Chapter Text
The Beginning of the Rest of Your Life
The archive was a mess.
That was Jon's first thought as he sat at his new desk with the new chair and looked at the old laptop he had lugged in with him. Everything else in the room was covered in a thin layer of dust. Bookshelves, a filing cabinet and a lamp were all from the old archivist apparently.
The laptop was open in front of him, and he already knew there was going to be problems. One of the statements he had typed out already had corrupted and he had no idea how. He had tried to put it down as a voice file instead, but again it got corrupted. It seemed some of these damned things refused to be put down in anything other than pen or pencil on a statement form. He was putting those aside in one of the empty trays in the filing cabinet.
He'd have to tell Elias that once the workday was done, because it was going to bug him until he knew what was going on. Until then though, he looked to the door of his private office and wondered what he was supposed to do with three assistants.
The three assistants were all sharing a room which originally only had two desks in it. Another had been added for a third soon after he realised that he would need more help to get this mess straightened out and even then, he didn't know if it would be finished in his lifetime. The Magnus Institute was over 200 years old, after all. Files from all that time were everywhere.
There were four other main rooms down here too. Thankfully the majority of it was used for document storage. There were a lot of documents involved in this job, and not all of them were with their statements. Unfortunately.
No one but the archival team and the occasional statement giver ever actually came down here, he had found in the few hours he had been here. And so far, there had been no walk ins for statements. Most of the time he had holed himself up in his office because he had no idea what he was doing or even why he had been promoted to this job. He had never worked in an archive before, had zero experience or job qualifications for the position, but he was good at sorting things and had a thirst for knowledge.
Tim was the only one he had really known, since they had both worked in Research. Sasha was the one who had the most experience and likely should have been given this job since she occasionally worked for Gertrude, though her post was in Artefact Storage. And Martin had been in the library.
Martin had been chosen by Elias. He had asked for Tim and Sasha to be part of his team, because they at least knew each other and Tim was, for the most part, light-hearted and knew his behaviours. Martin was the one he knew the least, but his CV was rather impressive for someone so young. The library of this place was immaculate, after all, so he expected good things.
The whole archive was so much a mess, he'd have to go through the whole thing. Thankfully, most of the statements not of this century likely had already been looked into. It was just the recent things he'd have to have the team research and investigate in any serious manner. Maybe if one was silly enough, he'd give it to Tim to investigate regardless, just to have some laughs in this absolutely dreary place.
He may actually look things up for the older things, simply out of pure curiosity regardless, as it would be filled with history.
He looked at the clock and saw it was midday, and he stretched his arms above his head, grimacing at the crack of his lower back. A lunch break would go well right now, since he was getting hungry. Thankfully one of the other rooms was a break room with a fully stocked kitchen, a table, seats and a sofa built for three to relax. The last room down here belonged to a bathroom, which actually managed to have a shower stall along with a toilet cubicle and a urinal.
He would need to bring water in with him from now on. He'd been in his office since 9 that morning and was getting dehydrated from both lack of water and likely taking in a ton of dust. He'd definitely have to do something about that.
First though, lunch. Even something as simple as a sandwich would be good. He had forgotten to eat breakfast that morning, too nervous about the sudden and unexpected promotion. Now he was here, and the nervousness had disappeared into irritation. What had the last archivist been thinking just dumping everything everywhere? There was not one bit of order anywhere to be found.
He'd ask Sasha, but that seemed to be admitting defeat. He was given the job of Head Archivist, so it was his responsibility, not hers.
Standing up, he went to open his door to the assistant's room, which is the entrance to the archives and froze as someone knocked on the door just before he could reach the handle. Opening the door, he slowly peeked around to see Tim grinning down at him. "Hey, boss, Martin is making tea, Sasha is making sandwiches, and I have come to collect you."
He blinked up at Tim and frowned. "I was about to collect myself for lunch, but thanks anyway?"
"You're welcome. Now come on. Far as I know, tea with peanut butter sandwiches is the most fun this place is going to get for a long time."
Well, Jon definitely couldn't argue with that. He exited his office and closed the door behind him. The assistants space seemed a lot less dusty than his own office. Maybe tomorrow he should work on cleaning out the dust before actually starting on transcribing the statements into the computer. The three desks had also been pushed together in the middle of the room and boxes holding more statements were piled off in one corner, except for three which were opened on the desks.
He let out a sound of annoyance and shook his head. "What did Gertrude do in this place?"
Tim huffed beside him and shook his head. "Dunno, but organising stuff was not her thing. According to Sasha, they were more interested in travelling to check out statements and focused more on research than any actual archiving."
Letting out a sigh, Jon nodded at that. "I noticed. The entire place is a dust ridden nightmare. It hurts to look at. It physically hurts me to see this mess."
A pat was felt on his shoulder, and he tensed at it. Tim moved his hand after a few friendly pats though. "It hurts us all. Can you believe Sasha actually thought she would want this job? She changed her mind pretty damn fast when she actually got stuck down here, hah!"
He let out a huff at that. "I didn't even sign up for it. I have no idea what Elias was thinking..."
Tim laughed at that. "Well, if it helps, I am no longer angry at you for stealing Sasha's promotion. As far as we are both concerned, you can have it."
He rolled his eyes and glared at Tim. "How kind." With that said and now out of the way, they began walking to the break room for lunch.
Tim had gone out of his way to get them all a novelty mug each. Sasha's had a picture of the Starship Enterprise on it with the words Galaxy Quest in bright purple right next to it. Martin's had on it a bookshelf with innuendos as the titles on all the books. Tim's had World's Most Accomplished Slut on it, which given what Jon knew of him was accurate.
Jon's had a cat on one side with Grumpy Cat written beside it and the other a picture of him frowning and sitting at his old desk in Research and the words Grumpy Boss. He'd never tell Tim, but he liked it. Even if only for the cat.
He sat at the place his mug of tea was waiting for him with a plate containing two peanut butter sandwiches. He sighed. "Thank you for the meal and tea Martin, Sasha."
"You're welcome, Jon," Martin replied quickly, giving him a shy smile.
"You can get your own sandwiches from now on. I only made them today because Martin is on tea duty and Tim was busy getting rid of dust."
He nodded at that. "It's fine, Sasha. Thank you."
She nodded and drank from her mug. "You're welcome, Jon."
Silence fell in the room, except for the sounds of eating, as they demolished their lunch. Halfway through his second sandwich was when it happened. A dog ran into the room, tail wagging wildly behind it and sniffing at Martin's trousers.
"Oh! There you are. Come on, let's get you out from all this dust," Martin stated to the dog and Jon froze in horror.
"You...you brought a dog into the archives?" he asked, voice going low in the sudden anger he felt. One day, just one day on the job and already everything was going wrong and now this. "Do you know the damage a dog could do in a place like this?!"
Martin hunched over to try and make himself small. Considering Martin had the build of a bear, that was a feat in itself. "I didn't let it in on purpose. It ran in when I entered. I don't even know whose dog it is or if it's a stray. I've spent half the day looking for it. Guess food lured it out. Come on, dog. Let's get you out of here."
Jon let Martin go, because looking at him just made him feel anger and he was done with today. He wanted to go back home to his flat, crawl up in a ball in his bed and sleep until tomorrow. Only half the day was done though and this was not going well at all.
"Wow, awkward," Tim stated, a grin on his face.
Sasha snorted into her tea and ducked her head down. "Poor Martin is such a klutz. How do you not see a dog?"
Jon took a deep breath, dropped what was left of his sandwich and stood. "I need to not be around people right now..." he said and made his way back to his quiet, dusty office. He'd have to find if the dog left any damage or left any waste tomorrow. Right now, all he wanted was to not be angry, calm down and relax a bit.
He spent the rest of the day putting ridiculous false statements he didn't even have to bother looking up to know they were false in the computer system Sasha had set up for them to use. It didn't really help relax him, but it did calm his mind to do the repetitive task of copying out statements. He had decided on voice files, since it meant less typing. He still wasn't sure which way to order them, since it seemed different archivists had different filing methods.
He found another statement that refused to take on the computer and almost ripped the bloody thing in half out of pure frustration. Why did Elias give him this job? He didn't have the patience or the people skills for it.
There was a choice Jon had to make before he left his office again and it would be a hard one for him to make. He had the choice to either make things easier around here and try to be social, which he wasn't the best at to begin with or he could be the hard boss that he always imagined he'd likely be if he ever found himself in a position to be anyone's boss, which he thought would never happen.
Being stuck as a boss with the wrong skill set for the job, having three people under him, two of which were over skilled for the position if their backgrounds were anything to go by made him feel inadequate and Tim...he was at least a familiar face who knew him and his moods.
He spent the last five minutes of his work day with his head on the table and his hands buried in his hair. This was going to make the grey he already had worse. He couldn't get away with saying he was 20 years older than he actually was.
A knock on the door before it opened, was all the warning he got that one of his assistants was now in his space. He slowly raised his head to see Tim at the door. "So, you going home any time soon, or are you going to spend the night at your desk pining to be back in Research?"
He let out a sigh. "I'm going to go home, put my head on my study desk there and then pine for Research. There, I fit both categories."
Tim let out his familiar laugh and that helped relax him more than work did right then. It was normal. "Wow, look at that. You overachiever, you."
Letting out a groan of frustration, he lowered his hands from his head and took a few deep breaths that weren't really accomplishing anything. "I am going to fuck this up, Tim. So badly."
Leaning against the door frame, Tim grinned down at him and shook his head. "Okay, first off, advice. Don't go all super grouchy boss man on all of us. I know you want to. Down here, there's only the four of us, and it would make for a really uncomfortable work environment. Second, you look like you'll fall down if you stand up. Want a lift home?"
At another time, maybe he'd feel slightly better than he was and reject the lift home. He may have also rejected the friendly advice. At the time he was in though, Tim was very much right. He let out a moan and put his head back on the desk. "I didn't bring my blanket with me. I need the weight so much right now..."
"The weight or the pressure?"
"I don't know. I'm about two seconds from shutting down. I don't...I don't think I'd be able to handle public transport right now."
He felt useless, hopeless and pretty much like absolute shit and his mind was struggling to keep up with everything. He raised a hand to rub at his eyes, pushing his glasses up as he did so. He pulled his hands down and begun to rub at his sleeves instead. No need to smudge his lenses. He hated when that happened.
Tim was behind him and he knew that, yet he still jumped as a hand was put on his shoulder. "Okay, I'm going to squeeze you. It might help a bit." With that, Tim's arms wrapped around him in a hug, one arm up just below his shoulders and one at the small of his back and his grip tightened into a squeeze.
At the first touch, he had tensed, but when those arms tightened it was like something inside him released and he went limp in the strong grip, a loud groan of relief passing his lips. He didn't like being touched normally, but he did need this, the pressure of it.
A knock on the door was heard but he couldn't see who it was with his head against Tim's shoulder. That's okay though, because Tim could see fine. "Hey Sasha. Can you wait a minute? I think I might end up driving Jon home too. He's not doing too well right now."
Lunches he had shared with these two in Research, while Sasha was visiting entered his mind. Both of them knew him well enough to know he wasn't exactly...normal, but Tim was the one who had stayed with him, regardless of that. He would have to remember to bring his weighted blanket with him tomorrow. The one he used at work when things got a bit much and he needed the weight, or the pressure, or both.
"Sure. I can wait. Martin's gone home for the night. He told me to tell you both goodnight."
Jon was aware that he may have already lost any good will he may have had with Martin due to his behaviour over the dog, but dogs don't belong in an archive. Tim was right though, there was only the four of them down here and he would need the support of all of them to get through this damn job. He let out a moan and begun untangling himself from Tim's hold. "I...I'm g...good. Home."
Damn it, he was going non-verbal. He always tended to start off by not being able to talk in full sentences and his echolalia and stuttering of words became worse.
"And we've lost him," Tim said into his hair. Jon could tell he was trying to be funny, as he could hear the amusement in his voice. "Come on, Jon, I'll take you home now."
A thin but strong gripped arm fell across his shoulders and turned him towards the door, where Sasha was waiting for them. She smiled at him. "Do you want to sit in the front with Tim or in the back so you can lie down?" she asked.
He tried to speak and found himself unable to. He scowled and as a reply the only thing he could do was let himself hold onto Tim. He knew if he laid down, he'd be out for real. Sitting in the front seat may stop that from happening.
Sasha nodded like that was a normal thing to do. Like it was normal to lose your ability to speak. His grandmother had yelled, told him to stop ignoring her, to answer her now or he'd be grounded. He had spent a lot of time in his childhood in time out or grounded.
Well. This was a wonderful end to the beginning of his new job.
He hated every second of it.