a dusty brown was marred with clumps of soil that weighed it down and tugged at her skull, reminding him distantly of a ball and chain. Jon imagined he didn’t look much better judging by the earth trapped beneath his nails.
And then the door shut.
And Jon got back to work.
...
It surprised him when they crossed paths again. Part of him had expected she’d be right back to her old self the moment she left the coffin— all apologies forgotten complete with a knife at his throat just like she said she’d planned to do.
But instead she was walking the halls and Jon was out to get… something (he couldn’t remember honestly, probably a statement if the hungry itch in his chest was anything to go off of) and they bumped into each other.
Neither of them said a thing. Jon had nothing to say to her— all had been said days ago when entrapped by dirt, hardly able to breath— and it seemed she thought much the same.
She was smaller now. Still a few inches above Jon, but smaller. Her shoulders hunched when she walked and her posture curled inwards, all combined with a stance that felt strangely off balance. Her face was still hard as rocks though, and to his own surprise, that filled him with a bit of reassurance. The hard line of her mouth, the stoney stare that had nearly been his last sight, it was all familiar.
He could deal with that.
Her hair was still long and tied back haphazardly into a ponytail that put too much tension on her scalp.
With a single nod, Daisy pushed past him and that was that.
Later, when she walked into his office, inquiring to hear about a statement she suspected was related to a Hunt ritual, Jon made the choice to let her in.
...
Letting people in was not something Jon had ever been good at. Even when he wasn’t dealing with eldritch abominations and a growing Want in his stomach, he hadn’t been exactly open.
Case in point: Georgie. Or Tim. Or Melanie. Or hell, even Martin if he dared to let his thoughts drift that far into ‘self loathing and self pity’ territory.
But Daisy was in a bit of a different situation.
Letting her in meant letting in a predator, not a friend. It meant opening himself up to a monster; a creature made entirely of ripping, tearing teeth and claws that wanted nothing more than to see him bleed, and slowly.
‘ So we go through the voice box.’
It was a choice that only invited risk to himself. But she’s the only person who gave him the time of day. So it’s an easy decision. And she wasn’t bad company.
They didn’t talk much at first and definitely not about anything substantial. But Basira got busy occasionally (more often than Daisy admitted) and Jon was ever in need of a distraction, so they gravitated towards each other.
Like a moth to flame.
A hunter to its prey.
...
It was a slow day, one of those in which Jon hardly saw another living soul, when he finally worked up the courage to ask her about it. But of course, he Asked, so it fucked everything up, but he tried regardless.
“Do you use conditioner?”
The compulsion tasted like sweetness on his tongue and the static stirred something deep and primal in his stomach. He was hungry after all and even the simplest, most benign, of questions drew out fear when they were forced from someone. Particularly someone as closed off as Daisy.
“No, haven’t bought it, ‘can’t leave the institute without feeling sick.”
But the satisfaction was short-lived.
“ Shit — I—”
“Don’t.” Daisy warned, and there was something barely concealed and dangerous in her voice. Her expression was screwed up into an horribly restrained grimace. He almost felt the blood from here.
They sat in silence for another minute.
“Why’d you want to know?”
He was surprised at her humoring him, but continued unsteadily, “Thought you might want to borrow some of mine. If you need it.”
“You… don’t seem used to caring for long hair,” he tacked on.
Jon knew she wasn’t skilled at it, no capital ‘K’ necessary. He’d never dealt with straight hair himself (his fell in waves, sometimes ringlets if he took the time to do more than comb it) but he could tell she was out of her depth. It was greasy— looked wet from the right angle— and Jon could spot tangles throughout. Even tied back it was evident.
She hadn’t even acknowledged him yet, not really, but it felt… necessary, so he kept talking.
“I keep some in the men’s bathroom.”
He did let it drop after that though.
They didn’t say a word to each other for the rest of the day.
But if he noticed that some of his conditioner started to go missing, he didn’t say anything; and if Daisy noticed two new bottles of conditioner and shampoo on the sink, she didn’t comment on it.
...
“Boy trouble then.”
“Wha— it’s not that. ”
“You mope about him a lot. Well— and a lot of other things, but he’s prominent.”
“It’s… complicated.”
“Right.”
“He’s working with Lukas, he’s—”
“He’s made a choice, Jon. Whether it’s to work with one evil eldritch fear monster or another, he’s not helpless. You could stand to get your head out of your arse.”
“You’ve told me as much.”
“Going out for drinks once is not getting over yourself. What you need is a hobby.”
“ A hobby?”
“Yes.”
“What— like you’ve got one?”
“...I keep up with The Archers.”
“Really? You?”
.
.
.
“Right, right, no judgement.”
...
Daisy rapidly deteriorated. Should’ve been expected, really. The way her skin had turned sallow and hung loose, the way her cheeks appeared sunken in, the way her lips had cracked so badly they bled; it was clear as day even to someone without… abilities, like Jon had.
“It’s still there,” she admitted to Jon one evening, in the silence of an empty institute. She whispered it like a secret. “I can hear it. It’s… quieter, but not like it was down there. There it was gone. Like I was thrown into the ocean without a life-vest and started to drown.”
‘ can’t feel my blood.’
Jon stared at her for a long moment.
This woman, he was reminded (not for the first time), wanted to kill him. Not just in the past, not just before the coffin, but consistently. As much as she was trying, and as much as Jon believed that she was, she was dangerous.
Her eyes were a cool brown. Her skin was fair and littered with scars. Her hair was an ashy blonde that, by now, had grown to her upper back. She looked perfectly human. But every now and then, in times like this one, he could spot the glint of red in her irises and the ghost of jagged teeth in her smile.
Teeth that would like nothing more than to tear into his throat.
“It’s hard, then.” He states it like a fact rather than a question, because that’s what it is.
“Yeah. It is.”
...
The next time they properly talked— more than just about raiding the house on hilltop road, or to nod hello in a hallway— was on a particularly miserable day. For Jon, that is.
He was feeling nauseated, and tired, and frail, and hungry. Really, that’s all it was. The hunger. It gnawed at not only his stomach, but his entire being. To compare it to actual hunger (which he hadn’t experienced in a while now) was laughable, but it was the closest comparison that any regular person on the street would understand.
It was a need. As surely as he had (or used to have) to breathe. There were similarities to hunger; the click of the tape recorder, the smell of old parchment, the tell tale scent of fear on the wind, it all made his mouth water. But it wasn’t the same.
After the… intervention, Basira had made it awfully clear what he had to do.
Either stop, or die.
And Jon wasn’t keen on dying. He’d had that choice months ago, when Oliver Banks visited his bedside, and he’d chosen to live. He wasn’t about to take back that decision.
That didn’t make his waking hours any less of a drag. In all honesty, it was more of a test of how long he could keep up a diet of old, stale statements until he kicked the bucket anyways.
Daisy ended up finding him.
She seemed to have a knack for that. Hunting instincts, Jon guessed.
He was occupying himself by laying, still as a stone, on the old cot he’d moved to his office and watching the clock tick by. It was about as thrilling as watching paint dry, but he didn’t have the wherewithal for much else. His limbs ached, and his eyes stung horribly. He suspected the Eye was tired of his moping, because the urge to get up and ravage the archives like a raccoon in a dumpster was growing stronger with each passing second.
Daisy didn’t look impressed. In fact, she was currently blocking his one source of entertainment and staring at him with contempt. He stared back.
She was one of the few people who still bothered to make eye contact with Jon.
He’d been told numerous times his eyes were ‘creepy.’ He’d also looked into enough mirrors by accident to confirm it was true. They’d gone from a dark hazel to a poisonous green, almost radioactive looking when it was dark. They opened slightly too wide, and if Jon didn’t remember to do it himself, he had no need to blink. So it was reasonably unpleasant.
Not that he’d particularly liked eye contact before the archives, but he’d missed when people didn’t flinch when he looked at them. He didn’t have to worry about that with Daisy.
She sighed, and kicked the edge of the cot.
“Get up.”
He didn’t bother. “What?”
“You heard me,” Daisy kicked at the cot again, but this time aimed quite intentionally for his leg.
“You’re sulking again,” she continued, and didn’t give Jon the chance to protest, “so you need to get out of that damn thing and do something.”
Jon, reluctantly, did as he was told. Daisy held out a hand and tugged him to his feet.
“Well if you have something in mind,” Jon said. It was a joke, really. He and Daisy had formed a comradery, in a way, but she was still Daisy.
But to his surprise, she paused. She was uncomfortable. Called out.
“I was gonna put on The Archers,” she said after a moment, looking pained as anything, like the mere thought of offering something like this to Jon of all people was unbearable. “If you want to listen.”
He had to pick his jaw up off the floor.
“...Why?”
“Dunno,” she shrugged. “Seems like you need it.”
Admittedly, there was truth there. Maybe he did need it. But for Daisy to offer her company was an entirely different thing. Under her words, Jon could sense a twinge of empathy.
“Can’t argue with you there.”
“Come on,” she walked towards the door.
And he followed.
...
“Why do you keep it long?” Jon had to restrain himself to keep the static from his voice, but he managed. Barely.
Daisy had always had short hair for as long as he’d known her. Always dramatic, always a bit messy, but short. Never once had he seen her with anything longer than what could be considered a pixie cut (and that had been long for her, back in the days before the Unknowing.)
But now her hair was inching steadily towards her middle back and she hadn’t done anything to it.
She didn’t reply for a long while. She was busy with some book Jon hadn’t bothered to look at the title for. He already Knew it ended with the killer being revealed as the main character's sister, and a dramatic heart to heart right before she was shot in some show of karmic justice. Not too interesting if you asked him, but Daisy had been keeping up with it so he didn’t say anything.
“It… keeps me in check.” she settled on.
Jon simply raised an eyebrow in her direction.
“Reminds me of down there. Of the quiet. ‘Took forever to get all the dirt out.”
“I can imagine,” he replied. He knew, and personally. His own hair had been nearly saturated with the stuff and he hadn’t been in Too Close I Cannot Breathe for nearly as long as she had.
“I do miss it being short,” she had abandoned her book by now, and was looking thoughtful. “I’ve thought about cutting it. But… ‘S never felt like the right time.”
Jon hummed. An idea, faint, hopeful, and ridiculous was creeping up from his subconscious.
“I—” he hesitated for a moment, but stole his resolve. “I have a pair of hair cutting shears back in my flat. Used to trim my hair in uni with them. If you ever want to cut it…”
He trailed off, but the message was there.
Silence.
“I’ll consider it.”
Jon allowed himself a little smile.
...
“How’d you know how to take care of long hair anyway? ‘Cause your’s looks a mess.”
“ Hey — it… It looks fine.”
“Mmm. Whatever helps you sleep at night.”
“I used to have long hair when I was a teenager. Nearly down to my waist at one point. Just couldn’t keep up with it when I joined the institute and thought it looked… unprofessional.”
“Well, if you bothered to take your own advice it’d look half decent.”
“...Maybe.”
...
There was the taste of fog on his tongue. Cool, and thick, and suffocating, it invaded his lungs and clung to his clothes like tar. Christ he was lonely.
He’d have to tell them soon.
About how to quit.
He doubted Basira would do it— she was in too deep now. Once the institute got its claws into you it was too late unless you really had some resolve. And Jon loathed to admit he didn’t. He wanted to— God did he want to. He wanted nothing more than to gauge his eyes out and run off into the sunset with a man who should’ve discarded Jon a long, long time ago. But Martin had rejected that fantasy. And now here he was.
Melanie might. She was the most likely to go through with it, in Jon’s opinion. Enough ties outside the institute to keep her afloat, not enough within the institute to keep her here.
Daisy… Jon didn’t know about Daisy.
It might kill her, with how weak she was becoming. Then again, the Hunt may very well allow her to live. You didn’t need all your senses to be a successful hunter after all.
But he didn’t want her to.
As selfish as it was, Jon couldn’t imagine the institute without Daisy.
Not when she was his only lifeline at the moment.
Funny how the woman who’d slit his throat and planned his death was the closest thing he had to a friend.
Jon crumpled, alone in the institute breakroom, and hoped.
...
Daisy was many things, but apparently not decisive, because here Jon was, standing behind her in the bathroom, facing a mirror with scissors in hand, and she still hadn’t decided to go through with it. Melanie had also gifted them with her electric razor she used to upkeep her undercut so they could shave the sides of Daisy’s head. Georgie already had one so there was no use for an extra.
Jon wasn’t sure if he’d do a good job at that bit, but she trusted him enough to try and that meant he damn well had to give it a go.
‘Don’t have to look good,’ Daisy had told him a few days ago, when she’d first asked him to help her, ‘just has to be decent.’
Jon could work with decent.
If he actually had to do the haircut at all, that is. Because Daisy had been going back and forth for the last twenty minutes. Had you told him a year ago he’d be this close to one Detective Tonner and not bleeding out on the floor, he’d have thought you mad.
And yet.
“We could always save it for tomorrow…?”
“ No,” she said with such conviction Jon startled. There was bite in her voice, raging and forceful. Not blood though. Not blood.
“No,” she repeated, softer this time, “I want to. I miss it, I just—”
“It’s hard?” Jon offered with a hint of a smile.
She, surprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly at this point) returned the gesture. “Yeah. It’s hard.”
“‘Could always buzz it all,” Jon was joking now and it felt so oddly natural. As if they’d known each other for years. “Go bald.”
Daisy snorted into her hand. “Christ, I did that once when I was— what— nineteen? Not my look, I'll tell you that.”
“Really? I think it’d be fitting.”
“One more word and I buzz your head, Sims.”
Jon just grinned.
For a moment, he could imagine they weren’t in the institute. That they were in his flat, perching over a sink in a home rather than the cold, sterile environment of a workplace marked with more blood than flooring. They’d laugh and joke like this, and it’d be normal, because they’d be friends. They’d make a day of it. Night out at the pub, trip to the cinema with their mates, the whole nine yards.
But of course they weren’t there.
They were in the Magnus Institute. And Jon couldn’t go to the cinema anymore, much less the pub. He’d be much more interested in the people than the drinks or the film. No matter how many statements he read to fill his stomach.
“You ready now?”
“...Yeah.”
And so Jon gets to cutting.
It’s not a pretty process.
He messed up plenty of it, he was sure. With the way his hands trembled and couldn’t keep a solid grip on the razor, he thought he may as well stop and call Basira for help, but he kept at it. Sheets upon sheets of blonde fell to the floor like feathers in the wind. And in the end… it turned out.
“‘It’s not horrible,” Daisy said, running her hands over her new haircut in an almost reverent way. She traced the soft fuzz, freshly buzzed, on the sides of her skull and ruffled her new fringe.
“Decent?” Jon asked.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
...
“This is— shit — harder than I thought it’d be.” Daisy swore, and Jon couldn’t help the laughter that sprung from his chest.
She was trying, really she was, to braid Jon’s hair but it was an uphill battle. For all of Daisy’s attributes— her ruthlessness, her determination, her brutality— she was not one for dexterity. Jon had tried to show her a few times now but nothing seemed to stick.
“It’s a hard earned skill.”
“Oh shut it, you prick.” Daisy rolled her eyes and shifted her position to Jon’s side rather than behind him. She looked so different now. So detached from the woman Jon had known. She was even frailer, and was getting worse as time went on, but weren’t they all.
“Maybe I should’ve braided yours,” Jon offered. “Might’ve helped.”
“Bit late for that now,” she pointed out.
“In my defense you aren’t exactly approachable. I wasn’t about to just ask.”
Daisy nodded. Fair’s fair after all.
Silence.
“I meant what I said down there you know.” Daisy said. Her voice was low, but not dangerous; it’s just honest. “About both things.”
Jon tilted his head.
“I really am sorry. And the— uh— killing bit. That was true too.”
“Well I didn’t think you were saying that to be nice.”
“You arse,” Daisy shook her head. “Just wanted to make sure you were… aware.”
And when she looked at Jon, it was with a single question. A question of whether he knew how this was all going to end.
Because there only was one way, wasn’t there?
The hunter and the prey, bonding over takeaway, and episodes of The Archers, and late night conversations about their un-humanity and all that comes with. They live in a temporary grace period, forced together through circumstance and unwise choices on both sides. It's a fragile, unspoken thing.
And one day it’ll break, and she’ll break, and Jon will be left to choose: run or die.
He made his peace with that a long time ago.
“I’m aware.”
“Right. Good.” she said. And it’s with no small amount of resignation that she goes back to braiding Jon’s hair.
Daisy was sharp. She was all cutting edges and rough words and angular expressions but she was also, above all else, a friend. She offered him advice (and a good kick in the teeth when he needed it) and a shoulder to lean on. She let him cut her hair and lift her out of Choke. His memories of her are filled with blood and violence, but also evenings spent braiding hair and listening to the shittiest radio show he’d ever heard.
So he couldn't bring himself to blame her, even when she was on top of him, crunching the bone in his leg like a toothpick between her teeth and snarling into his ear with such an animalistic, guttural noise it took all his strength to not panic.
He didn’t hold a grudge when she tried to kill him the first time, this time wasn’t a big deal in the grand scheme of things.
What did hurt him, to his surprise, was something small.
She didn’t recognize him.
She tore into his leg like he was cattle. Nothing more than a piece of meat. A soon to be corpse. There was no trace of the woman he’d spent so many hours with.
But she’d recognized Basira.
Her hunting partner.
And it stung.
They— he and Martin— had long left Basira behind. To burn the body, she had said. And the thought of that being her burial sent a pang through his heart. He can’t get the visceral image of her out of his head. The wolf-like bend to her body, her jaws long extended past where a human’s should go, all those teeth lining her mouth like needles. That wasn't Daisy. Or or maybe it was, but not the Daisy he missed.
He wished he could’ve seen her one last time.
But all good things must come to an end.
Jon leaned into Martin’s side with a huff.
All good things.
She had her chase, and in the end, he was the one who got away. He supposed he was lucky. In a way. She’d have called him lucky.
Maybe, if he was really lucky, they’d find a radio in the apocalypse, and he’d get to listen to one last episode of the Archers.
One final goodbye.