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Working at the Magnus Archives was simple, at the core of it. People came in to give their statements, droning on and on through either complete flights of fancy or, on occasion, something genuinely supernatural. Then, Jon would either tell them to seek out a therapist—more accurately, he said it to the door they closed behind them, he didn’t fancy getting in trouble again—or he’d tell them to employ a psychical investigation agency.
And that would be the end of it. Occasionally, Jon sent Sasha, Tim, or Martin to follow up on those cases—though, ever since Jon learned that Martin didn’t much like going to do it, he found himself asking Martin to do it less and less. But a follow up with a few extra details and something along the lines of either ‘yes they got an agency and it was dealt with’ or ‘no, they didn't, and there's nothing we can do’ was the only time a case ended up on his desk for more than just an initial statement.
…normally.
“You… you want what ?” Jon looked up at the teenager who was standing on the other side of his desk. God, he forgot how young agents were. The kid was sixteen, maybe seventeen… maybe eighteen, Jon was never quite able to tell age. But despite it, the boy was stood there just staring at him, waiting for an answer.
“Access to the archive,” George responded without hesitation, staring flatly at Jon. “I don’t have the academic credentials, but I have my agency documents with me.”
“Yes, I did hear you,” Jon grumbled, feeling it was much too late in the workday—almost 5 p.m, if he’d left a few minutes early he could have avoided this whole interaction, made it someone else’s problem—to be discussing this.
“The case information for the house on Albion Street,” George said after a brief period of silence, repeating what he’d stated when he first walked into his office.
At least George had knocked, Jon thought, most of the people in this building rarely offered him the courtesy. Maybe it was because of that courtesy, but Jon was trying very hard not to just Archivist the information out of him. But one more vague explanation, or a repeat of information he had already been offered, and he wasn’t sure he would be able to keep that promise. Not without a cigarette… or walking out of the office and not returning until he was too physically sick not to.
Luckily, George started to explain further without much prompting. “I work with Lockwood and Co. We were hired to take care of their haunting. They said they gave a statement, and that one of the archivists did some follow-up investigation,” George explained, eyebrows pulling together and nose scrunching up slightly. “Don’t you get agents in here all the time asking for research information?”
“No… no, not once,” Jon replied. And, for the first time, the idea of that struck him as… odd. He supposed he’d just never thought of it before, but now that George had spelled it out for him, it made sense. He remembered his college days, sitting in the library, accompanied on seemingly all sides by agents doing research for one thing or another. Why wouldn’t an agent go to the Magnus Institute to gather their case information?
Apparently, George had picked up on the fact that Jon actually wanted answers from him, and wasn’t just going to ignore him when he spoke (a sentiment Jon could understand, and would later use to entirely forgive the boy for his hesitant start), and spoke up again.
“Ever since the Fittes Database came out, proper research has gone down the drain,” George remarked, annoyance rooted deep in every word. Jon nodded along, knowledge about what the Fittes Database was slotting into his mind as if it had always been there. “...so, can I get access?”
“Right, yes,” Jon said without much further thought, finally standing up from his desk and realizing he’d been slumped over the whole time, his spine cracking as he moved. “Follow me, we’ll get it sorted.”
—
Since that day, Jon had kept an eye out for any other agents roaming the halls of the Magnus Institute, but George Karim—the boy had finally offered a proper introduction right as Jon had gone to leave, not that he needed to—had started to be there more and more frequently.
Jon didn’t spend much time outside of his office, so without dipping into the knowledge of the Ceaseless Watcher, he wouldn’t know how frequently George was there, but he became a familiar face. And one day when George was walking towards the archive with a cheap cup of coffee, an open backpack filled with books, and a far-off look in his eyes, Jon stepped in.
To say he wasn’t sure why would have been a lie, knowing too much was his curse, after all. But if you asked him a year ago if he’d ever invite a teenager into his office, the answer would have been a steadfast no . Probably even accompanied by laughter. But George was a smart young man; he either kept entirely to himself or excitedly talked about research that Jon was finding quite interesting. And no one else seemed to listen to George talk about it… It wasn’t that Jon felt obligated , but he knew what it was like not having anyone to talk to. So… he made sure George did.
Listening to George’s research slowly morphed into listening to George talk about his colleagues, Lockwood and Lucy. Which slowly morphed into Jon telling George about his colleagues, in return.
Eventually, Jon inviting George into his office to discuss research, or just have a private place to look over old files, turned into George just showing up. He always knocked, and Jon always told him to come in and sit down. Sometimes they would talk, sometimes they wouldn’t. Either way, Jon found it… nice. Like he had a younger brother. Or a son , but that didn’t quite feel right. After all, and admittedly to Jon’s surprise, George had perfectly good parents already.
“What are you working on today?” Jon asked the young man, watching as he pulled out a thick volume that looked as though no one had touched it in at least a decade, but most of George’s books tended to look that way.
“Haunting at a house on Lloyd Square,” George replied with a heavy sigh that rivalled some of Jon’s, “Lockwood insisted we take it. The client says it’s just a stone knocker, but it’s definitely a Tom O’Shadows. People do that, sometimes, they try to say it’s an easier ghost so we charge them a little less, everyone involved knows it’s ridiculous but—”
A jiggling doorknob and the creak of old hinges that he'd long since meant to fix regrettably distracted Jon from George’s explanation. As he said, people in this place tended to forget that it was common courtesy to knock before entering a room. He sighed heavily, turning towards the door. “ What ? What do you need now?”
The door opened enough for Jon to see who was standing on the other side of it. In his annoyance, he hadn’t even bothered to check. Assuming it was Tim with some horribly unfunny joke of the day, or Sasha getting back to him with that report he’d asked her to write. Jon had never been so glad to be wrong.
“Oh! Oh god, sorry-sorry, I didn’t realize you were taking a statement!” Martin declared with a nervous laugh, his cheeks turning that rosy pink shade they seemed to favour whenever Jon saw him.
“No! No, I’m sorry, Martin. I didn’t realize it was you,” Jon said quickly, not wanting to leave a moment of silence in the room. Martin was, apparently, of the same opinion, as he started to talk the second Jon was done.
“No… I… I should have knocked! I should have knocked . This is your space and your office and it… it isn’t very polite of me to enter without knocking! I mean, I know I hate it when other people do it to me!” Martin rambled, talking with his hands flailing through the air as he had a tendency to do when he was nervous—Jon was only worried he would hit something with the manilla folder he was waving about. “And you! You’re taking a statement, but even if you weren’t—”
“Accidents happen, Martin. We can’t go back and change the past,” Jon interrupted, a firm tone to his voice. He wasn’t trying to be mean. The opposite, actually, but he knew Martin would just go on and on if he didn’t stop him. Of course, he liked hearing Martin go on and on. But that was hardly the point, and this was hardly the time.
“Right, right. You’re right, Jon… anyway, I’ll… I just had that follow-up report you asked for, but I will come back later,” Martin promised, already beginning to back out of the door.
“No, it's alright, Martin, you're here now,” Jon pointed out, walking around to the other side of his desk.
Then he paused, glancing over at George who had just been sitting there, quietly, his gaze turned down towards the book he'd brought in. A sudden pang of guilt knocked into Jon's chest, and he realized he was likely making a massive social blunder. Hopefully, George of all people would forgive him for that.
Jon cleared his throat, hoping to swallow down the guilt at ignoring the boy he'd promised himself he wouldn't ignore, and took the file Martin had been waving about. “Martin, have you met George Karim?”
George looked up at the sound of his name, looking between the two of them with a look in his eyes that Jon would only be able to decipher with help from the Eye. “Hello.”
“Oh! Oh , you're! Right! The… the agent, right? It's nice to meet you,” Martin said in that warm tone that was bound to make anyone smile.
George, it seemed, was not exempt, and a slight smile crept onto his face. “You too.”
Thank God they get along . Jon thought to himself. Though he decidedly was not going to let his mind linger on why that was so important to him.
“Jon's told me about you,” George tacked on while the man in question was distracted. Not too distracted to notice—the blood he felt rushing to his cheeks was evidence of that—but distracted enough that he couldn't dispute the statement before Martin jumped in again.
“Really? He… Jon talks about me?” Martin asked, that rosy colour on his cheeks only deepening as his usually horrid posture straightened itself out slightly, his hands idly pulling slightly-too-short sleeves down as if they had any hopes of covering his hands.
George just nodded, then turned to Jon with a pointed look. The exasperated auto-response of ' just say what you're thinking so I can actually understand it' started to creep into Jon's mind, but he did his best to push it away.
“Anyway!” Martin started to shuffle back towards the door. “I'll leave you to it… oh! I, um, I've got some tea brewing. Jon, I already have a cup steeping for you. Do you want one, George…?”
“No, thank you,” George replied, looking back at Martin. “I drink enough of it at home; Lockwood always has the kettle on. Tepidophobia, if you ask me.”
Martin glanced between George and Jon, his face pulling into a confused expression. “Tepido…phobia…?”
“The fear of a badly made cup of tea,” Jon explained patiently, warmth oozing into his tone without any real effort. He gave a soft chuckle, immediately noting George's raised eyebrows but continuing on anyway, “it sounds to me like you and Lockwood might get along.”
“I'm not scared of a bad cup of tea, Jon.” Martin was certainly trying to come off as insistent, but Jon knew better. He had plenty of experience with people being angry at him, he was becoming more than familiar with the signs of it.
“No, no, of course not,” Jon agreed idly, walking back around to the other side of his desk, feeling an odd lightness that, from George's expression, wasn't going unnoticed.
Martin nodded triumphantly, looking like a very happy bear cub. “Good! So. I’ll um… I'll be back in a few minutes with your tea! And I'll remember to knock.”
“Thank you, Martin.”
The door closed quietly behind Martin as he left, and Jon turned back to see George staring at him, eyebrows pulled together and an odd expression crossing his face.
“I thought you preferred coffee.” It wasn't a question, despite the confused look on the boy’s face, but Jon felt obligated to answer it as such anyway, an odd, defensive feeling bubbling in his chest.
“Well, there are certain circumstances where I enjoy a cup of tea.” He wasn't sure which of them he was trying to convince. But what he did know was that, either way, it hadn't worked.
Still, George didn't question him on the matter any further, just turned back down to the book he was looking through. And Jon let his shoulders relax, stretching out his sore neck and sinking further into his chair.
“Lucy, Lockwood, and I went out for breakfast after our case on Tuesday,” George mentioned casually. Jon smiled, feeling everything falling back into the usual routine. “Lockwood was buttering her toast for her.”
Ah. Yes. He had heard a lot about this particular subject. The mutual pining that George bemoaned was a ‘demonstration in patience to sit through every day, and I'm not a very patient person’ . Jon gave a sound of acknowledgement, “you think she would notice eventually.”
The silence lasted for a moment longer than Jon would expect it to, and when he glanced back over at George he just found the teenager staring at him again. He engaged in a small demonstration of patience of his own, trying not to pry further.
But George seemed to know the exact amount of time he would wait before speaking again to keep Jon from getting properly frustrated—and yes, he knows it's wrong to be frustrated with teenagers, and that their entire teenage years are spent being frustrating, but he can't exactly help it.
“Luce just said thank you and ate it without another word,” George continued, earning a small snort of laughter from the archivist. “A bit odd if you ask me, she usually puts jam on her toast.” He spoke as if the words had some deeper meaning, but without relying on a bit of help from the Eye, Jon really didn't know what it could be. And he promised to be better about not reading people without permission.
“Yes, well. I believe they’re both hopeless,” Jon agreed, parroting a statement he'd heard from George on countless occasions.
George, once again, just stared at him. Jon was so, so tempted to ask—nicely and without using the beholding to help him—what was going on with him and all of his staring. It was somewhat unnerving, after all! And sure, neither of them were always the best at communicating things beyond intellectual discussion, but surely George could say something .
Then the door handle jiggled. And Jon looked over at it. He watched as it turned. Then stopped. And someone knocked on the door.
“Come in, Martin.”
He had to fight back a smile as the door finally opened to reveal Martin standing there, a cup of tea with wisps of steam held carefully between his hands.
“Got your cuppa!” Martin declared, his penchant for stating the obvious a somewhat comforting trait. Jon had always found that saying too much was far better than not saying enough.
Jon pitched his weight forward, reaching across the desk and taking the drink from him. Martin was watching him expectantly—hopefully, even—so he didn't even hesitate to bring the mug to his lips and take a small sip. It was… not his favourite. A bit too sweet, and Martin seemed to have put oat milk into it. But…
“Delicious. Thank you, Martin.”
“Yeah! Yeah, anytime. Well, um, I will… leave you guys to it. Nice meeting you, George.” Martin raised his hand in a wave as he stepped out of the room, but George didn't return it. He looked up, gave a small nod, then looked over at Jon.
Don't get mad at him, he's a teenager. A kid. A child. He's staring at me and he's not saying anything, but he is a teenager. A kid. A child. And teenagers, no matter how fantastic they are, can be very annoying. Just deal with it. I just have to… god, I can't deal with it.
“What.” Jon cut through his own inner monologue, setting his mug down on the desk as he looked over at George.
The teenager's face shifted into a grin. It even looked like he was holding back a laugh. His chair creaked slightly as George shifted, spine curving as he curled in on himself, turning his attention to the book in front of him. He shook his head, amusedly muttering to himself, “You’re all hopeless.”