Chapter Text
"...Are you okay?"
"Excuse me?"
"Are you okay? Like, are you doing alright?"
Riley looked at Jonathan like he'd just told her he was an alien.
"...Why do you ask?" Riley turned back to her paperwork, shuffling through the stack and needlessly neatened it in her hands, tapping the edges lightly on the desk.
Jonathan's brows furrowed as he watched her fuss over the papers, and the hands that were previously fiddling with his lab coat collar came to hang in front of his chest, t-rex style.
"You don't look well, Riley. You haven't looked well for a week."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Riley-" Jonathan let out an exasperated sigh. "Riles, c'mon. You can't pretend that you're okay. You look sick. You are sick."
She raised her head at the use of the nickname, giving him a deadpanned look.
She looked tired. She looked sick. Sometimes, if the lighting in a room didn't agree with her, she looked like she was about to drop dead.
"I'm just a little worn down, Doctor. I'll be fine."
Jonathan paused at the use of his formal title. He felt his brows furrow further and he bit on the inside of his lower lip. It upset him, that she was being so dismissive of herself. Of his concerns. They were better than that, surely.
"...Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure of it."
Jonathan didn't trust her words, nor did he find any comfort from her tone - that much was obvious from his expression. She looked at him, tired of the conversation and of his sceptical gaze, and sighed as her shoulders dropped.
"What do you want me to tell you, Jonathan?"
"I want you to tell me what's actually wrong."
"There isn't anything wrong."
"Please don't lie to me."
"But there isn't. You know how it is during these months - everyone's getting sick. I'm just a little run down."
"A little run down" was an understatement. Jonathan could see, he wasn't fucking blind. She was definitely more than "a little run down". He sighed, and pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment.
"...I'm going to get a coffee. Would you like me to get you one?"
Riley finally paused her pointless shuffling and finally set the paper she'd been fiddling with back down on the desk. "That would be nice, if you wouldn't mind."
"The usual?"
"Black with-"
"Black with brown sugar. Yeah, I remember." Jonathan spoke over the top of her, and Riley simply nodded back.
She sat down on her desk chair with a slight sigh, leaning forward to prop her elbow on the table and support her chin in her hand, like a bored child at school.
Jonathan let out his own slight sigh as he looked down at her.
"Have you been sleeping okay?"
Riley paused, blinking slowly, before answering. "About the same as usual... Why?"
"You look exhausted."
"I feel fine-"
"Riley." Her name came out harsher than he had intended, but it shut her up quickly. She gave him a less than pleased look, but held her tongue and sucked on the insides of her cheeks to hold back what Jonathan could only assume to be a less than pleasant comment back.
"Go home early. I'll tell Olivia. Go and rest." He wasn't going to take no for an answer.
"Jonathan-"
"I don't want to hear it."
"But-"
"Nope."
"Please. I have work-"
"I can do it."
"I can't ask you to do that."
"You're not. I'm telling you, that's what's happening. You're going home, you're going to bed, and you're going to rest."
Riley wasn't sure if she liked this. Her memories briefly flashed back to all the times she'd told him to grow a backbone; to not roll over at the first sign of danger; to stop being such a people-pleaser. But right now felt like the worst time for Jonathan to have a spark of confidence.
Jonathan could see her practically choking on her tongue as she swallowed back words that were definitely going to be militant in nature. He silently thanked a God that he didn't believe in that she was too tired to properly fight back - Riley had a sharp tongue at the best of times, and part of him prayed that he'd never have to bicker with her.
"Riley, please... Just listen to me for a second..." Just as fast as it had come, his harsher tone was gone, and he was back to his soft-spoken nature. "I don't want to fight with you on this. But you are sick... You're a smart woman, Riles, you know that you're sick... You need to go home and rest. I can handle your work for you, alright?"
Riley's expression softened slightly, and she let out an even softer sigh. She hated this. She hated how sweet he was to her. She hated this sickness.
"..." She looked like she was about to say something, but hesitated, before sighing in defeat. "Can I at least get that coffee first?"
~~~
The rain poured down onto his head. The concrete floor hurt his backside and the brick wall scratched up against his spine. He was uncomfortable. But, then again, when wasn't he uncomfortable?
The rain slipped straight off of his paper white skin. Water didn't stick to him like it used to. He couldn't get wet. He couldn't feel the cold. That hurt more than the actual weather would have.
His lanky hands were pressed to his flat face, and he choked out. He couldn't cry, but he could feel it. The familiar tightness in his chest, the lump in his throat, the stuffiness that came with it, despite his lack of sinuses. He "sobbed" into his hands, hunching forward as he sat behind a dumpster in the alley.
Why him? Why was it always him? If there was a God, why did it take pleasure in ripping everything from Jonathan?
First it was his friend... Then it was his appearance... Which cost him his job, his family, his life...
What kind of cruel existence was this?
"...Are you okay?"
The voice startled Jonathan, and he scrambled against the dumpster, cowering into it's side.
"U-uh, y-yep! A-all good, thanks!" He stumbled over his words, putting on a falsely high-pitched voice to seem more confident in his words. He curled up tightly, trying to hide himself from view. If he was lucky, the stranger would just keep walking.
Please, just keep walking.
He didn't look up, but he could feel a presence in front of him. He wasn't quite sure when the person stepped out in front of him, or where they even came from. He just kept his eyes down and prayed that they wouldn't ogle for long.
"...Are you okay?"
"Excuse me?"
He couldn't help himself. He looked up, and the void that swallowed his facial features shrunk to a pin-point. Out of fear or shock, he wasn't sure.
"Are you okay? Like, are you doing alright?"
No no no no no...
He was met with a tired face. He felt sick to his stomach, and his voice caught in his throat.
"Oh..."
Riley didn't look right... Thinner than he remembered. More pale. Tired. Sick. She crouched in front of him, her mouth drawn into a thin line, greeting him with that painfully familiar deadpanned expression. Akin to still water in a quarry. Perfect surface tension.
Riley's eyes searched him, taking him in with a cold look. Cold, but not judgemental. Never judgmental.
"I..." Jonathan immediately found himself trailing off, curling up tighter against the dumpster. This wasn't happening. This wasn't happening. This wasn't happening.
...How long had it been?...
'Too long.' He internally answered.
Riley watched him silently, with the same sort of stoicism you'd expect a lion to have as it stared on at it's prey - not to say she looked predatory, but if Jonathan hadn't known any better, he'd would have thought that Riley was considering eating him.
And then she spoke.
"Do I know you from somewhere?" She murmured.
This had to be some kind of cruel joke. Salt rubbed into a fresh wound. He felt like he just got splashed with cold water - not that he would have felt it in his new body anyway, but the shock that shot through him was very much real.
There's no fucking way that she recognised him from his voice alone. That wasn't a thing. People don't do that.
And yet, the way she looked at him... He felt a twinge of hope in the centre of his tight chest. It was small and barely warm, like a candle flame in the middle of a storm, but it flickered there and he hoped to shield it. He hoped that she wouldn't blow it out.
"You... I... Um..." His voice was small, barely a whisper, and there was a hint of a squeak laced in the sound. He was tempted to reach out, just to check that she was really there in front of him.
A million questions raced in his mind.
...How???... Why??...
...What happened to you?...
...Where did you go?...
...Why did you leave me?...
His brain just seemed to falter, and the words he wanted to say just never came out. If he had a mouth, it would have been opening and closing, like a gasping beached fish.
He felt like he was beached. Stuck and helpless, gasping for life.
Riley raised her brows at him, her first physical expression of emotion being a curious one, and she leant in slightly. Jonathan recoiled further, shielding his face with his hands again.
"Don't look at me." His request was quiet and meek, and he cowered behind his hands. Tell me I'm ugly and go away. Don't stare. Leave me alone. "I just want to be alone..."
An uncomfortable silence fell over them.
"You're a terrible liar, Jonathan."
Something sharp and heavy, a feeling he couldn't quite distinguish, shot through him. That felt like whiplash. He felt his throat tighten and he choked back a sob, looking up at her again. Her expression had changed. The coldness in her eyes had shifted, and had been swapped with something heavier, swirling behind her pupils. She was a lake in a quarry - calm and still on the surface, with a dangerous current swirling underneath. They say that the eyes are the window to the soul, and Jonathan found himself staring into a very messy, broken one.
"You look... Different." He eventually croaked out, and Riley looked off sheepishly.
"I stopped having sugar in my coffee." She hummed quietly.