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Most people who were unlucky enough to meet Jonathan Sims assumed he had no friends.
This was true, up to a point two months after Jon became a researcher at the Magnus Institute: afterwards Jon had no friends, except for Sasha James.
Sasha James was attributable to arson.
Arson was attributable to a bookshelf of Leitners, humming strange songs and spewing toxic energy into the air in rhythmic hissing motions. The Leitners were attributable to Artifact Storage, a testament to mankind’s hubris and a modern-day tower of Babel where a group of underpaid academics found themselves stress testing kevlar and fire suppression systems each day. Artifact Storage was attributable to the Magnus Institute, where Jon had managed to land a job after three months of desolate post-graduate unemployment. And the Magnus Institute was attributable to - well, probably Jonah Magnus, but Jon found that it was likely a bit of a reach to blame all of his problems on a long dead Regency gentleman.
Jon needed this job. London was expensive and so were funerals, and he couldn’t keep living on life insurance forever. It was even a good job, with decent pay and the exact kind of limp, half-hearted academia that the private sector promised disillusioned English mastery holders. His coworkers were nice - well, Tim was nice, everybody else seemed to hate him for the same reason that everybody else hated him, probably because he made it clear that they’d never have a shot - and the commute was short. He couldn’t afford to lose this job. Spiritually, metaphysically, and literally.
Which was why he should stop staring at this piece of paper. The follow-up research to a statement given by some idiot unlucky enough to cross paths with what was certainly a Leitner.
‘ORIGINATION OF PHENOMENA ISOLATED’, the page read out professionally, yet chipperly, like a young woman in a new office job. ‘ITEM QUARANTINED WITHIN ARTIFACT STORAGE (46B.1)’.
Hm.
Jon pushed down on the floor, rolling himself a meter to the left.
“Say, er, Mr. Stoker.”
Tim “I’m only four years older than you, please call me Tim” Stoker, who had been thumping away on his cheap plastic keyboard either writing up a report or messaging someone on one of those infernal casual sex websites, pulled down his headphones and blinked at Jon owlishly before splitting his face into a grin. Jon could practically hear the David Attenborough-style narration within his mind: ‘After long weeks leaving out food for the wild Simothan, the feral yet gentle animal approaches the researcher of his own volition. A win for scientists everywhere.’
“Yes, Jon?” Tim asked, in an uncanny yet hopefully unintentional RP drawl.
“What’s Artifact Storage?”
“God, I wish I was you,” Tim said feelingly. But he nodded sagely anyway, milking his ‘wise senpai’ thing for all it was worth. Jon could practically feel Tim calling himself a senpai. It was kind of embarrassing. “You know the shady room locked deep within the basement that exudes a terrible aura of malice and hatred towards you specifically?”
“The gender neutral bathroom?” Jon asked, confused.
“No, the one that always smells somewhat of blood. You hear screams sometimes?”
“The Archives!”
“Yes, but no! It’s Artifact Storage. If the researchers dig up any creepy shit from a statement, or if a statement giver brings in something that melts the metal detector, then we dump it in Artifact Storage and let those miserable fucks take care of it.”
“Is it more of a containment facility, or would you say that they conduct experiments?”
But Tim just shrugged. “My source down there tells me that they do some experiments to justify their budget, but it’s mostly unscientific. Poke this and I’ll give you twenty quid, that kind of thing. They don’t get any grant funding, so the fact that they sell a lot of the mystery items on the deepweb is a bit of an open secret. They say that if you really want a sick day, all you have to do is touch a mysterious rock and whisper your mother’s name -”
“Fantastic, thank you for your help, must go back to filling now,” Jon said quickly, skittering back to his own desk. He tried to distract himself from the terrifying thought of the basement full of supernatural nuclear bombs underneath his feet by trying to remember his mother’s name, but he was stuck on if it was Marjorie or Margaret. Mary Anne?
Maybe Tim’s personal Meerkat Manor series of Jon’s life had paid off - Sims Shack? - more than Jon would like, because Tim squinted at Jon in an unsettlingly familiar way. As if he knew exactly what Jon was thinking about the literature of mass destruction, and he really wanted Jon to be thinking literally anything else.
“I wouldn’t go down there if I were you, Jon,” Tim warned, sounding a little like a horror movie trailer. “Bushy tailed college grads who go down there don’t come out the same as they went in.”
“I’ll take that under advisement, Mr. Stoker.”
“For the love of christ call me Tim!”
It really was a pity - Jon had actually liked this job.
It was remarkably easy to commit arson in central London.
Jon had done it once or twice. Three times, actually, although when you think about it arson was a criminal charge and those only truly existed so long as someone was charged with a crime, so technically you could say that Jon had done arson zero times. In his defense, you try making it through Oxford without doing anything embarrassing. 90% of your time was in class or schoolwork and 10% of it was being hazed. At least Jon hadn’t fucked any pigs.
Jon hit up the usual stores, and stashed the usual implements in his rucksack. It was a careful week after his conversation with Tim, as he couldn’t afford for the older man to connect the dots. He made a show of going home at a timely five pm, startling everybody around him, and paced in a tight circle around his flat until he gave up and watched mindless telly until the clock struck midnight.
He took a cab to the park a few blocks down from the Institute, and walked the rest of the way. It was a cool, dim night in London, and the foot-traffic had slowed down to a steady trickle of young people in tight clothing. Jon pulled down his baseball cap on his head, fished a key out from his pocket given to him by a helpful and friendly janitor, and took a back entrance into the Institute.
The janitor, whose allegiance was won through Jon’s nonthreatening air and incompetent vibes, was very friendly and helpful. Apparently Jon was a “nice young lad” and “I always wanted to burn down the place myself, I’m happy to see the next generation give it a go”. Even more helpfully, he had scheduled the routine digital surveillance camera maintenance/exorcism for tonight. Something about them easily attracting demons, and needing a lot of positive reinforcement for their good jobs. Jon wondered if the janitor was so cooperative because he had spent too long in Artifact Storage himself.
He took the stairs down to the basement, zipping his jacket up tight against the inescapable chill, and pushed his hat further down his head as he navigated his way towards the hive of sin and villainy where malicious pamphilets loomed. Mocking him.
He unlocked the door with the janitor’s key, hands shaking, and slipped inside into the dusky and unlit room.
It was pitch-black, and Jon quickly fished a torch out of his backpack. He flipped it on, letting it slowly scan the room. It was the lobby into the bowels of Artifact Storage, familiar from his stake-out missions: you walked in, met the bored woman behind the desk, checked in or checked out what you wanted, and if you needed to go inside she would press the button that unlocked the heavy climate-controlled door and let you into the hallway interior. The only other door in the lobby was to the office of the Director of Artifact Storage, a terrifying short and squat woman with silver hair pulled into a bun. Jon had heard that she looked like the creepy cousin of the Head Archivist Gertrude Robinson, but seeing as Jon had never met either of them in real life he couldn’t be sure. In his head, all old women were his grandmother.
Jon leaned over the counter and jammed the button, holding his breath until he heard the door click open. He quickly twisted the handle, swung the heavy door out, and slipped inside, taking care to grab one of the chairs in the lobby and prop it open. Quick escapes were necessary.
He was in.
The torch lit up a map taped up to the wall, and Jon squinted at it. Section A, Section B, Section C...he remembered the classification from the document he read a week ago, and slowly walked down the hallway until he found the heavy climate controlled door marked ‘SECTION B’. He carefully wrenched it open, taking care to grab a rolling cart and using it to prop the door open, before stepping inside. He fished the canister of gasoline and the lighter out of his backpack, giving the gasoline a good shake.
It was a library. Small, and instead of shelves there were long metal racks with filing boxes stretching long into the darkness, but Jon knew a library when he saw one. The smell of old paper and evil was distinctive. Each box had a clipboard attached to it, and most boxes had very large and terrifying stickers on them painted sickly yellow or dangerous red.
The only thing in the library that wasn’t a filing rack was a battered and beat stained yellow couch. And the only person in the room besides Jon was a woman, blinking up at Jon blearily from where she had been passed out on the sagging cushions.
“Er,” Jon said.
The woman sat up, squinting at Jon’s torchlight until he guiltily aimed it just to her left. She had a wild mane of curly brown hair, and was wearing a pencil skirt and ruffled burgundy blouse. A blazer was folded at one end of the couch, clearly serving as a make-shift pillow, and she looked strongly as if Jon had just woken her up from a very nice nap.
“Whuh,” the sleepy woman said.
“My mistake,” Jon said, “this isn’t the loo. Go back to bed, this is - er, a very bad dream, goodnight.”
“Whutuhiseet,” the woman slurred.
“It’s - very late, go back to bed.”
“Alright,” the woman said, falling back on the couch. After a second, her snores echoed through the room again.
Jon very slowly crept backwards. Actually, on second thought, his mission could wait for tomorrow. Bit of a cock block, this, but that was alright -
“Hey! Who are you!”
Jon, hand on the handle of the door, squeaked and turned around.
The woman was back up again, and this time she seemed actually awake. She was frowning mightily at Jon, and was already sliding off the couch in stocking feet to glare at him. Jon was aware that he did not look like an innocent person in these events. The gasoline did not help.
The woman’s eyes trailed to the gasoline, then widened. Jon ineffectually tried to hide it behind his back.
“You’re trying to burn down Artifact Storage!” the woman accused, somewhat fairly.
“Not all of Artifact Storage,” Jon said guiltily, “just the Leitners.”
The woman stared at him further, as if she was a special guest on Tim’s Sims Shack nature documentary.
“Why,” the woman said slowly, “would you want to do that?”
Despite himself, Jon found himself puffing up in indignation. “They’re evil, nasty little books that shouldn’t exist. Forget studying and - and containing them, we should be making sure no more of them ever disgrace the world again. We should be burning every one we see. Selling them on the deepweb, circulating them - it’s a crime against humanity. They’re pure evil given literary form, they are a disgrace to books and libraries, and if I ever met Leitner myself I would beat him to death with a rusty pipe for subjecting me to his fucked up books.”
The woman stared at him.
Finally, she said, “I’m Sasha James. Want some help?”
“I - er, wouldn’t that get you in trouble, Ms. James?”
“I like this job but I hate Leitner and his fucked up books more,” Sasha said gravely.
Jon, having found a kindred spirit, held out the lighter.
Sasha James took it, a wide grin splitting her face.
Jon didn’t remember much else of that night.
There was definitely arson involved - or, seeing as they hadn’t gotten caught, just some good old-fashioned fire starting. He had the sense that they had both been so giddy with adrenaline that they had immediately joined the raging uni students in the late night bars, toasting their success in...toasting. That was a pun. Jon could do puns, as he assured Sasha, somewhat drunkenly.
If the puns had come out, there had probably been quite a bit of alcohol. Jon could not recall.
When he woke up the next morning it was in his narrow and uncomfortable bed, face to face with an unfamiliar snoring woman. For a second, two, Jon was briefly convinced that he had done something so drastically out of character it meant that a fucked up book had body swapped him with Tim. Bodyswapping was more likely than him having casual sex.
Then Jon remembered the arson, and he exhaled in relief as his life made sense again.
“Ms. James,” Jon whispered, poking her in the arm. She snuffled and muttered something. Jon poked her harder. “Ms. James, we have work.”
Sasha turned around, turning her back to him and pulling up the blankets. “Go back to bed, Tim.”
Ti - oh god. Jon felt like he was in a CW drama. This was why he didn’t interact with people, far too much likelihood that he would accidentally end up interacting with somebody who had sex.
“Ms. James,” Jon hissed, extremely embarrassed, “you have to get up!”
“Mergh mergh fuck off,” Sasha James said.
Jon, like a true gentleman and hero, got up and made them both strong tea. He squinted at Sasha, recalling everything he knew about her (slept a lot, liked arson, hated Jurgen Leitner) before digging out some instant coffee and making some of that too. Finally, after shoving a hot cup of sludgey black liquid at the woman, she grabbed the cup and chugged it until she was able to sit up and open her eyes.
She blinked at Jon, who was already picking his hair in an attempt to get ready for work. He could clearly see the thoughts ‘you aren’t Tim’ run through her brain. Hah! He could be the narrator of the nature documentary for once!
“Uh,” Sasha James said, “I’m sorry, did we…?”
“Commit arson? Yes.” Jon paused a beat. “But as I don’t believe we were caught, call it an indoor campfire.”
Sasha James drank more of her coffee. Jon grabbed his clothing and disappeared into the loo to get changed.
When he re-entered his bedroom, she snapped her fingers at him. “Right! We got pissed after! Good times, mate!”
“I have to assume,” Jon said politely. He was doing his very best to be very polite, because Jon knew he was rude and didn’t want his new coworkers to know that until his probation period was over. Maybe he should have waited until after his probation period for the arson? Would it look bad on his annual review? “Do you need to borrow some clothing? I think we’re about the same size.” Oh, no, was that rude to say to a woman?
Sasha James squinted at him. “It’s like you’re not hungover at all. How old are you?”
“Twenty five?” Be polite, Jon! “And you’re...thirty seven?”
“I’m thirty one, asshole!”
Oh no. Women hated it when you called them old. “You don’t look a day over twenty seven!” Jon cried, panicked.
“Have you met a woman?”
“I had a grandmother?”
“I’m going back to bed,” Sasha James said.
Unfortunately, Jon knew that it would be very suspicious if they both skipped, so he forced Sasha into one of his suits that...looked much nicer on her than him, but whatever, and hustled them both to work. Now that the adrenaline had worn away and the sense of purpose in his holy mission had burned up with the cleansing flames, Jon found himself biting his nails in agony in the Underground.
They had to know. Someone must have caught them. Maybe there were secret CCTVs in the Institute. Maybe Sasha was going to rat him out - but she had helped, so wouldn’t she just be ratting out herself? Was she a double agent? Mr. Bouchard was never going to forgive him, no matter how nice he was and how much he seemed to like Jon to the point where he rather wished someone had given him the ‘Stranger Danger’ speech as a child so he would know what to do. Jon was going to go to jail, or worse - get fired.
Sasha, cooly sipping her coffee and looking somewhat fly in sunglasses and his suit, did not seem disturbed by any of this. Jon’s rapidly spiralling panic attack must have been obvious, because she casually flicked a finger on his forehead. Jon yelped with pain.
“Take it easy, mate. If they catch us, I’ll just say that the books made us do it.”
Jon scowled at her, rubbing his smarting forehead. “The books?”
“Sure.” She waved her fingers spookily as the Underground rattled forward into the heart of London. “Brainwashed us to do their evil bidding of -”
“Destroying them?”
“There’s a lot of arson Leitners,” Sasha James said sagely. “Trust me, this is just a normal day in Artifact Storage.” She clapped him reassuringly on the shoulder, and Jon fought a blush. “Don’t worry. We performed a public service, kiddo. St. Peter’s gonna give us a medal when we get to the pearly gates.”
“I’m an adult,” Jon said, scandalized. He had gray hair!
“Well, I guess, but I don’t know your name, so…”
Jon squinted at her. She squinted at him back.
“You’re thinking that if you don’t give me your name I can’t rat you out to the feds,” Sasha said flatly.
Jon pursed his lips.
Finally, he settled on, “You don’t rat me out to the feds and I won’t tell them that you’re in an illicit relationship with Mr. Stoker.”
“Mr. - how did - what!”
“It’s Jonathan Sims,” Jon said gruffly, crossing his arms. He was slightly hungover and his nerves were jittery and he had set fire to his workplace the previous night, but somehow Jon thought that his heart was jackrabbiting in his chest for a different reason. Somehow Jon felt as if his heart couldn’t stop thumping behind his sternum because Sasha James was staring at him, head cocked, as if he was a mystery she was interested in solving. There was nothing solvable, or knowlable, about Jonathan Sims. There was really nothing to Jonathan Sims at all. “That’s my name.”
Sasha James stared at him, as if surprised, before her face broke into a wide and happy smile. Jon hunched his shoulders up, embarrassed, faintly aware he was blushing. “It’s nice to meet you, Jonathan!” Then she grabbed him by the collar, shaking him slightly. “And there is nothing illicit about me and Tim, and there is nothing between me and Tim at all, we are just friends, so get that out of your little head -”
Even worse than sharing a twenty year old crumpled tin can hurtling thirty three kilometers per hour underneath forty meters of dirt with a terrifyingly hungover coworker, Jon was forced to take a walk of shame to the front doors of the Magnus Institute with her. He couldn’t think of a way to casually lose her short of claiming a loo emergency and ducking into the financial building, but Jon was more afraid of bankers than he was of Sasha James. Perhaps irrationally, considering how many acts of arson financers probably committed, but it was definitely balanced out by their plethora of white collar crimes. Jon had gone to Oxford.
The smell of smoke grew stronger and stronger as they drew closer to the Institute. Jon looked at Sasha. Sasha looked at Jon.
Jon turned around to walk in the opposite direction. Sasha grabbed him by the collar and pulled him in the right direction.
“Just act natural,” Sasha hissed. “They can’t arrest both of us.”
“They - they definitely can -”
Then they turned the corner, finding themselves swimming between throngs of rubberneckers, and came face to face with what their righteous crusade had wrought.
A lot of fire trucks. A thankfully intact Magnus Institute, if somewhat smoky. One cop car, complete with attached Cop Barbies. An unamused Mr. Bouchard, his wool coat the same color as the lingering smoke in the air. Jon couldn’t tell if he was more upset by the arson or by Cop Barbie #1, who looked like she gave speeches to primaries about drugs.
And Tim, sitting on the stone fence outside of the Institute, kicking his heels against the brick like a delinquent child, looking extremely surprised to see Sasha and Jon rolling up into the Institute together.
“Remember,” Sasha hissed in his ear, uncomfortably close, “act natural.”
“You still haven’t defined that!” Jon hissed back, nine tenths on his way to a panic attack.
“It means don’t act like a virgin, Jonathan!”
What did that mean!
But Tim was already hopping off the stone fence and jogging up to them, looking even more alarmed as Sasha imparted her obscure wisdom. His eyes kept on jumping from Sasha, to Jon, to Sasha, to Jon, as if he couldn’t decide which reality to reject.
“Well, this is the second weirdest thing to happen today,” Tim said, with his usual brand of strained cheerfulness. “You two know each other?”
Sasha and Jon shared a glance. Sasha mouthed ‘yes?’. Jon mouthed ‘no!’, equally silently but much louder.
Sasha turned back to Tim. “Never seen this man before in my life,” she said confidently.
“Sasha’s my cousin,” Jon said, equally confidently.
“Uh huh,” Tim said, very slowly. His eyes widened. “Sasha, is that Jon’s suit?”
“Our grandmother sewed us all matching suits,” Jon said instantly.
Sasha gently smacked him on the back of the head before turning back to Tim. “Please ignore all of this. What happened here? What’s with all of the fire trucks?”
Tim visibly struggled with this new development in Sims Shack, before forcing another patented strained bright smile on his face. “Sure. Okay! Whatever! Life’s weird enough already! I was just hanging around here to intercept you, Sasha. And Jon too, apparently. That’s fine. Jon’s like a little brother to me. I guess you could call him my kouhai. That’s Japanese for -”
“We all speak Japanese,” Jon said, rolling his eyes. Condescended to again.
“Someone set the Institute on fire last night,” Tim said loudly. “So they all gave us the day off! Cops cordoned off the area and everything. Place is crawling with those bug-eyed EEOC freaks. Elias is seriously not happy. Anyway, I wanted to ask Sasha if she wanted to get coffee, but if you’re busy then that’s fine too I guess -”
“The government’s here?” Sasha asked, freaked.
“Mr. Bouchard’s upset?” Jon asked, crushed.
Tim squinted at both of them. Mainly at Sasha, as Jon’s daddy issues were no surprise to anybody who’s known him for more than five seconds. “If you’re in trouble with the feds, then you have to tell me so I can help you hide the body. That’s best friend rules.”
On cue, the cop talking to Mr. Bouchard turned her head. She looked Jon straight in the eyes, and Jon found himself frozen straight to his spot.
Now that he looked her in the eyes, Jon saw that she wasn’t an out-of-the-package collector’s vintage edition Cop Barbie. She was more like a much-loved doll of a particularly sadistic little girl. An adorable little 1.5 meters, her silky blonde hair was raggedly cut at her chin, as if she had taken a knife to it. There was a long, thin scar curving from her ear down to her throat, and she was clearly packing. When her crystal blue eyes met Jon’s, he almost rocked back with the intensity of them.
They were not wild or demented. There was a thin veneer of professionalism, dignity, and insecurity, like wet paper towels over a paper-mache volcano. But inside Jon found a kindred spirit, a fellow revolutionary. A human soul, just like his. A sister in arms.
Someone who was completely fucking insane.
Jon tugged on Sasha’s crisp sleeve, hissing in her ear again. “That cop has killed before and will kill again. We have to get out of here.”
Sasha glanced over her shoulder, and although her eyebrows shot into her hairline Jon knew that she didn’t understand. She turned back to Tim, and immediately laughed extremely insincerely and far too loudly. “Welp, gotta go! Things to be! Places to do! No time for coffee, maybe tomorrow, see you later, love you, live fast, die young, sayonara! That’s Japanese for goodbye! Ha ha!”
Then Sasha grabbed Jon by the elbow and frog-marched him out of there as quickly as physically possible, pulling him around the corner and continuing their mad escape. They were three blocks away from the Institute before either of them calmed down, leaning against the brick wall and heaving deep breaths.
“You know,” Sasha heaved, “maybe we acted a little impulsively.”
“Gran was right.” Jon’s heart was thumping a thousand beats per minute. Lost explorers in the wilderness who met the eyes of a tiger reported that they felt as if they had stared death in the eyes that day. They didn’t know anything. Beautiful, wild, ferocious - your death on four paws and packing heat. “My incapability of thinking more than ten minutes into the future will be the death of me.”
“It’s okay, Jon. You don’t have to be the smart one.” Sasha straightened, expression turning resolute and strong. She clapped Jon on the back so hard that he almost fell over. “I’m the senpai here. That’s a Japanese word that means -”
“I know Japanese.”
“ - anyway, what’s done is done and there’s nothing to do about it! Frankly, I make a habit of never second-guessing my decisions, so I choose to believe we both made the right decision and that neither of us made any mistakes here. Moral, ethical, philosophical, logistical, intellectual, or spiritual. In fact, I think it was our imperative in all of those areas to murder those books.”
Jon squinted at her. He had the feeling that she was not correct. But he was not certain, and Jon always leaned in the direction of his uncertainty. “Well,” he said slowly, “you are in your thirties. You probably know what you’re talking about.” Sasha abruptly started sweating, but Jon politely ignored it. Old people sweat a lot. “So what do we do now?”
They stared at each other. Jon didn’t know, but he wasn’t in charge. He looked expectantly at Sasha, waiting for her to have a good idea. She sweat harder.
Finally, she offered, “Get drunk?”
“It’s nine am.”
Sasha thought harder.
“Go back to your place, sleep, then get drunk.”
“I can’t see anything wrong about that plan whatsoever,” Jon said, completely honestly.
They high fived. This was going great.
Jon’s flat was much closer to The Good Pubs than Sasha’s, so there they returned. Jon made Sasha stay outside as he frantically cleaned up his ‘bachelor pad’, as straight men called it, which she didn’t seem amused by. In revenge, she stole his spare toothbrush and sanitized her beer breath. She also refused to give back his suit, or buy her own clothing.
“The sexy professor look is hot only on two people,” Sasha said, posing in his bedroom. “On you, unfortunately. It’s weird, stop that. And...on me.”
Jon scrutinized Sasha carefully as he sat on his bed. She was definitely very attractive, but his attention was caught by the shamefully stray pair of boxers on the floor. “Please don’t ruin this burgeoning acquaintanceship by falling in love with me instantly,” Jon said. He never liked to label something a friendship. Far too presumptuous. Georgie had to inform him three months after the fact that they were dating. Two months after propositioning him, but Jon didn’t know how sexual minds worked and he had read somewhere that people had sex with their friends. He had been pleased to find out that they were friends. Georgie had threatened divorce. “It happens far too often and I think it’s why I have no friends.”
Whoops. Shouldn’t have admitted that. Sasha squinted at him. “You’re like a toddler to me, don’t worry about that. Sorry, does everyone you know fall in love with you?”
Jon shrugged helplessly. “I had to cut my hair in self-defense. I didn’t want to create complications in a workplace environment.” He paused a beat. “Sometimes I’m just trying to get some work done in peace, then everyone starts calling me ‘strange but special’ and a ‘beauty but a funny girl’...what does that even mean?”
“Every problem you have is insane,” Sasha had said, in bizarre and complex wonder.
Then they fell asleep. Jon took the couch. He really didn’t want to ruin this too.
Finally, at the pub eight hours later, they were able to assemble some semblance of a plan. Jon knew that it was an official and effective plan because Sasha had ordered a whiskey. Only grown-ups drank whiskey. Jon admired it highly.
“Step one,” Sasha said, halfway through her whiskey almost instantly. “We don’t tell anyone.”
Jon had nodded fastidiously. He decided not to admit that he couldn’t keep a secret for the life of him. He didn’t want to fail step one.
“Step two,” Sasha had said, holding up four fingers as a visual aid, “we avoid Elias. Easy. He hates acknowledging queers.”
“He acknowledges this queer,” Jon had muttered, sipping his untouched whiskey gently before making a face and replacing it. This was the last time he would ever try to be as cool as Sasha James.
“You’re a homosexual? That explains a lot!” No, but good enough. Sasha’s brows furrowed. “If Elias is your miniature father figure because of your daddy issues you can do a lot better.”
“Do you know any other adult men?” Jon had asked, distressed. “Besides Tim?”
“Not touching that!” Sasha held up one finger in a stunning display of arithmetic. “Step three: avoid creepy cop ladies. Probably not hard. Cops don’t do their jobs or anything.”
“I think one of the cops and I are soulmates,” Jon said seriously, “I can’t explain it. We’re just connected. Her eyeline was to my chest, but our hearts met eye-to-eye.”
“And three!” Sasha said very loudly, holding up five fingers before clenching them in a fist. “Staying away from Gertrude Robinson! That old bat’s going to be sniffing down to the bottom of this mystery, I just know it. And since she’s the scariest bitch this side of the Atlantic, we can’t afford to show weakness. Got it, Jon?” She jabbed a finger at him. “You have to outwit her.”
“Got it!” Jon said fervently.
“You have to play it cool and normal and not be a freak.”
“Exactly!”
“You have to think this one through!”
“I’m completely capable of that!”
Sasha stared at him for a long moment. Jon tried sipping his whiskey, in case it magically started tasting good in the last thirty seconds. It had not. He grimaced, and accidentally jerked some of it onto the floor, terrorizing a passing waitress.
“You know,” Sasha said finally. “It’s a good thing that I’m here. Me. Sasha James. Who’s cunning, cool, normal, un-freakish, always thoughtful.”
“I trust you, Ms. James,” Jon said eagerly. “You’re very competent. You’ll get us out of this without a scratch.”
Sasha downed the rest of her drink.
When Jon woke up the next morning it was in his narrow and uncomfortable bed, face to face with an increasingly familiar snoring woman.
He rolled out of bed effortlessly, with a spring in his step, and managed to get through making coffee and eggs by the time Sasha lumbered out of bed. He had a glass of water and a bottle of Advil by her plate, which she downed instinctively.
“Radda radda radda,” Sasha said.
“Ms. James, if we’re going to make a habit of this, then you need to leave some work clothing in my closet,” Jon said reproachfully. “And please keep a toothbrush.”
“Gonna steal your toothbrush,” Sasha said resentfully, dumping eggs in her mouth.
When Jon envisioned himself finally making friends he had expected sleepovers, positive affirmations about how likable he was, and hijinks. He did not expect the hijinks to be conspiring to cover up crimes. But this time they hadn’t gotten completely black-out drunk - just too drunk for Sasha to toddle back home to her more distant flat - and they had put together a pretty good plan, if Jon did say so himself.
It was a plan that would definitely work. Jon felt bolstered by this surety. They double-checked their work emails to be sure that they were actually coming in today, experiencing the crushing disappointment of labor when they saw that the cops had given the all-clear, before subjecting themselves to the Tube. They walked each other to the Institute again, this time slightly less awkwardly.
Jon silently tried to take stock of the situation. It had spiralled quickly out of control. He didn’t understand why. His motivation had been just (destroy Leitners), his preparation had been sufficient (make friends with sympathetic janitors), his execution simple (destroy Leitners), and his getaway plan had been…
Oh. He knew he had been forgetting something. Jon slapped himself on the forehead, making Sasha roll his eyes. He had forgotten the getaway plan. An uncharacteristic act of incompetence when commiting crimes, but a very characteristic approach to problem solving.
To make matters worse, he was now entangled with the very insane and extremely intimidating Sasha James. She...she had known him for two whole days plus a morning, and she was still talking to him. Even hanging out with him. Outside of work. Even Tim stopped talking to him the minute they left work.
She hadn’t called him pretentious, because she was even more pretentious than he was. She hadn’t called him a know-it-all or rude or pushy, because she was also all of those things. She hadn’t even called him self-absorbed, because she was so self-absorbed she hadn’t noticed any of these things about Jon.
Jon felt a little as if he had been abruptly assigned Sidekick in the great and tumultuous life of Sasha James. Jon had never personally considered himself a sidekick of anyone - more of a lone wolf, howling at the moon - but...it didn’t seem too bad. To make eggs. To get drinks. To tag along on great adventures, that may or may not be illegal.
It was like he was tensing for a blow that hadn’t come yet. When would she decide she hated him or was in love with him or that he wasn’t good enough or that he was too good or…
But she had said so. They were in this together. That was something acquaintances said, right? Maybe even friends?
At least for now, before she hated him? At least for this second, these crazy and scary seconds - would he have someone who accepted Jon, as he was, into their lives?
Would he have someone who even tried?
“Remember the prisoner’s dilemma, Jon,” Sasha hissed, as they climbed the objectively too many steps into the Institute. Jon craned his head around searching for his treasured pig only to find a disappointing lack of cop cars, which was a new sentence. “It’s most advantageous for both of us if we both refuse to squeal. There’s no person alive who can make you talk if you refuse to talk!”
That somehow didn’t feel true, but Jon didn’t know enough about Eldritch privacy invading forces of Evil to dispute it.
Maybe she just didn’t trust him not to squeal, because she walked him all the way up to research. She made him stop in the cafeteria so she could buy a coffee, slurping obnoxiously as she sagely advised him never to enter his thirties. At this rate, Jon was afraid that he wouldn’t.
But when they did enter the relentlessly depressing cubicle farm that was Research, they found an uncharacteristically openly anxious Tim. He was twitchy, rattling his fingers on his desk, and when the distinctive sound of Sasha’s heels tapped down the aisle he jumped almost a foot in the air and swiveled around.
“Jon! And...Sasha! Again! What a surprise!” Tim quickly surveyed Sasha’s giant sunglasses, coffee, and obviously stolen suit. “Showing up...together. To work. Together. Again.” He slowly deflated as he said it, like an untied balloon. Jon fought the urge to commit an unprecedented act and clap someone on the shoulder. He wiped his hands on his trousers just thinking about it.
What was going on here? Jon glanced at Sasha, but she just sipped her coffee very loudly and somewhat desperately. He nudged her.
But she just sighed, crumpling her empty plastic cup somewhat aggressively. “Get over yourself, dude.”
Then she turned sharply on her stiletto, flouncing away in dramatic and butch fashion, somehow aggressively tweed.
Tim thumped his head on his desk and groaned so loudly that their coworker shushed him. Jon was yet again possessed of an insanity that urged him to clap the other man on the back.
Jon quickly put down his bookbag, feeling like a lunatic. But when he reached over to turn on his computer, he found a crisply folded sheet of white paper.
“Oh, happy dagger, my heart is thy sheath!” Tim morosely turned his head to the side to see Jon curiously flip open the note. “Oh, yeah. Someone dropped that off on your desk. Send a fucking email, right?”
The page was clearly printer paper, a memo written in precise and loopy handwriting.
“Why is this the handwriting of a 19th century Regency gentleman?” Jon asked, confused. “I can barely read it.”
Unfortunately, eventually the words arranged themselves into something that made sense. He did not like the sense it made.
“Maybe she’d like me if I was a 19th century Regency gentleman,” Tim mumbled into his arms. “What does Duke Ellington want?”
“...it’s Elias. And he wants a meeting with me. Right now.” Jon double checked the letter. “Actually, ten minutes ago.”
Shit.
No time to fear. No time to even stress. There were more important things at stake now than going to prison or the ghosts of Leitners stringing out his corpse: getting fired.
Jon didn’t run to Mr. Bouchard’s office. He just sped-walked. Very quickly.
The lift did not go fast enough.
Rosie waved him through with a glazed smile without even asking for his appointment. A week ago Jon would have judged her severely for intoxication in the workplace, but Jon had matured in the last two-and-a-bit days and realized that there were more important things in life than proper workplace behavior, e.g. crime. He barely remembered to knock on Mr. Bouchard’s door before hearing the ‘come in!’ and slipping inside.
Mr. Bouchard’s office was exactly the same as when he had hired him. Jon had asked Tim if it was normal in office jobs for the head of the organization to hire barely college graduates personally. Tim’s reaction gave the impression that his question had just served as the dramatic cliffhanger of season 1 of Sims Shack - guaranteed to get viewers tuning in next time - but he hadn’t received a good answer. He would have at least liked to get a warning on stranger danger!
Jon could really use a lecture about that. He had the sense that it was strange to keep a wall full of a cabinet of curiosities in your office, much less actual human bones, but he couldn’t tell for sure.
Mr. Bouchard himself was typing away at a computer when Jon entered, but as he approached he shut off his computer and closed down the lid of his laptop. Jon immediately felt as if he was really being paid attention to and heard. It was a deviation from their usual monthly meetings, where Mr. Bouchard usually didn’t even stop what he was doing. It made sense, of course - surely the man had more important things to do than talk to Jon.
Jon had also asked Tim if Mr. Bouchard had monthly meetings with everyone else in Research too, which seemed to alarm him even more.
Hm. Maybe Sasha would give him The Talk.
“Jon. Wonderful to see you. Sit down, please. How have you been?”
It was at this exact moment that Jon experienced a stress reaction.
It was a common reaction, at least for Jon. It wouldn’t quite be accurate to say that Jon lived his entire life in a mild state of stress - rather, it was mild at the best of times, and it frequently jumped into moderate and occasionally into severe. When Jon entered moments of severe stress, he sometimes made decisions. Occasionally the decision was arson. When he entered a state of severe stress for an extended period of time it was severely problematic. Jon was secretly convinced that Eleventh Form Finals Season was why his grandmother had stopped loving him, and ultimately passed away five years later.
But sometimes there was no decision to be made, and Jon was incapable of entering fight or flight. He found himself entering freeze instead. Complete dissociation. His mind skipped tracks like an old vinyl, and every answer to every test question flew out of his head.
In the colloquial sense, he ‘blanked’.
Out of lack of anything better to think about, Jon’s mind started playing ‘Girls Just Want To Have Fun’ on loop.
“Uh,” Jon said unintelligently, “doing well, thanks. How are you?”
“Oh, just fine,” Mr. Bouchard said vaguely. His limp green eyes met Jon’s eyes directly, and Jon would have felt uncomfortable if he wasn’t mentally playing the Cyndi Lauper music video in his head. Most didn’t know that the father in the video also played Mario in the Super Mario Bros movie, but Jon was the expert on such matters. “But really, Jon. What’s been going through your mind?”
Daddy dear, we’re not the fortunate ones - “Taxes,” Jon said.
Mr. Bouchard stared at him.
“Well,” he said finally, “that’s very responsible.” He leaned back in his chair, somehow pointedly. “So you must be aware by now of the small...incident that occurred a few nights ago. An unknown saboteur set fire to a temperature controlled room in Artifact Storage. Burned down most of the department. A great deal of priceless and irreplaceable items were lost.”
“That’s quite unfortunate,” Jon said.
Girls Just Want to Have Fun transitioned seamlessly into the Pina Colada song.
Mr. Bouchard’s eye twitched.
“I spoke with a janitor regarding the manner,” Mr. Bouchard said. “He was sadly unhelpful. No surprise, of course, but I regret that he couldn’t give more information. The security cameras were undergoing routine maintenance, you see.”
“That’s great.”
“Would you know anything about this, Jon?” For the first time Mr. Bouchard leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. He stared very intently at Jon. Jon, who never really enjoyed making eye contact with people, cranked up the song louder in his head and thought wistfully about getting caught in the rain. “Anything at all?”
“I was at home, sleeping,” Jon said. “And Mr. Stoker had to catch me up that there had been a fire at all. So...no, not really.”
“Such as if there was an accomplice?” Mr. Bouchard hinted desperately. “Jon?”
Jon shrugged. “Isn’t arson pretty straightforward, though? Would you really need more than one person?”
“...yes, I suppose.” Mr. Bouchard didn’t blink much, did he? “You don’t socialize much here, beyond Mr. Stoker. I suspect you wouldn’t really know anybody willing to help - someone out.”
“I’d say so, yes.”
Mr. Bouchard stared at Jon very intently. Jon stared at somewhere on his forehead. Bad synth thumped through his brain, drowning out everything else.
The air grew weirdly heavy, a little suffocating. It was nothing in comparison to the oppressive shackles of Rupert Holmes.
“I think your aircon’s broken,” Jon said. “You should take a look at that.”
“...sure, Jon.” He paused a beat. “I think you can go back to your work now. I’m very sorry for keeping you.”
“Thanks, Mr. Bouchard!” Jon started to rise from his seat, but for the first time a thought permeated his haze. Of course! The powers of good could always overpower the inherent evil of anxiety. “Would you happen to have the number of that officer you were speaking to? Very short, blonde, captivating?”
“Let’s not interfere in active investigations, Jon.”
Mr. Bouchard let Jon escape from his office after that, seeming slightly disgruntled. When Jon closed the door he caught a glimpse of the man steepling his fingers and staring fixedly into the hollow sockets of his human skull. Jon felt a little as if this was weird, but he wasn’t sure. Sasha should really explain these things to him.
Jon was elated. He had done a fantastic job lying out of his arse to Mr. Bouchard. He hadn’t said anything incriminating at all. Normally when he got testing anxiety he made himself out to be an utter idiot, but this time it completely worked to his advantage! He could barely even remember the encounter! An ideal outcome from a meeting with Mr. Bouchard!
He returned to his desk in good spirits, only to find Tim in desolate spirits. Most others had arrived by now, clacking away steadfastly at their cubicles or talking with their deskmates. The sound was grating, and oftentimes left him sour and irritable. The office buzz was so insufferable Jon had started orienting his schedule around only being in the office when everyone else was gone as much as possible, which had the unfortunate side-effect of everyone else figuring him for a workaholic. But Tim loved noise, and produced it incessantly, and it was a little sad to see him tragically trawl JSTOR.
Jon was somewhat discomfited by this role reversal - Jon in an elated and optimistic mood, and Tim in the pits of despair. It left him with another novel emotion: to comfort him. It seemed that Tim was an archeologist of Jon’s soul.
The issue was that Jon had no idea how to comfort someone. Georgie had never once needed comfort from him, because not much had ever bothered Georgie. When she was sad then they just made out a bunch and she usually felt better. It was very easy. That problem solving technique didn’t...well…
Jon thought about it. No. The documentary maker must maintain objectivity with his subjects.
Better give it his best shot. Jon sat down in his chair and, very cautiously, poked Tim with a pencil. Tim did that to him many times each day, he probably enjoyed the sensation. “Are you quite alright, Mr. Stoker?”
But Tim just groaned again, rubbing his face. “With a guy who calls me Mr. Stoker…”
What? Jon poked Tim again. “If something’s...upsetting you...then you can talk about it. To me. I suppose.”
Tim pressed his thumbs into his eyeballs, breathing deeply. “Be an adult, Tim. Be the senpai. You can do this. Ice cream and wine is at home. Hold out for five.”
“You can have wine here,” Jon said anxiously. “Rosie’s doing it, so I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Wh - since when do you stop caring about workplace protocol?” Tim finally lowered his hands and looked at him in surprise. Jon internally congratulated himself on moving on from the awkward feelings. “Normally you’re so anal about that.”
“At this point propriety feels a little meaningless,” Jon said grimly. “There are no more rules to break.”
“Ha ha,” Tim said, “right. Propriety and everything.” He paused a beat, before cautiously continuing. “So...you and Sasha. You’re...tight now, I guess?”
Well, Tim deserved the truth. Jon had already used up his daily allotment of lying talent, and it was hard to be too stressed out about him. He’d just have to keep the arson out of it, or keep the information vague. “We’re certainly connected in a unique, yet oddly vigorous way.”
Tim’s eye twitched. “Yeah, I noticed. Twice? Consecutively? Seriously?”
Right. Getting blackout drunk twice in a row wasn’t a good look, even taking into account British drinking culture. Jon coughed, embarrassed. “Well, we didn’t exactly have much else to do that day. Off work and all. Mostly just slept and indulged for two days straight, really.”
No arson involved, ha ha ha, definitely no. Tim looked actively pained.
“That’s...fun. Haven’t had a week like that in a while.”
“We’ll probably end up doing it more often now,” Jon said apologetically. Sasha seemed to have one coping mechanism, which probably wasn’t very sustainable long term. “I hope that’s not intrusive on your working life or anything. I’d hate to put you out, Mr. Stoker.”
“I hate how impossible to hate you are.” Tim fisted his hands in his hair, swivelling in his seat. “I just don’t get it! Why you? I mean, I guess you’re the hottest guy in this building -”
“Thanks, it’s a curse,” Jon said politely.
“ - but that doesn’t mean that you’re long term material.” Tim’s eyebrow ticked. “It doesn’t mean that you’d remember her birthday. Or your anniversary. Or her favorite Thai place - which is Jenni’s, by the way, on Bond street. You can’t remember anything!”
“Thanks, it’s a curse.”
“Not that you’re not a perfectly nice guy,” Tim said quickly. “Honestly, you are. You have to dig deep, but it’s there. You’re nonthreatening, scruffy, super hot, you somehow simultaneously have that whole sexy professor and ‘I’ll do anything for an A’ thing going on. You’re young! You kind of seem like you’d be down for anything, in that really repressed kind of way! It makes sense. Total...and complete sense.” Tim sighed. “Life makes too much sense sometimes, you know? Just sometimes I’d like it to be...you know, nonsensical.”
“You’re telling me,” Jon sighed. “Ms. James is just exhausting me lately. Last night, she had six rounds -”
“Let’s go back to work!” Tim said, far too loudly, and swivelled around to type furiously at his computer. He seemed as if he was imagining the ‘I’ll do anything for an A’ thing.
Drat. Jon hating finding himself and confused and off-balance after a conversation. He was so terrible at picking up on subtext.
Oh, well. Jon had far bigger problems than Tim’s crisis. Even if he was a nice person. Maybe Jon should start practicing being a nice person back. Maybe that way they could even be friends. Hang out outside of work.
Jon turned around in his seat, bolstering his confidence. “Would you like to join us next time? It’s probably more fun with more people -”
Tim screamed into his fist.
Somehow, Sasha had gotten Jon’s mobile number. Improbably, she demanded that he eat lunch with her. It was confusing and inscrutable until she implied that they needed to make a game plan on avoiding the cops, at which point Jon relaxed.
Jon hoped that she hadn’t gone through his text history. She’d see that he hadn’t texted anybody but his landlord in six months. He didn’t want such a cool, awesome woman knowing how little friends he held onto after college.
Oh no. Jon really hoped she hadn’t seen all of Georgie’s drunken 3am nude solicitations. She always apologized in the morning, and since Jon had sent along a helpful Google Doc list of why he had been a terrible boyfriend the frequency of the texts had died down. Jon was very hopeful that once she was no longer in love with him (or at least horny) then she would resume sending him cat pictures.
She directed him into picking her up at Artifact Storage (“for the alibi!”). Jon, who had Googled ‘how to get away with crimes’ and thus was pretty sure how this worked, did not want to go back to the scene of the crime. That was the first point on the WikiHow. But he was too terrified of Sasha to argue with her, so he reluctantly dived into the damp and moldy basement of the Institute and slithered into Artifact Storage. Despite the warning signs.
At least, he almost did. Jon was so focused on deleting his texting history on his mobile that he didn’t think to look up. Even if he was looking up, it probably wouldn’t have stopped him from ramming face first into a man.
It was embarrassing to admit, but they both objectively prat-falled. Jon slipped and fell on his arse, and he heard a rapid-fire series of thumps as several heavy objects hit the ground in quick succession. Jon rubbed at his head, groaning, as he heard an undignified throttled scream from the person he ran into.
When Jon looked up, he locked eyes with a goth. Objectively a bit too old for his fashion sense, he was about as tall as Jon was with badly dyed hair and an improbable amount of silver jewelry. He was sprawled on his arse just as Jon was, except surrounded by a spray of books. Instead of attending to his maligned literature he was staring blatantly at Jon. Eyes wide, mouth agape. The large blue Evil Eye medallion fixed to his belt spun menacingly.
“Uh,” the man said, “wow.”
Good lord, not this again. Jon rolled his eyes, about to stand up and mysteriously swan into the hive of sin and misery that called itself Artifact storage, when he noticed abruptly that one of the books was smoking.
Another one of the books was shaking slightly.
“Your books,” Jon said tightly, “are about to explode.”
That broke the man away from his stupid trance. The man yelped, scrambling to pile his books back in his arms and rescue them from the cement. Maybe even keep them away from Jon: he swept them away from Jon first, organizing them into complacent stacks and hoisting them up into his arms second. He even arranged them meticulously, keeping the smoking book away from a mysteriously moist one.
But he wasn’t quick enough. Jon caught the inside cover of a heavy leather bound book, and the plaque resting innocuously within. Jon’s eyes narrowed.
He scrambled upwards as the man did, dusting off his rumpled slacks and straightening his tweed jacket. The man was still gaping, except now he was trying to do so with his arms full of seditious literature.
“Sorry about that,” the man said quickly. “Really wasn’t looking where I was going, very sorry, I’ll just be - going now, ha ha -”
“Next time you don’t look where you’re going,” Jon spat, “try not to do it when you’re carrying evil, fucked up books!”
He turned sharply on his heel and stalked into Artifact Storage, only barely restraining himself from slamming the door behind him.
Damn! Gertrude must have been hiding more Leitners in the Archives! And now some inattentive goth was lugging them around like they were so many library books! It was a disgrace. Jon was angry just thinking about it. How could one person be so careless with a piling stack of ticking time bombs? Imagine being that foolish and short-sighted! Some people should be fired, and follow proper dress code. And dye their hair with something other than Manic Panic. And restrain themselves from weird odd piercings at work.
Jon refused to lose the eternal struggle against his lifelong nemesis; literature. His English major had been an attempt to know his enemy, and he had not spent years in preparation only to lose the fight now. Jon had taken a proactive stance, but clearly it wasn’t good enough. Maybe he could break into Gertrude’s office - that probably wasn’t dangerous or ill-advised. But hadn’t Sasha called her a royal bitch?
“Can I help you?”
The receptionist at Artifact Storage was watching him warily. Jon flushed, sliding up to the desk and presenting his ID badge. He would be the worst kind of hypocrite if he zoned out in Artifact Storage.
Abruptly, he grew very embarrassed at the thought of being perceived in public. “Uh, is...Ms. James available…?”
The secretary stared at him, eyes wide, before her face split into a wide grin. Jon leaned back, terrified.
The secretary stood up and disappeared into the back. Jon rocked on the balls of his feet, wishing that he was not where he was. Or that he wasn’t doing what he was doing. Or that irresponsible goths in combat boots did not exist, or at the very least didn’t have access to fucked up literature.
Giggling echoed from inside the bowels of Artifact Storage. Jon felt goosebumps rise on his skin. The door behind the desk of the receptionist area (even scientists needed printers and office supplies, apparently) cracked open, and a legion of giggling women poked their heads in.
One of the women squealed and opened the door wider, allowing a flood of women to gawk. Jon felt like a bug pinned under a microscope.
“Oh my god,” one of the women said.
“She didn’t say he was -”
“It makes sense, have you seen her at the club -”
“This is so unfair,” a woman moaned, “why are they all in Research -”
The heavy, climate-controlled door next to the receptionist lobby slammed open. Sasha was standing in the doorway, lunchbox in one hand and looking ferocious.
“I told you I wasn’t lying! Now get the fuck out!”
“Uh,” Jon said. “I really just wanted to get lunch…”
Sasha walked towards him, kicking the door shut behind her. She looked much better than that morning: with her sunglasses finally tucked inside her jacket pocket and her wild mane of hair pulled back into a ponytail, she looked somewhat professional now instead of severely hungover. She also seemed very smug. Jon began to have a bad feeling about a lot of things.
“Let’s go eat in the library,” she said. “We’ll get some privacy back there.” She craned her head to glare pointedly at her coworkers. “Ever hear of privacy!”
“I feel a little objectified,” Jon confessed.
“Yeah, that’s capitalism for you.” Sasha looped an arm through his elbow, flipping off her coworkers with her other hand. “Get back to work before I put the demented clock in the break room, assholes!”
The women scattered quickly. Jon was beginning to think that a great deal of people were laboring under a misapprehension regarding his and Sasha’s relationship.
Well, none of his business. He turned to Sasha. “How did you get my number, anyway?”
“In a very normal and rational manner!” Sasha said cheerfully. “I didn’t invade your privacy at all!”
That was a relief. Sasha wouldn’t lie to him, after all.
“So why are half of your most recent texts soliciting you for nudes?” Sasha asked, spooning yogurt into her mouth. They were sitting cross-legged in the dark and damp stacks of the library, hiding from the world by taking refuge within ancient literature. Jon wondered why they weren’t just eating in the cafeteria, but it was probably for the best. What if the cafeteria held coworkers? He couldn’t take that chance. “No judgement here if you got a side gig, just curious.”
Jon sighed, feeling somewhat lied to as he nibbled a granola bar. It was most of his diet. Sasha had said something disparaging about university students. “The minute Georgie - that’s my ex - broke up with me, a lot of our friends jumped on the opportunity. It’s why I don’t really talk to anybody these days.” Jon paused a beat. “I did not mean to tell you that.”
“Stunned you’re not gay, but whatever. It’s fine.” Sasha waved a hand. “I feel you. I’m also stunningly drop dead gorgeous. But Dating While Trans, Tee Em, sucks. You never know who’s into you for the wrong reasons.”
“Word,” Jon said feelingly, pretending he knew the struggles of the transgender community. “So, that thing with your coworkers. You didn’t give them my number, did you?”
“I’m just saying, you could make a killing.” Sasha lifted the yogurt cup and squeezed it, letting the yogurt spill directly into her mouth. She ate like an insane person. “Anyway, they all asked me what I did Monday night and I realized I needed an alibi. I also realized that you needed an alibi. So I told them that I was having passionate sex with the hottest guy in this building. And they were all like, wow, you scored Jonathan Sims?” She gave him a thumbs-up. “So now we’re completely above suspicion. You’re welcome!”
“This is genuinely a little uncomfortable for me, but I’m used to it,” Jon said honestly.
“Sorry, I should have asked.” Sasha did not sound that sorry. “To be fair, I’m also increasing your clout. Hottest man, hottest woman. Makes complete sense. The worst part is that now everybody’s going on about me and younger guys, and they’re not even wrong -”
“Do you even like me?”
Sasha stopped short. Maybe something shone through in Jon’s face, something that Jon didn’t want to show but just couldn’t help. She deflated a little bit, her superiority complex experiencing a snag. “Like, romantically? I thought neither of us -”
“I mean as a person.” Jon tried to cut himself off, but he just couldn’t. He found himself twisting his granola bar wrapper between his fingers, forming a crude rope. “Nobody likes me once they get to know me. There’s always this initial...whatever, so they’re always trying, but at this point I just expect that they’ll drop me once they realize I’m not interested. And I’m never interested, so I’m always dropped. I know everyone thinks I’m rude and mean and distant, but...if they’re always eventually going to end up realizing that my personality is terrible, then it’s better to get it out of the way. Sometimes I can’t even control when I’m mean, because I always assume the worst from everyone. I’m anxious and socially awkward and…who would like this, right?” Jon frowned, tearing apart his wrapper into shreds. “But maybe I’m driving away people who might even actually like me too...I can’t tell. Maybe it’s not even worth it to try. Getting hurt by a hundred people isn’t really worth the one person who might actually like you, you know?”
Sasha stared at him, unblinking. Jon abruptly felt extremely embarrassed, and a little as if he might cry from the compound stress of absolutely everything. Why had he told her any of that. Jon never told anybody any of that, because it always sounded so conceited. Jon had his own ways of warning people that he sucked, but they rarely reacted well to knowing that he was mean on purpose. He didn’t know what was worse: controlling when and where he hurt people, or trying so hard to be kind and likable and just being so impossible at it.
“I feel like kind of a dick now,” Sasha said. “I’m sorry, Jon. Jesus, I probably ruined your one friendship with Tim too.” She groaned, rubbing her forehead. “I’m so selfish.”
“What is going on with Tim?” Jon cried. “He’s been so weird all day, and it’s all about you for some reason. He keeps on saying it makes no sense that we’re friends.” Jon paused, trying hard not to let on that he was hurt. He probably wasn’t very successful. “I guess he always thought he was the sole viewer of Sims Shack…”
“He totally did, and I don’t know how you even knew that he named it that.” But Sasha just sighed, slouching and propping her elbow on her knee. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to use you to get back at him. He just frustrated me so much with his stupid, jealous reaction. He thinks he’s the only viewer of the Sasha Show too.” She paused, clearly struggling with something. “I...really like him. Really, really like him. But I think he likes me more. And I don’t know how to like people. I spent so long only worrying about myself that I have no idea how to care about anyone else. It’s so easy for Tim and it’s so hard for me, and...I don’t want to do anything until I know that I can love him right. I don’t want to mess him up just because I’m messed up. But Tim doesn’t struggle with stuff like that, and in his mind he just doesn’t get why we aren’t together yet. It doesn’t fit his narrative of how people work. It’s dumb.”
“That is dumb,” Jon agreed. “You’re wondering if the good that can come out of the relationship is worth the inevitable bad, right?”
“Right! It’s the same way with everything, all kinds of relationships. Or anything in life - moving countries, making choices about your body. Just deciding if the pain’s worth it.” She paused a bit, clearly uncertain of how to continue. “For what it’s worth, Jon, I think it’s worth it. Trading the hundred people who wouldn’t stay for one person who would. I think it’s all worth it.” Sasha laughed, a little stilted. “I had to commit arson before I made a friend who wasn’t Tim! I think the arson and all of this nonsense was worth you, you know?”
Both of them abruptly found something interesting to do that did not involve looking each other in the eyes. Jon abruptly stared at the entrance to the aisle, watching a librarian push a metal cart of books to be shelved. As he collected himself, he vaguely hoped that the librarian hadn’t heard any of their conversation. That would be problematic. Sasha did naturally speak at an incredibly loud register.
But arson and federal prison didn’t seem so important right now. Not when friendship was on the line. They both sat there in silence for a little while, both of them exceedingly uncomfortable with any show of vulnerability whatsoever. Jon silently chewed over if Sasha’s speech meant that they were friends now. It was implied, right? Insinuated?
The words echoed in his mind. That it was worth him. That Jon was worth anything. That no matter how difficult and socially awkward and accidentally mean and purposefully mean he was, that he was worth sticking around for.
Nobody ever stuck around. Not for Jon.
“Wait,” Jon said suddenly, “does Tim think we’re sleeping together?”
Sasha winced. “Maybe the whole Institute?”
“Ms. James!”
“If you keep calling me that then people are going to think it’s a weird kink thing, Jon!”
“Is that a necessary part of our alibi -”
Jon stopped short.
They were in the private library on the first story of the Magnus Institute, the only only accessible by employees and those with permission. The general library was on the ground floor, and was typically open to the public. Great if you wanted pop parapsychology books; bad if you desired privacy from the prying paparazzi following the Institute’s latest It Couple. The only noise in the private were typically researchers making tired small talk and softly crying graduate students.
Not that there were many graduate students. The sociology, anthropology, history, and religion students were on the ground floor. The researchers of supernatural phenomena were here. It was typically pretty quiet.
Then why could Jon hear a distantly familiar voice?
He shushed Sasha, who abruptly closed her mouth. Leaving his noisy wrapper on the floor, he silently stood up and crept along the corners of the stacks. He discovered the source of the sound two aisles over. As he noticed a barefoot Sasha in the corner of his vision, he also realized why the voice was familiar.
“ - out anything?”
“I can check the computer,” an unfamiliar voice said. It was in a fairly high register, and inherently anxious at the prospect of the familiar stranger. “But I can tell you now that every single one of those books is in Artifact Storage. Nobody’s even asked for them.”
“Was in Artifact Storage,” the familiar stranger said darkly.
“Yeah, a - a real loss, that one.”
Jon craned his head across the corner of the aisle, only to see the backside of the negligent goth. His combat boots had mud crusted on them, and one of his hands was wrapped in a bandage. He towered over the short librarian from earlier, who kept the metal cart of books to be shelved between them as if it would protect him.
Unfortunately, Jon was never as stealthy as he thought he was. The surprisingly perceptive librarian noticed him immediately. His eyes widened in shock, and his mouth dropped open slightly. Jon internally rolled his eyes. Great. This again. He looked down and set his watch.
The suspicious goth, with his back turned to Jon, misinterpreted the librarian’s reaction. “Did you remember something?” he asked sharply. “Any information would be useful. Anybody who’s been in here too long too many times for a weak reason, anybody checking out suspicious books, anything.”
“Uh,” the librarian said, gaping like a beached fish assailed by overwhelming quantities of oxygen. Or hormones.
“I’ve already contacted the spirits of the deceased books and found nothing,” the goth said, frustrated. “Gertrude’s been high strung ever since this happened. She shot through all of the candles in my divination rituals. If I don’t find something on this she’s going to revoke my biannual positive reinforcement.”
“Wow,” the librarian said, without looking away from Jon. Jon blinked at him, before quickly checking his watch. “That’s...really ho - something. That’s really something.”
“There’s something innately and unmistakably trustworthy about you,” the goth confided. “You have good vibes, dude. So I’ll tell you the truth: Gertrude had an entire stash of Leitners hidden in the Archives. And we suspect that Leitners were the specific targets of the saboteurs - more gasoline was found in that room than anywhere else. Gertrude’s saying that we have to track down the saboteurs before they realize that the Institute’s collection of Leitners weren’t completely wiped out and they come after the Archives. So this is really important. You can’t think of anyone suspicious dropping by lately?”
Anyone suspicious. Anyone suspicious, as in two adults sitting in a dark corner of a forgotten library, talking loudly about arson.
Jon’s eyes widened. The librarian’s eyes widened. Shit. Shit, that was so suspicious. Jon glanced backwards at Sasha, who was crouching behind him with wide eyes. She was also making the sign of the cross, which was something to interrogate later.
What would Sasha do to solve this problem? Jon tried to psychically communicate his desperation. Sasha, who was apparently greatly receptive towards the mystic arts, mouthed something back at him. Jon frantically shook his head.
Sasha huffed and pushed Jon directly into the center of the aisle. He stumbled loudly, grunting even louder.
The goth turned around sharply at the noise. The librarian reddened as he made eye contact with Jon, before almost hiding behind one of his books.
“Oh! It’s...you!” The goth also reddened, pushing his stringy black hair behind his ears. “You. The guy...I almost...blew up...I’m Gerar - Gary! Gerry!”
“Do you not know your own name?” Jon asked, confused.
Gerar/Gary/Gerry turned sharply on his own heel and walked away at light speed.
Jon was left staring at the librarian. The librarian stared at him, book clenched in his hands. Jon decided that this was terrible and looked backwards at Sasha, who was giving him an encouraging thumbs up.
Psychically, Sasha conveyed, ‘Flirt with the librarian and distract him as I steal the awkward goth’s key card so we can break into the Archives and torch the rest of the fucked up books!’.
The woman only had one solution to her problems. Unfortunately, Jon couldn’t think of a better idea in the two seconds he had, so he was forced to acquiesce. Somehow.
Jon knew how to flirt with people. He didn’t like buying his own drinks, and he usually didn’t have to. Georgie had exploited this ruthlessly, pretending to be his sister as she downed five complementary cocktails. She had coached him extremely well: say as little as possible, and try to arrange a pleasant expression. Jon could do that.
The librarian was still staring.
“Hey,” Jon said, forcing his face into a facsimile of elegance which hopefully did not scream that his life had spiralled out of control in the last two and a half days. “Who was...uh, that guy?”
The librarian was still staring, apparently completely oblivious towards Jon’s extremely smooth dialogue options.
“Mr. Librarian? Do you know who that man was?”
“Martin!” The librarian squeaked. “Martin, it’s Martin.”
Oh. Turns out the goth really didn’t know his own name. Jon craned his head over his shoulder, desperately searching for Sasha before remembering that she was running her own covert mission. Jon could do this. He could.
He stepped closer, until he was casually leaning on the librarian’s shelving cart. Even leaning he was solidly a head taller. Now that he was closer, he could see why Martin had deemed the librarian nonthreatening and trustworthy. Between his sweater vests and khakis, large and thick-rimmed glasses that obscured most of his face but did little to hide his square jaw, and his overall very round shape, Jon could see immediately that this man was shaped like a friend. His capability for infiltration must be amazing - or it would be, if the man had a deceitful bone in his body.
“That Martin guy seems really suspicious,” Jon hinted. “Witchcraft and rare book hunting are untrustworthy hobbies. So what’s your name?”
The librarian stared at him blankly. Good lord.
“If you keep staring at me for another thirty seconds, you’re going to break the record for the longest a single person has stared at me,” Jon said flatly. “There’s no prize.”
“Oh! Sorry, sorry.” The librarian finally looked down, busying himself with his cart. He picked up a thick red book with an embossed Thai title, seemingly at random. He played with it anxiously before shoving it on the shelf seemingly at random. Not a very good librarian. “Didn’t mean to - to make you uncomfortable, sorry.”
Jon stopped his watch and carefully noted the time, before looking up and squinting at the badly placed book. “A Complete History of Celestial Bodies would be under the reference books.”
The librarian took the book off the shelf in abject shame. “You, uh, speak Thai. That’s great. I definitely also - I don’t speak Thai, I don’t know why I almost said that.”
“Who doesn’t speak Thai?” Jon asked, baffled. “It’s easy. Just like French, but with less vowels.”
“Hm,” the librarian said inscrutably, before changing the subject. “Um, it’s me that’s Martin, not Gertrude’s assistant. And you’re Jonathan Sims. And that lady who you committed arson with was Sasha James. Your girlfriend, as of - before or after the arson?”
“We’re not really dating but definitely afterwards, the arson was a bonding experience,” Jon said automatically, before he stopped short.
Shit. Fuck. Heck. Martin had definitely heard his conversation with Sasha. Not only was he round and good with names, he was also perceptive. Jon had to salvage this. If the librarian who spent almost seven solid minutes staring at him in an absolute gay meltdown tattled, then Jon would only get a precious few moments with his soulmate cop as she arrested him before he went to prison -
What would Sasha do? What would Sasha force him into doing, no matter how bad he was at it? Utilize your enemy’s weaknesses, your own personal strengths, and the first thought that came to your head in a stressful situation.
Jon carefully propped an elbow on the metal shelving cart, looking Martin in his terrified brown eyes hidden behind his thick glasses. “Wow. You’re really perceptive, Martin. That’s great. And helpful! I bet everyone loves that about you.”
“Nobody likes me, actually?” Martin squeaked.
“Wow, you’re so funny.” Jon wound a curly strand of hair around his finger, internally freaking out. Just pretend like you’re a broke university student and you’re trying to score a free moscow mule, Jon! “Well, you seem perfectly nice to me. It was really great how you didn’t tell the negligent devil worshipper about our little arson thing.”
“Well, you know what they say!” Martin seemed to be sweating, very much. “If you...uh, have nothing to do with arson, then...you don’t mention it...to...goths. That’s what they say.”
“I bet you’re very discreet,” Jon hinted.
“I can...do discreet,” Martin said weakly.
“I could really use a discreet man, Martin,” Jon hinted, somewhat more desperately. “Will you be the kind of man I need right now?”
The poor librarian was now beet red. Jon was willing to bet that you didn’t meet a lot of guys in libraries. Too many old ladies, like Gertrude. Jon felt a little manipulative, which was a novel feeling. Jon normally didn’t do manipulative, but - well, strange times called for measures incompatible with your sexual preferences.
“Yeah,” Martin breathed, “I can - I can do that. For you. If you want. Yep. Anytime, just - say the word.”
“I’ll have to owe you a favor, then,” Jon said. Horribly, he winked. “How’s -”
“Jon!” Sasha’s naturally loud reverberated through the empty library in a tremulous echo. “I got the goods, let’s bounce!”
“Whoops, got to go, nice meeting you!” Jon said, almost as loudly. “You can cash in that favor later, bye!”
For the second time in ten minutes, and potentially for the second time in the library’s entire lifespan, a man speed-walked out of the Magnus Institute private library in absolute queer distraught. Jon felt somewhat as if everywhere he walked, he ruined lives.
Jon met up with Sasha a healthy distance down the hall. She was holding her heels in one hand and a keycard in the other, unmistakably triumphant. Jon silently wished that he had gotten the ‘steal a keycard’ job, but he had the feeling that one would have also turned into a seduction mission. He had other strengths! Jon was good at...well, he was talented at...he graduated from Oxford!
“I feel dirty,” Jon confessed to Sasha. “Can we start utilizing my other skills? I have other skills. If you know any of my other skills, please tell me.”
“Relax. I would have done it, but the guy was obviously gay and your feminine mystique’s better than mine. Besides, I’m the only one here who’s brave enough to take a stand against brujería.” Jon was forced to agree - his fire-and-brimstone Pentacostal upbringing left him personally terrified of witchcraft. “Anyway, I’m very impressed with both of us. Mostly me, but you did a great job manipulating that gay librarian into falling in love with you.”
“I can’t flirt my way out of prison,” Jon said dejectedly.
“You wouldn’t make it a day in prison,” Sasha encouraged. “How did you know my plan to have you flirt with the librarian so I can steal from the brujo?”
“You told me psychically,” Jon said blankly.
Sasha stared at him.
“I know I work at a paranormal research institute,” Sasha said, “but I’m pretty certain I don’t have any psychic abilities.”
Oh, that. Jon waved her off. “Don’t worry, I’m not so incompetent socially that I can’t read minds in times of duress.”
Sasha continued to stare. Finally, she said, “Social competence does not mean that you can read minds, Jon.”
Great, this again. Jon rolled his eyes. “Sure, sure. As if people in group conversations know when to tell a funny story in a socially acceptable length of time without telepathy.”
“...Jon, I really don’t -”
“I’m a skeptic, Ms. James. Trust me on this.” Jon would never believe anything without proof, and the human capability for mindreading was extraordinary. How else would people know when it was socially acceptable to ask somebody out on a date? Jon brightened. “Actually, I recently experienced an extraordinarily strong psychic phenomena. Remember our encounter with the police outside of the Institute yesterday?”
“The encounter where you insisted that the short cop lady was going to murder both of us?” Sasha asked, slightly disturbed. “And then you got drunk and told me that you were soulmates and connected on an extrasensory level?”
“The way we feel for each other is beyond physical, romantic, or sexual connection,” Jon said seriously. “I know that between you, Tim, Gerry, and Martin, we’re weaving a very tangled web, but she’s different. We have a mutual understanding. An insight.”
“I’m breaking up with you.”
But Sasha couldn’t understand. Her mind was just like everybody else’s: clouded by Jon’s good looks and hormonal weaknesses. Only the cop had instantly recognized in Jon the same thing that Jon had instantly recognized in her: that she was insane, and that Jon’s ability to connect with anybody else on a human level was predicated upon their insanity. The more insane they were, the more they connected. Georgie was exhibit A. Sasha was exhibit B.
The cop was the most insane person Jon had ever met.
He had to find her.
Unfortunately, it seemed as if a lot of people were looking for a lot of people.
In a novel display of breaking away from their rapidly developing co-dependence, Sasha actually went back to her own flat that night. Jon guessed that she needed a clear head in order to draft up their newest plans. If they were going to break into the Archives and torch the place, they needed a foolproof plan.
A plan that they desperately needed. Between planning out their infiltration of the Archives, avoiding the witch, trying to salvage their friendships with Tim, keep off both Mr. Bouchard and the cop’s radar, and trying desperately to get on the radar of one cop completely innocuously, they had their hands full. Jon didn’t regret his actions, but he did wish that they had less consequences.
Considering the sheer inconvenience of avoiding prison, it objectively didn’t make sense to redouble their efforts and expand their operations. But it wasn’t about avoiding prison. It wasn’t about the thrill of it. It wasn’t about the glory.
It was about ridding the world of evil. It was about altruism and heroism. It was about taking back control.
Jon had joined the Institute because he wanted to reassert some control over his tumultuous life. He had always chosen to believe knowledge protected him from the things that went bump in the night, and he was firm in his faith. If you introduced enough scientific theories into irrational beliefs, then they became rational. That was what science was all about.
Walking every day into a building that held shelves full of evil did not help Jon’s anxiety. Ever since Artifact Storage had lost 80% of its stock, Jon had felt his anxiety melt away and reform into completely different anxiety. All of this was excellent for his mental health. Arson: better than benzos.
Ridding the world of these books was Jon’s imperative: both morally and psychologically. And not even Gertrude Robinson would stand in his way.
Thankfully, Sasha was there to provide a foolproof plan. After her one agonizing night of sobriety they had returned to the pub the next night, this time at a slightly more sedate Thursday afternoon.
Jon tried hard not to let on to Tim that he and Sasha were hanging out without him again, but it was hard to disguise when Sasha rolled loudly into Research yelling about getting wasted. Sometimes her lack of respect for professionalism horrified him. Maybe once you hit thirty, you didn’t care about anything anymore?
“You guys have fun,” Tim said, zipping up his own jacket. He seemed to be trying hard not to give off the impression that he was wallowing in complete desolation, but was completely failing. “I’m going to go home and...also have fun. Yep.”
“I cannot stress enough that we are just getting drinks,” Jon said urgently, as Sasha looped her arm around his and sucked on her soda. “It is very important to me that you know that.”
Sasha let the straw slip from her mouth, staring fixedly at Tim. “You should come with us tomorrow. Friday night wasted. Let’s do it.”
Tim laughed awkwardly, scratching the back of his neck. “Ah, I wouldn’t really want to intrude. You crazy kids have fun.”
Well, if he said so. Jon shrugged, slinging on his own bookbag, as Sasha groaned. “Don’t play your martyr act. You’re coming, we’re having fun, we’ll dominate at trivia night. Don’t be a pussy.”
“Sasha, please use language that respects women -”
“If you don’t come you’re a pussy.”
“Fine! Fine!”
But Tim didn’t seem that upset. He was smiling a little to himself. Jon subtly high-fived Sasha.
That night they put together their extensive five step plan on how to commit more arson. After checking the pub for nosy librarians or intrusive goths. There was a little of avoiding the feds too, but now they had bigger problems.
Step 1: Collect intel.
Intel collection involved, as Jon quickly found out, a lot of stalking. Sasha, who was suddenly faced with a great deal of free time as Artifact Storage was dragged up and running again, was able to use the reconstruction as an excuse to do quite a bit of digital stalking. Sasha was really good at stalking. Jon was impressed. He would be a little frightened, but he couldn’t really grow any more scared of Sasha than he was already.
According to Sasha, as explained in a coffee run Friday morning before work, Gertrude ran through assistants like Jon ran through friends. They had all died mysteriously or disappeared under suspicious circumstances. It wasn’t very spread out, either: a lot of them had died within just a few months of each other, while at other periods Gertrude managed to go ten years barely killing anyone. So far as they knew.
There was no record of any Gerry working at the Institute, much less for Gertrude. Besides Gerry Williams in HR, who was, like, 50.
“So are you saying he’s an undercover operative?” Jon asked self-importantly as he sipped his Earl Gray. Sasha was chugging black coffee. She had managed to constrain herself to one pint last night, but it hadn’t stopped her from falling asleep at his flat again. Jon had the impression that her own flat had a water leak that she didn’t want to bother with fixing. “Is Gertrude paying him under the table?”
“Well, they definitely know each other. According to his keycard - which is a visitor’s pass with access to the Archives, by the way, sketchy as fuck - his full name’s Gerard Keay. Who I’m willing to bet is the son of Mary Keay.” Sasha leaned in, and Jon carefully ducked his head so he could lean in too. “Who is a freelancer with a lot of invoices sent to the Institute. Get this - she was a bookseller.”
Jon hissed through his teeth. “She was a dealer of fucked up books.” Sasha nodded somberly, crossing herself. “What happened to her?”
“Oh, the feds think Gerry killed her.”
“Oh, if that’s all.” Jon paused a beat. “Wait, what?”
Apparently, he had gotten away with it. Insufficient evidence, Sasha said, with a lot of air quotes. Jon was eager to believe that they weren’t the only ones with an incomplete rap sheet who worked at the Institute, but something about Gerry gave him pause.
“Do you think he killed his mother in a satanic ritual?” Jon wondered, as they meandered the five blocks to the Institute. It was a beautiful day, the kind of day where you felt a little strange talking about satanic rituals. “Honestly, it sounds as if he removed a danger from society.”
“I keep telling you, brujería isn’t satanic, it’s a legitimate religious practice.” Sasha said, effortlessly clicking up the steps in her high heels. “For what it’s worth I agree with you, but brujería can be used for good or evil and I think he’s messing with spirits he doesn’t understand. There’s no innocent spiritualism with books that fucked up. He’s just an idiot who doesn’t realize he’s a conduit for evil.”
“I’m glad I’m not an idiot who unwittingly acts as a conduit for evil,” Jon said.
“Word.”
Still, it’s the idiots who are the most dangerous. Jon understood this deeply. Although he was willing to believe that Gerry was well-intentioned and a fellow believer in committing crimes for the good of society, there was no hiding the fact that he was a lackey for an evil old woman and careless with the spiritual realm. Jon and Sasha - who were a distantly Jamacian ex-Pentacostal and a faithful Cuban transgender Catholic, respectively - held a deep fear and respect for demons. Unlike Gerry. Honestly, white people.
They both decided that the idiot witch was their third largest problem, which spoke legions about how many problems they had. Last week Jon only had one thing in his life and today Jon had a lot of things in his life. One of them was more important than the others, and it was arson. Sorry, fire-starting.
The second biggest problem was avoiding detection. The third, of course, was Gerry. The fourth most important thing was making sure Tim didn’t cry. Unfortunately, this left work at a solid fifth. Sasha did not acknowledge this as a problem, until Jon brought up the price of London real estate and their endless pints.
Sasha’s genius idea to solve this problem wasn’t to do more work (“Hah!”), but to take advantage of her surprisingly useful fake dating idea and run off to go pretend to make out in closets. Jon wasn’t certain how this would stop him from being fired, but at least it wasn’t suspicious. Every time he got up from his desk to run an ill-defined errand, Tim said something loudly about ‘young love’ and all of the middle aged men around them looked jealous.
Their subtle plan left Sasha with plenty of time to continue cyber-stalking Gerry in a stunning invasion of privacy. Apparently he usually spent most of his time either outside of the Institute or inside the Archives, where occasionally his signal would disappear for a long time. They both blamed the tin foil Gertrude had likely lined the place with.
This was where Jon stepped up to the more physical side of this project: that was, following Gerry around. This would have been difficult if it wasn’t for the fact that Gerry was also stalking Jon.
When Jon casually strode inside the public library, he found Gerry talking seriously to their librarians and interrogating the appreciative graduate students. Jon was forced to occupy himself with the printer, randomly printing out the last thing printed. He had no idea how to work the printer. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Martin the Librarian printing leaflets, so he quickly copied him and ended up printing out twenty copies of professional memos sent to Lukas Industries or whatever.
Jon, endlessly curious, stopped to read them. His eyebrows climbed into his hairline. Not that professional.
When Jon poked his head into the IT department, he found Gerry busying himself with one of the computers as the professional nerd slept at his desk.
There was a flip book open next to him.
Jon narrowed his eyes.
Lunchtime at the cafeteria was where Jon, predictably, found success. Jon was willing to bet that Gerry was too cool and antisocial to eat lunch there, but the scattered bottles left behind belied a chocolate milk addiction. Besides, he definitely brought his lunch from home, and he also seemed the type to chronically forget plastic silverware.
Jon took an early lunch (“Hm,” Tim said, narrowing his eyes) and hustled to the cafeteria, where he actually got some work done on his laptop as he placed himself strategically in a corner. Sure enough, twenty minutes later Jon saw Gerry slink inside the cafeteria in introverted shame. He rolled around the corner and grabbed his plastic fork as quickly as possible, before creeping towards the drink cooler.
But Gerry didn’t scurry away from the terrifying sight of middle aged women talking about sports. He slid into a corner booth instead, cracking open his milk and slouching in the uncomfortable seat. Directly diagonally from Jon, he carefully surveyed the room. Jon realized abruptly that he was looking for possible culprits, and he quickly busied himself with his laptop.
Gerry’s eyes lingered on Jon, but he looked away just as quickly. Jon was so relieved that he looked away, and accidentally directly met the eyes of Martin the Librarian directly across from him, in the other corner of the cafeteria.
Jon quickly looked away back at Gerry. Martin continued staring at Jon. Gerry’s eyes caught on Martin, lips pursing in suspicion.
Jon started sweating. He always felt uncomfortable when people looked at him too long, or looked at him at all. He was used to it, but it didn’t make the experience any better. To make things worse, one of the men avoiding eye contact with him was a devil worshipper, and the other obviously had a bit of a thing for Jon.
In fact, Gerry was so busy not staring at Jon that he caught sight of Martin, staring at Jon. Martin caught sight of Gerry staring at him staring at Jon.
This was boring. Martin the Librarian sounded a little like ‘Marian the Librarian’, didn’t it? Jon hummed the song under his breath, propping his chin on his hand and unfortunately zoning out a little. ‘Heaven help us if the library caught on fire, and the Volunteer Hose Brigademen had to whisper the news to Martin...Sir Librarian!’
He almost, but not quite, missed the way both men were glaring at each other. Jon cranked the tune in his head up louder, seeking to miss it more completely.
‘What can I say, my dear, to make your heart not harden? I need you badly, badly, Sir Librarian...Martin!’ It messed up the syllables a little, but Jon was hardly a poet…
“Jon? Hey, Jon?”
Maybe spartan, like the movie 300? Jon hadn’t liked that movie very much, even though Georgie did. What was Georgie up to, anyway? Should he text her?
“Jon, are you zoning out again? You should have said you were eating lunch by yourself, I would have come sit with you. Jon?”
Usually it was Georgie who texted him. Jon felt a little awkward doing it, what with him ruining their relationship. Probably. He did miss the Admiral…
A hand clapped down on Jon’s shoulder, and he jumped.
“I should get a cat!” Jon blurted.
He looked up to find Tim, takeout container in one hand and elbow raised. He was standing to Jon’s side, with an unfortunately complete image of the sudden Jon-centered hostility. He looked around, both eyebrows rising as he instantly registered the situation. “I can’t decide if you spat in their soup or if you’re about to get some chocolates for Valentine’s day.”
“I’m afraid I may have given them the wrong impression,” Jon said apologetically. “I’ve been stalking one of them all day and I flirted relentlessly with the other one.”
Tim stared at him blankly.
Finally, he said, “On purpose, or is this like the Rachel Williams thing?”
They didn’t talk about the Rachel Williams thing. “On purpose this time.”
“Okay.” Tim clapped Jon on the back, pulling him up from the seat and making Jon scramble to rescue his laptop. “We’re going to go eat outside. And you are telling me what the hell has been going on with you.”
And although Jon felt strongly as if he should be staying in the cafeteria - tracking down his enemies, keeping an eye on his friends - he ended up following Tim out of the cafeteria instead, keeping up with him as they burst out of the back and easily climbed on top of one of the battered picnic tables. They weren’t a very popular place to eat lunch, probably due to how half of the table had creepy eyes etched into the wood, but Jon didn’t mind. He had actually made about half of them, armed with a penknife and bored on smoke breaks.
“Jesus, no lunch again? Here, take my vegetables.” Tim sat down on the table as Jon sat primly on the bench, spinning his lunch around and glaring at him until Jon took the offered fork and shoveled a few carrots into his mouth. “Great. Are you going to tell me what’s going on now?”
Jon mumbled around his carrot.
“Don’t talk with your mouth full. Who raised you?”
Jon pointedly swallowed his mashed carrot, glaring at Tim. “Basically nobody. And I really shouldn’t say too much about it -”
“Should you say something about how you said you ran off to eat lunch with your girlfriend, but I ended up walking into a total glare fest?”
This was problematic. Frankly, Jon had assumed that his greatest problem with Tim would be repairing their friendship. Not dealing with him as a friend. Jon had accounted for all five of his largest problems, but he had forgotten to search for the behemoth lurching just underneath the ripples of the sea: how unbelievably nosy Tim was.
Or maybe he was just concerned. Tim was the kind to make everybody else’s problem his problem too, and he was very eager to find out everybody else’s problems. It was a bad combination that would get him in trouble someday.
At least, that was what Sasha said. Sasha had a lot to say about Tim and his psyche. Almost as much as Tim had to say about hers.
“Uh,” Jon said, sweating. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to shake Tim off his trail. Man was a tasmanian devil of love. “I...may have lied about getting lunch with Ms. James.”
“Uh huh.” Tim stared down at him with unholy eyes. “Does it have anything to do with how you lied about dating Sasha?”
Jon choked on his own spit, coughing severely. Tim waited patiently for Jon to get over his fit, ignoring his complete panic.
It occurred to Jon to lie.
Tim glared harder. Jon quailed, and gave up.
“In my defense, I was orphaned and left completely unsupervised -”
Left with no other choice, Jon explained the situation to Tim. He even looked around carefully to make sure that nobody was eavesdropping this time. Tim’s eyebrow, yet again, climbed higher and higher in an incredulous arch.
But not a disbelieving one. Jon had the feeling that they were encroaching on the season finale of Sims Shack.
“ - and now I’m in love with a cop, and furthermore -”
“I’m sorry, back up.” Tim held up his hand, kneading his forehead. “You’re currently on the run from the cops. Ignoring the in love with a cop thing. You’re on the run from the cops, you committed a federal crime, you almost burned down our entire workplace, and the only thing you’re worried about is doing it again?”
“I have morals, Mr. Stoker,” Jon said.
Jon politely gave Tim time to rub his face and visibly pray to God. After a second receiving divine intervention, Tim breathed in and exhaled heavily. “Okay. Okay, okay, okay. I knew you were hiding something since you started blowing off work for - well, for anything. Actually, since you admitted to having a personal life - the Jon I know would be married and he wouldn’t talk to me about it. Much less, like, having sex. Sorry, but if you wanted to be believable you should not have insinuated that you fuck.”
Jon was irrationally pleased by this. “I really give off unfuckable energy?”
“I - yeah, if you know you - you know, most guys would be insulted by that.”
“Maybe you really are my friend,” Jon said, and Tim abruptly fell quiet. “If you know that about me. Most people don’t. I’m…” Jon looked down at his fingers, twisting them around anxiously. “You knew something was wrong immediately, huh...”
He couldn’t fight the pleased smile. Tim noticed. For the first time, Jon didn’t mind.
Tim sighed, and paternally went in for the hair ruffle before Jon batted it away in an effort to salvage his hair mousse. If he didn’t dump twenty different products in it every morning Georgie knew, somehow, and yelled at him. Tim awkwardly dropped his hand, but he offered a weak smile to Jon anyway.
“I would have picked up earlier if you had decided to team up with anyone other than - anyway.” Tim shook himself, forcibly dragging his mind back to the problem at hand. “Okay. It’s going to be alright, Jon. I’ll fix this. First step is to not commit more arson.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“Please do that.”
“You can bully me,” Jon admitted stubbornly, crossing his arms, “but you know you’ll never convince Ms. James. We’re on a moral crusade.”
It was a solid point, and Tim was forced to concede it. He rubbed at his forehead again, taking the weight of the world on his shoulders like Atlas. “Okay. I guess the first step is making sure we don’t get caught doing it, then.”
“We?” Jon asked, alarmed.
“As if I was going to let you two do it alone,” Tim said dismissively, waving his hand. As if it was nothing. “I should probably play back-up. IT registers whenever a keycard is used on a door, but I know somebody there and I can probably wipe it. There’s the security cameras, but I know a friendly janitor who would help us out. Then there’s keeping an eye on the police investigation, and seeing if they’re staking us out - I have a detective there who’s still in love with me, I can get access that way. I don’t have an in with the Archives, but if I swap an assignment with Mike then I would have an excuse to go down there and pick up a few files.”
Jon gaped.
Tim nodded decisively, already pulling out his phone and sending off a few texts. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of this. Everything will be back to normal by this time next week. And Sasha will go, oh, Tim, you’re so nicel and good at things, you’re almost as competent as I am, and you’re a feminist -”
“You are nice and good at things, Mr. Stoker,” Jon said admiringly. Uncharacteristically, he couldn’t help but smile at Tim. “You don’t have to help us, but you are. Thank you. You’re really cool.”
Tim stared at him, eyes wide, before abruptly turning beet red. He buried himself in his phone, tapping furiously, and Jon sighed.
“Please don’t fall in love with me.”
“Wha - no! I would never - I’m your senpai, I am the cool third year and you are the first year who makes bad decisions, and shojo manga isn’t even real, and -”
“I don’t mind,” Jon said magnanimously. “You wouldn’t be weird about it.” He cocked his head slightly, and he couldn’t fight another smile. “You’re the kind to fall in love with all of your friends, aren’t you?”
Tim looked up from his phone, gaping again, still red. But Jon just found it a little funny instead - because Tim knew in his heart something that Jon didn’t like to say - and he couldn’t help an awkward laugh. It was terrible, this awful giggle-snort that was far from the careful baritone he had always practiced, but then Tim laughed too, and Jon didn't feel quite so solitary.
Maybe Tim would be a friend who Jon couldn’t push away. No matter how hard he tried.
Maybe Jon was a little sick of trying.
The night before was always the worst. Whether it was the night before a test, a big presentation, a funeral, a crime, or a doctor’s appointment.
One surprisingly fun pub night with Tim and Sasha. Two days that weekend buying some suspicious paraphernalia as Sasha arranged their alibi and Tim put everything in place to cover their tracks. Three more days stalking Gerry, figuring out Gertrude’s schedule, and finally deciding on late Wednesday night - when she and Gerry were always gone. Four different cops who Jon interrogated, and who all refused to give him the name or number of their shortest yet most intriguing number. Many of them looked terrified that he was asking. They all looked terrified remembering that the cop existed.
And five texts sent to Georgie, just in case this adventure went horribly wrong. Not that it would, or that Jon was questioning his own choices at all, but just in case.
Jon: Hey it’s Jon. If I was on the run from the cops would you shelter me in your home. Hope you’re doing well. Tell the Admiral hello.
She responded almost immediately. Jon, lying on his lumpy bed alone, couldn’t help but smile.
Georgie: courts can request text transcripts so legally I can’t say yes or no
Georgie: however ride or die pact of 2013 etc etc
Georgie: was that your version of an ‘i miss u’ txt or
Jon: You’ve sent me like 10 of those
Georgie: ONLY while drunk so it doesn’t count. And I’m VERY SORRY I promise I’ve deleted all the pictures :’(
Georgie: thanks for the Why We Broke Up list it helps very much
Jon: No problem. Tbh I’ve had a lot of emotional vulnerability this past week (crime etc) so I actually feel like I can say that I miss you too. I know I didn’t react well when you left (abandonment issues etc) but I think I was just...idk assuming or hoping that you were abandoning me, bc at least then it was over with. Couldn’t actually deal with maybe you staying in my life as a friend. So sorry about all of that.
Georgie: that is the MOST emotional intelligence I’ve ever heard from you WHO ARE YOU. do more crime I guess it’s good for you
Georgie: But I realized all of that ages ago and it’s ok. w/the kinda stuff u been thru u dont get over that shit in a day. I cant fix it and i dont wanna. I guess in retrospect deciding to give u space didnt help the whole “why is she only txting me drunk n horny thing” and that’s OBJECTIVELY shitty w/ur issues about THAT too...anyway what im saying is thanks 4 the apology we’re both shitty and ill make u a “Why Georgie Isn’t So Great Either” list too if u want.
Jon: ...or we could like SWAP topless pics…
Georgie: HAHAHAHA I WIN I WIN I WIN I WIN
Jon smiled.
He looked to his left, at the empty space next to him. For the last few months it had felt so empty: yet another gap in his life. He had gone 18 years without that without even realizing, and it wasn’t until he had Georgie that he realized there had even been an absence at all. But she left, and all Jon had been left with was another empty space…
An empty space, where Jon ought to be. He had never been quite right. Never saying the right things or wanting the right things or doing the right thing. Sometimes he felt like nothing but gaps and holes: an empty queen sized bed for a Mother and Father, an empty couch where Gran once sat, an empty space next to him where Georgie used to be…
Could they be filled? Or was all he doing digging new holes?
He didn’t know. Nobody had said that this would be so terrifying. Was it a thrill, like jumping off a diving board into a placid pool underneath? Or was it just trepidation, gripping the arm of your chair in the scary movie as you waited for the jump scare?
It was so much easier to have nothing at all. There were no gaps; no absences or fears. No trepidation and no jump scare. No abandonment. Nothing to lose. Free.
Was it worth the one hundred hurts, just for the one bandage?
Jon fell asleep, phone clenched in his hand, waiting for it to ring.
Wednesday. Eight hours before showtime.
Jon stumbled through that workday in a haze, unable to concentrate on any of his work. He saw that a few people tried to get his attention, including one uncomfortably burly cop, but Jon had bigger problems.
Now that it was no longer necessary to stalk Gerry he returned to actively avoiding him. Gerry seemed a little crushed by this. Unfortunately, Martin the Librarian was still stalking Jon. It was rapidly just becoming bad manners.
Just as Jon was walking out of the Research bullpen at the end of the day, meaning to meet up with Sasha to walk back to his place together and plot, he ran immediately into Martin. Judging by the way that he was leaning against a wall, playing anxiously on his phone trying to play it cool, he had been actively waiting for Jon to leave. Which...weird!
“Uh,” Jon said. He didn’t want to come off too rude, as it was kind of his fault that this guy was crushing on him, but also this was getting weird. “Can I help you?”
Martin squeaked and jumped, as if he hadn't been waiting for him. “Jon! Jon, yeah, hello - right, uh, I got something to talk to you about. Seriously. Sorry.”
Jon scowled. “Can it wait for tomorrow? Sasha’s waiting on me.”
“I, uh - it really can’t -”
“Jon! Who’s your friend?”
It was Tim, smiling brightly at the both of them as he slung an arm around Jon’s shoulder. For once, he appreciated it. Martin’s eyes grew wide. He mouthed something that may have been ‘damn’.
“His name’s Martin,” Jon said, doing his best to aim for polite yet dismissive. He really just wanted to tell the guy to fuck off, but it seemed a little too close like kicking a puppy. “Come on, Sasha’s waiting for us.”
Tim gave him a two finger salute, dropping his hand to Jon’s back and pushing him forward. “You’re the boss. Come on, first round’s on me.”
And even though Martin looked strongly as if there was something he really wanted to say, he didn’t say a word as Jon and Tim escaped the Institute.
They’d be back in eight hours. In the meantime, they all went back to Jon’s place and conked the fuck out.
At midnight, they woke back up and took an Uber to a conveniently located club near the Institute. Tim was clenching his hands repeatedly, looking like he was regretting his life, as Sasha incessantly chugged coffee, looking like she was regretting being awake. Jon, unconcerned, was looking at cat pictures on Instagram.
“You two don’t even look stressed,” Tim said in wonder, as they climbed the steps to the Institute. Same as every day, but now dangerously.
“I can only commit arson sleep deprived,” Sasha said.
“It’s only arson if we get caught,” Jon stressed, “otherwise it’s just recreational fire starting.”
“Don’t forget to bring that defense before the judge,” Tim said flatly.
The process was much the same as last time. Tim peeled off in the lobby to go handle the security camera thing, and keep an eye out for anybody else in the building. Jon and Sasha processed silently down the steps, their trainers scuffing the battered cement, and they entered the pitch-black basement yet again.
Jon turned on his mobile’s flashlight as Sasha withdrew her keycard. Jon led the procession until they hit the door of the Archives, at which point Jon stepped back and angled the light so Sasha could slide Gerry’s keycard. Thankfully, it still worked.
Sasha checked her phone at the last minute for the tracker she had put on Gerry’s phone. “His signal’s gone,” Sasha whispered, “he must be out of range. They aren’t here.”
Jon exhaled in relief, and they slipped inside the Archives.
Jon had never been inside the Archives before. Frankly, he did not want to. Weird place with bad vibes. Tim had reported that none of the Leitners were out in the bullpen, so they had to be in Gertrude’s office. At least it made their jobs much simpler. His mobile’s light did a bad job illuminating the place, revealing small tableaus one by one as Jon swept his light: a small kitchenette with a peeling table and no chairs. Dusty desks, piled high with paperwork and cardboard boxes. A filing cabinet with a lock. A bug. Two bugs.
No time to waste. Jon stepped forward, beckoning Sasha over as he led her around the tables and over a spilled box. They passed by several doors - a library and a recording room, with document storage attached to the library - and reached Gertrude’s office at the back.
Sasha pulled out a hairpin and did something magical and suspicious with the lock, gently popping it open as Jon opened his backpack and grabbed his gas can. She swung the door open and flipped on the lights, blinking into the suddenly harsh fluorescent lighting.
“Hm,” Gertrude Robinson said.
Everyone for themselves. Jon stepped back and turned on his heel, absolutely ready to ditch this whole place, only to run straight into Gerard Keay for the second time. He did not seem happy. Behind him was a sheepish Tim, waving slightly.
“Seriously?” Gerry cried. “Twice?”
“You don’t know it was us the first time,” Jon said reflexively.
“He totally does,” Tim volunteered. “It’s so weird, guy has this book that -”
“I swear I can explain,” Sasha was busy saying to Gertrude. “You know how you do public acts of service by burning down things? Well, I just admire you so much, I really want to be just like you when I grow up, so I thought why not get a head start on my future vocation - my passion - right now, at one am -”
“Hm,” Gertrude Robinson said.
She was sitting primly in a wooden chair that looked very uncomfortable for an old woman’s back. For such an unbelievably elderly person, she sat very tall and straight. She was fit, even muscular, and had small half-moon glasses with white hair pulled into a bun so tight it pulled at her expression in an unpleasant way. Or maybe that was the way she always looked: pinched, unwelcoming, reserved, and devoid of any warmth or meaning.
She reminded Jon inexorably of his grandmother.
She had a shotgun across her lap.
“Oh no,” Gerry said. “That’s her mad ‘hm’.”
Tim peered over Gerry’s shoulder into the office, where Sasha was captured. “Is that gun legal? That can’t be legal.”
Whether or not the gun was legal, it was a real and present problem.
Through judicious usage of her intense glare and maybe just a little of the shotgun, Gertrude shepherded them all into the main bullpen. Jon, Tim, and Sasha took seats of shame next to each other, facing an unamused Gertrude and an exasperated Gerry holding a backpack of incendiary devices in front of him like a dead rat.
Jon glanced at Sasha next to him. She had crossed her arms, looking fairly unrepentant. Jon glanced to his right, finding a mournful Tim writing his resignation letter in his head. Jon glanced down at himself, finding his hands folded in his lap.
He looked at Gerry, who scowled harshly at Jon. He looked at Gertrude, and found…
He found Gertrude staring at him back.
“I knew I was seeing Jon around too often,” Gerry complained. “Why didn’t I put it together? This is the Halo Effect in action.”
“How did you know it was us?” Sasha asked interestedly. “Or that it was tonight?”
“Your remote tracer implementation has a long way to go,” Gertrude said cryptically. “Mine, for example, is untraceable. All we had to do was wait.”
“Yeah, I was sleeping in the tunnels.” Gerry jerked a thumb into the hallway. Tunnels? “Gertie woke me up saying you were on the move and I managed to intercept Tim. Good job otherwise, guys! We’d hire you if it wasn’t...well, you know.”
“Were you just hanging out here at one in the morning?” Tim asked, morbidly fascinated.
“Enough questions,” Gertrude snapped, and everyone fell silent. “No more discussion. Frankly, I was concerned that we were facing genuine saboteurs, but it appears our net has caught a few clumsy incompetents instead.” Sasha opened her mouth to complain, but Gertrude glared her into submission. “However, it is not out of the question.” Gertrude eyed Sasha sharply, whose eyes widened. “Why did you set Artifact Storage on fire?”
“I really, really hate those books,” Sasha said. Gerry nodded sagely, as if this was enough answer for him. At Gertrude’s intent look, she quickly said, “I swear that’s it. Come on, you know me - I just like blowing shit up.”
“Then what about the rest of Artifact Storage?” Gertrude asked sharply. “What was your motivation for that?”
What? Sasha glanced at Jon, who shrugged. “Sorry if the rest of the place burned down or whatever,” Sasha said cautiously. “Since the room was hermetically sealed, I really thought that only one room would be affected. I guess Jon didn’t close it tightly enough behind us…”
“The rest of Artifact Storage catching on fire was no accident,” Gertrude said. “There were traces of gasoline found throughout the entire area. The fire originated in the Leitner room, but it clearly stretched everywhere else too.”
Sasha, Jon, and Tim glanced at each other in a simultaneous question - did you do that?
They all shrugged simultaneously. None of them had done it.
“Hm,” Gertrude said.
“What about you?” Gerry asked Tim. “How did you get involved in this?”
Tim held up his hands pleadingly. “Friendship and thirst.”
“There’s easier ways to ask me out, Timothy!” Sasha snapped.
“I have asked you out, and you shot me down -”
“Maybe if you had taken a little bit slower -”
“What, and arson’s not too fast for you?”
“Quiet,” Gertrude said, and everyone shut up. Jon tilted his head.
Gertrude tilted her head back.
They stared at each other. Jon was staring into her eyes. An intense, bright blue, but there was something just a little weird in them. A faint otherworldly sheen. Just a hint of green…
“You’re Jonathan Sims,” Gertrude said finally. Jon shrugged. Her eyes narrowed. “Ja - Elias’ pet project.”
“Maybe?” Jon scratched his nose. “I guess he does pay a lot of attention to me…” He snapped his fingers, a previous conversation rushing in. “And he knows I did it. He didn’t know my accomplice, but he knows I did it. But he just let me go…”
“Why the fuck didn’t you mention that,” Sasha said flatly.
“Why didn’t you mention that Elias is acting weird to you?” Tim asked, eyebrows furrowed. “Does someone need to give you the Stranger Danger talk?”
Jon sagged in relief, “Someone please -”
“Into my office, Mr. Sims,” Gertrude said, standing back. Jon gaped at her, and Sasha opened her mouth to protest, before Gertrude glared her into silence. “Now.”
Jon silently followed Gertrude into her office. Sasha prayed to the Lord loudly in Spanish, eyeing Gerry as if it would make him start hissing. Tim watched him go like a kicked puppy lost in the rain.
Gertrude’s office was almost completely empty if you discounted boxes of paper. If you counted boxes of paper, it was absolutely cramped. The walls were nothing but metal shelving, packed wall to wall with cardboard box upon cardboard box. None of them were labelled. When Jon peered inside one, he saw that all of the paper inside was piled haphazardly with seemingly no rhyme or reason. He wanted to look through all of the rest - there was nothing more Jon liked than randomly looking at words on a page - but Gertrude’s withering look sent him slinking towards the one uncomfortable wooden chair across from her desk instead. Besides, one of these books had Leitners inside. Jon couldn’t take that chance.
Despite the intensely flammable office, Gertrude’s desk was clean of everything but a laptop and a tape recorder. The tape recorder quietly clicked on, rolling gently. Gertrude grabbed a knife from her desk drawer and stabbed it in the center, sending the tape springing upwards. When Jon looked closely, he saw that there were a lot of knife marks in the desk.
Between the knife marks, the shotgun still leaning against the desk, and the virulently hateful old woman in front of him, Jon felt as if he should be a bit nervous. Knowing Jon, he should probably be having a serious panic attack by now. But instead he just felt fuzzy and distant, possessed of a strange unreality. He couldn’t seem to stop looking into Gertrude’s eyes.
“ - Jonathan.”
“Hm?” Jon fought to snap his attention back to the moment. “Right, yes. Um. I’m very sorry about the source of ignition in your Archives and I won’t do it again?”
“This is hardly grade school, Jonathan,” Gertrude said coldly. She didn’t fold her hands on the desk like a disapproving schoolteacher. She kept them on her thighs instead. Close to where a second knife was holstered. “Actions have consequences.”
“Yes, I’ve been realizing that lately,” Jon said sadly.
Gertrude was silent for a long moment, looking him over, before snorting. “I see why he chose you. I suppose after myself he would search out someone...easily malleable.”
“Thanks?”
“I suppose I should have been expecting this,” Gertrude said quietly, almost to herself. “Out with the old, in with the new.” She glanced at Jon. “When were you hired.”
“Two months ago?”
“Right after our argument. My, he works fast.” Gertrude stared Jon up and down, with a gaze so intense it was oddly comforting. Reminded him of his grandmother. “Nothing to be done, I suppose. If it wasn’t you, it’d be someone else. I suspect it’s time to begin wrapping things up here.”
“That’s great,” Jon said, despite not knowing if it was great or not, “but what does all of this have to do with me…?”
“You’re not a normal boy,” Gertrude said simply, as if she was commenting on the weather. Wow, just like his grandmother. “You don’t even feel it, do you?”
Another recorder clicked on. Gertrude threw a knife at that too. “Feel what?”
“Oblivious, or immune?” Gertrude mused. Jon felt rather like a dissected frog upon a table, brain cut open into a flower but muscles twitching. “What was it Gerry heard…?”
“I only like Sasha as a friend,” Jon said quickly.
Gertrude ignored him. In French, she said, “Do you speak French, Jon?”
In French, Jon replied, “Yes? Primary school course.”
She switched to Thai. “What about Thai?”
“Yes? Who doesn’t speak Thai,” Jon said, in Thai.
“Latin?”
In Latin. “Doesn’t every English major know Latin?”
“Navajo?”
“I don’t remember why I speak Navajo, actually,” Jon said apologetically, in Navajo.
Gertrude leaned forward for the first time, hands folded on the desk, and Jon noticed a little tape recorder poking out of the box behind her. Where had that come from? Had it been there a minute ago? Jon wasn’t observant, but surely he would have noticed that.
If he told Gertrude, could she throw a knife behind her and hit it with unerring aim? Jon was willing to bet that she could. Sasha had shown off her darts abilities at the pub on Friday, claiming that Gertrude had taught her everything she knew. But she said it with kind of a haunted expression, and it made Jon wonder if the pub tricks were worth it.
...when did Jon learn Navajo? It didn’t feel so much as if he had woken up one day and known it. Rather, it felt as if he had always known it. Everybody just randomly knew languages, right? But that couldn’t be true. Sasha had confided in him how hard it was to jump straight into an Oxford History course without fluency in English. She had to work hard to keep up. Sasha was so cool.
“ - burn the Leitners?”
Oh. Gertrude had been speaking. Jon shook himself, trying hard to focus. Gran always hated it if he zoned out while she was asking a question. Quick, lie. “I completely agree!”
Gertrude stared at him unblinkingly. “How…”
Did that woman ever blink? All she did was glare and stare. Not that Jon didn’t respect it, but half of what she said was to herself and he would appreciate clearer directions. Was this one of those body language things he was so bad at? Sometimes Jon really resented how bad his telepathy was.
Maybe she was one of those people who were very reliant on body language. Without paying attention to anything she was saying - he could hardly focus on two things at once - Jon tried very hard to read her body language and/or communicate with her telepathically.
Gertrude straightened, eyes wide, cutting herself off in the middle of what she was saying. Jon tried hard not to feel guilty about missing her question. In his defense, it was two in the morning. Now that the adrenaline from the arson was gone, Jon mostly just felt a little sleepy.
“Nobody’s immune to my questions,” Gertrude said. Completely inscrutable. “Your...selective knowledge, your intuition...I don’t need to ask. You’ve been marked since a young age.” Jon squirmed uncomfortably. Gertrude furrowed her eyebrows. “A Leitner. That’s the source of your vendetta. It was no supernatural compulsion. Merely a very human grudge. Or a very monstrous one.”
Despite himself, Jon felt his skin crawl. He had spent a lot of money on benzos in uni to forget about that. It had worked pretty well - although maybe it had given him different problems. “Those books shouldn’t exist and shouldn’t be keeping them in your office. They’re dangerous. If you had any self-preservation at all, you’d get rid of them.”
After a long beat, two, Gertrude nodded. Jon exhaled in relief. Finally she was seeing sense. “Yes. It’s best to act out of self-preservation and get rid of dangerous things.”
She grabbed her shotgun, standing up. Jon leaned back in his chair.
“That is not what I meant,” Jon said.
“For what it’s worth,” Gertrude said, “you seem like you were once a very nice boy.”
Jon opened his mouth - ready to insist that he was a very nice boy now, ready to ask why the fuck he was about to die, ready to ask why knowing French meant that he should die - when a deafening crash echoed throughout the office.
Jon jumped straight in the air. Gertrude, holding her shotgun, thankfully did not.
His desire to see what the fuck was going on overpowered the desire to keep his eyes on the lady with a shotgun. Jon twisted around in his seat, only to find somebody standing in the doorway. The first thing he noticed was her gun.
The second thing he noticed was that it was his soulmate.
She was dressed completely differently from when they had ‘met’. She was wearing jeans, flannel, and a bomber jacket. Her choppy hair was pulled into a very small ponytail, and she was wearing sunglasses. She was aiming a pistol at Gertrude, whose shotgun was still lax by her side.
Behind her, Martin the Librarian waved anxiously. Behind him, Jon’s friends and Gerry rubbernecked a safe distance away.
“Back the fuck up,” the cop said. “Drop the gun.”
Gertrude, indeed, backed the fuck up and dropped the gun. Jon scrambled out of his chair to grab it, clutching it to his chest before remembering that he had never touched a gun before in his life. In complete trust, he passed the shotgun to the cop. With one hand, she ejected the shells, flicked on the safety, and dropped the gun on the ground.
Only then did she lower the gun and take off her sunglasses, staring Jon right in the eyes. Her icy blue eyes met Jon’s, and they stared at each other in complete and total spiritual connection.
She hugged him tightly. Jon hugged her back, just as tight. They both separated, wiping at their eyes.
“I’m Daisy Tonner,” Daisy said.
“Nice to meet you,” Jon said politely. “Jonathan Sims.”
“You didn’t even know each other’s names?” Gerry hollered from the back.
“I’ve spent a week trying to find you,” Daisy said intently. “My partner thought I was crazy. Nobody would give me any information on you - something about an ‘active investigation’ or whatever. That douche Bouchard wouldn’t say anything. I had to get the help of this effeminate librarian to even know where you are.” She squinted around the office, and the incriminating scene. “Why are you here?”
“Amateur firestarting,” Jon said honestly. Everybody groaned.
But Daisy just nodded. “Good hobby, keeps kids out of trouble. What are you, twenty five?” Jon nodded. “Adorable. Listen, Jon, I have something important to tell you -”
“Why are you two in my office at two in the morning?” Gertrude asked frostily.
Martin raised his hand frantically, then said in one long breath, “I knew Jon and Sasha had set Artifact Storage on fire and were planning on setting the Archives on fire too, and I did some B&E and saw that you two also knew, but Jon wasn’t listening to me, so I found the weird cop lady who was in love with Jon and stalking him and convinced her that she could find him here because I was pretty sure that by now you would be holding Jon at gunpoint.” He exhaled heavily, gasping for breath. “I can’t believe that all worked.”
“Wait,” Gerry said, outraged, “is that why you were stalking me?”
“I thought he was stalking me,” Jon said, confused.
Martin just looked sketchy. “One man can have many motivations for the paths he takes in life.”
“Shut up, extras,” Daisy said irritably, and everyone obediently shut up. She turned back to Jon, large eyes wide with focus. Now that they were closer, Jon saw that she was a third of a meter shorter than he was. It was pretty adorable. “Jon, ever since we experienced an intense and platonic connection I’ve been rethinking my life. I knew that the basis of our connection was based on my insanity, but that level of empathy showed me that you are a good and stupid person. You deserve better than me - than my stupid job, than all the people I kill, than this.”
“Sorry,” Tim said pleasantly, “did you say kill -”
Daisy waved a gun in his direction, shutting him up. “I was listening at the door. This place is evil, Jon. It’s a grinder that chews up good people like you and spits them out. The supernatural, the trauma, the way that Bouchard is obviously grooming you to become the next Archivist and dedicate your life to boring paperwork and evil - none of it’s worth it. What I’ve been doing isn’t worth it. I thought I was protecting people, but I was really just protecting myself.”
“Daisy…” Jon said, touched.
She grabbed his hands, squeezing tightly. “Let’s run away from this together. I’m going to quit my job. Quit your job - actually, everyone in this room quit your jobs - and let’s just go. We can be happy, but only if we’re away from all of this. I have a place in Scotland. You have people here, and so do I, but - if we don’t leave now, just for a little while, then we’ll be trapped. I’ll take care of you. Please, Jon. The life both of us are living - this life of emptiness and pain and distance - isn’t worth it. I’m thirty eight years old and I’ve never been happy. You’re on the same track I am. We can’t live this way, Jon.”
Jon was now trying hard not to cry. Everybody around them looked severely confused, but they weren’t important now. “Daisy, you don’t know if I’m worth that. What you’re proposing - it’s terrifying. How can you take that chance?”
“In my life I’ve had thousand chances I didn’t take,” Daisy said. “Now it’s too late to fix my mistakes. I trust you, Jon. If I can’t put my faith in the one person who understands me completely, then who else can I trust?”
Jon was choked up. This would be a leap of faith. There would be no guarantee - not for a happy life, not for safety or security.
It would be, ultimately, a decision made on impulse. A decision based on trust.
Daisy had made that decision. Could Jon?
Jon didn’t know he had made the decision until he said it. He didn’t even know he had thought it, much less deliberated. But somehow he knew. “Yes,” Jon said. “Of course.”
They hugged again, intimately.
“Everybody out of my office,” Gertrude said.
They all sat on the front steps of the Institute.
Everybody seemed a little shell-shocked. Jon didn’t blame them. He felt a little overwhelmed too. The last week and a half had been a lot.
Frankly, it was improbable enough that Gertrude had let them all live. She and Daisy had disappeared for a whispered and harsh conversation before Daisy shepherded them all out the doors of the Institute like a grouchy sheepdog. Jon and Daisy had talked with interest as they left, during which they commiserated over being orphans and Jon found out that she was in love with her cop partner. Apparently she had been having an experience roughly equivalent to Tim’s over the last week, except much more repressed. Jon felt pretty bad for her. Daisy also assured him that she would make sure all the charges were dropped before she quit the force, which Jon found nice of her and everyone else found concerning.
It was still pitch-dark. The yellow London street lamps illuminated the sidewalk in patches, highlighting the patchy grass and scattered cigarette butts. The high, wrought iron fence around the Institute loomed above them, and everybody sat close to each other in exhausted disbelief.
“So,” Tim said finally, after a long and agonizing silence, “we’re all quitting our jobs, right?”
Everybody nodded dumbly.
“I technically don’t work here,” Gerry pointed out, “but I think if you all don’t quit Gertrude’s going to fire you...or worse, hire you...so…”
The job thing didn’t seem very important right now. Jon found himself looking to the sky, somehow expecting stars. Of course, there were none. How could there be?
“I do not get it,” Sasha said, for the twentieth time. She was sitting a few steps down from Jon, right next to a relaxed yet unemployed Tim. “I do not get it. She is twice your age. And - and a lesbian? And now you’re eloping? What? What?!”
“I don’t know,” Tim said, popping some gum into his mouth. “I think it’s romantic.”
“Of course you would,” Sasha said hotly. “If you had your way, we would have eloped two years ago!”
But Tim just sighed - exasperated, tired, and smelling faintly of gasoline. “At this rate, I’d be the happiest man alive with coffee.”
Sasha - incredibly, unbelievably, amazingly - looked mollified. “Just coffee?”
“At this rate,” Tim said, looking straight at her, “I’d be the happiest man alive right here. At three in the morning. With a gas can in this backpack. Sitting next to you.”
“Yeah?” Sasha said.
Jon rolled his eyes. Ew.
He glanced to his right, where Daisy was talking sedately to a depressed Gerry. He was vocally anticipating a severe tongue lashing from Gertrude in the morning, but Jon had no sympathy for devil worshippers. Even if he really didn’t seem that bad after all.
“Yeah? Dizziness problems?”
“And nausea. Weird numbness in my legs. It sucks - a vampire almost caught me the other day.” Gerry scuffed his Vans on the cement step. “I should probably start taking multivitamins. I don’t really eat that well.”
Daisy hummed. Her arm was easily looped through Jon’s, her knee touching his. “I don’t know. The numbness isn’t normal. You smell weird.”
“Smell -”
“Yeah, I’d get that checked out.”
Jon looked to his left.
Martin the Librarian sat there, his elbow propped on his knee and his chin resting in his hand. He seemed to be staring out at the deserted streets, pock-marked by the occasional passing headlights of cars and the cold scamper of urban wildlife. He seemed deep in his own head. Jon had noticed that about Martin - he always seemed deep in his own head. Hiding more than they knew.
“I should thank you,” Jon said awkwardly. He rarely began conversations - just finished them. “You probably saved my life.”
Martin’s head snapped towards Jon, and he involuntarily straightened. The streetlamps illuminated his face strangely - cast in shadow and darkness. The shape of his jaw prominent in the night, but his features obscured. It was easy, in a night like this when the cicadas churned their eternal gears, to think that Jon understood Martin at all. But he never really had.
“Oh! Oh, it’s nothing - I mean, not that your life is nothing, it’s quite a bit, but really it wasn’t a lot of work on my part. Just a lot of - you know, normal espionage and compulsive lying stuff.”
“I still appreciate it,” Jon said magnanimously. He awkwardly looked away. “You following me around was really weird, but I suppose if it was for a good cause...and you don’t do it again...then I’ll forget about it.” He paused guiltily. “And I’m sorry for using you too. It wasn’t fair on you.”
“That’s alright,” Martin said blithely, “I was using you too.”
Jon stared at him. Martin stared back, guilelessly.
“Uh,” Jon said, reconsidering his stance on if Martin the Librarian was a creep.
He must have caught something in Jon’s face or voice, because Martin quickly elaborated, “Not like that! Not like that, I swear. It’s just...well...can you keep a secret?”
“We’ve seen very clearly that I cannot.”
“True.” Martin tilted his head thoughtfully for a second. “Well, it’s not as if anyone would believe you. It’s not terribly evident that I was using your incompetence as a cover for what I was doing. Everybody around you thinks you’re kind of stupid and ditzy, which is kinda ho - untrue, since you’re just a smart person who does very stupid things while also being very ditzy, so I guess I can tell you.”
“You think I’m smart?” Jon said, pleased.
But Martin leaned in, and by the dim lamplight his dark eyes glittered strangely. “I was the one who set the fire in Artifact Storage.”
Jon gaped at him.
“But,” Jon said weakly, “Sasha and I definitely…”
“Oh, you did,” Martin said. “But I was embezzling the accounting books in the library -”
“You were what -”
“Peter Lukas did tax fraud first and I don’t waste blackmail,” Martin said defensively. “Anyway, I caught the smell of smoke and followed it. Some idiots had set a fire in the Leitner room. The door was hermetically sealed, so it wasn’t spreading, but I figured...hey, when life gives you lemons, right? So I grabbed some gasoline from the boiler room and finished the job. Quite fun, actually. Kind of stress relieving? I wouldn’t quite say zen, but - yeah, maybe a little zen -”
“Why?” Jon asked weakly. “Why would you even do this?”
Martin’s eyes bore into Jon’s own, unblinking and empty. “Why not?”
Jon and Martin stared at each other.
In the darkness, with his features obscured but this true nature stark in the wan moonlight, with the cicadas grinding around them and the soft sound of all of Jon’s friends talking, at the culmination of this strange and obscure and terrifying week…
Martin was pretty cute.
“So,” Jon said, “uh, if you want to text me in Scotland...or I can give you the mailing address, that works too...so we can keep in touch?”
Martin’s eyes widened. “You want to keep in touch?”
Suddenly, Jon felt quite awkward. “Just don’t ruin our burgeoning friendship by falling in love with me?”
The crickets whirred, bloating the pregnant pause. Finally, Martin said, “You know, I kind of have a...thing for, you know, competency and authority, so…”
“Oh, thank god,” Jon said in abject relief. “So I’m safe?”
“Definitely,” Martin replied. “No risk of me falling in love with you here.”
“Of course, I’ll never fall in love with you either,” Jon assured him.
“Fantastic.”
“Grand, glad we got that out of the way.” Jon leaned back on his hand, almost relaxed. He felt comfortable and safe. When was the last time Jon had felt that way? When had Jon ever felt safe? Was it the last time he didn’t feel alone? When had that been? “Do you see any stars?”
“What?” Martin looked up too. “Of course not, we’re in Central London.”
“Really?” Jon said. “I see so many.”
It was true. When Jon craned his neck to look up at the sky, he did not see unending and tepid darkness. He saw a rich velvet curtain instead, dark blue and wispy. Stars were fixed like sparkling pins into the midnight blue velvet. Planets bloomed brightly as stars turned their faces and, embarrassed, glanced away.
Jon watched the stars in comfortable silence. After a minute Martin looked up with him, and by his soft gasp Jon knew that he could see them too.