#nausia

Jon sagged against the wall of the decidedly deserted corridor, the world shifting in swirling bursts.  Alone, at last and again; he was alone.  His good hand constricted around his wrist in a vain hope the pressure would alleviate the pain.  It didn’t.

A distraction, that’s what he needed.  

Perhaps he could get some work done.  It might be enough to take his mind off of things-  He recalled several articles on ADHD outlining how quickly they picked up on the presence of pain stimuli, especially when it was the most interesting thing happening at the moment.  There were a few other journals that indicated ADHD people had a higher pain tolerance than their peers.  Jon snorted.  He was still on his feet so there must be some truth to it.  

Good lord.  If he was supposed to have a high pain threshold, what must something like this be for a normal person?  Then again-he wasn’t exactly a person anymore, was he.  The way Daisy had- Stop it, now.  

The last thing he needed was to dwell on Detective Tonner and the events of the Past several hours. 

Jon all but collapsed into his chair, allowing the exhaustion leading his bones to pull him down.  He held his burned hand close.  Too close as the heat radiating off his body set his hand burning anew.  He hissed, forcing it as far away as physically allowed.  Practically prostrating himself across the marred surface of the desk.  Causing a small avalanche of paperwork and statements to slide to the floor.  

He cursed under his breath.  Why did he always have to make such a mess of things?  Why couldn’t he do anything right?  He’d driven Tim and Martin away, put Georgie in danger, couldn’t keep Melony or Basira from getting ensnared and...Sasha-  Jon swallowed past the lump in his throat, disgusted with himself.  He could barely think straight yet alone work.  His breath hitched sending a sharp jab of pain from his throbbing ribs.  Detective Tonner’s baton hadn’t...agreed with him.  Acrid saliva pooled in his mouth, for a moment Jon feared he was going to be sick.  

Jon forced himself to still and breathe.  It passed.  The insistent burning sliding back to the surface.  He did the only thing he could do, and turned attention to that all consuming pain.  Attempting to capture the feeling with objective detachment.  It was a technique perfected after the Jane Prentiss incident.  Cataloging the sensations as though they were happening to someone else, another statement for the archives.  That academic veneer had given him some modicum of control, of understanding.  

He desperately wanted that now-

Then again, that was the reason he was in this mess, wasn’t he?  Always having to know?  He sighed, sliding back into memory.

Once, while living with his grandmother, he had scalded his hand ladling out soup.  It had ached for a week and flared up if he touched anything so much as tepid.  This was so much worse.  

Unbidden, Elias’s words came floating back ‘The Archivist observes and experiences’.  Jon groaned.  Right, and what good would that do?  Distastefully, he eyed the improvised bandage of t-shirt strips.  He should change it, he knew but his stomach soured at the thought.  Recalling kneeling on the hard earth, frantically prying off the molten wax.  In his hast he hadn’t registered the blistering skin tearing away with it, leaving his palm raw and exposed.  Part of him didn’t want to face the grotesquery behind the bandage- to see what monstrous form it had taken.

It burned.

He knew it burned.  He knew it needed looking after and he begged his brain to stop sending the signals.  After all:

Message received.

End the bloody statement.

Burns were nothing at all like cuts.  Cuts were well behaved.  Delicately, Jon probed the ragged edges of the gash at his neck.  Cuts were predictable.  Pressing down till he felt the sickening twinge slice through.  For a moment there was this known experience, this expected outcome.  He forgot about the burn, replaced only by the sharp sting in his neck.  Then it all went sideways.  

Jon was looking back into the cold eyes of Detective Tonner as she pressed the blad to his throat.  She had wanted to cut him, to hurt him, to kill him.  She killed monsters, and she’d made it clear where he stood.  His pulse jumped and his chest started to restrict as he saw once more Michael Crew, prone on the forest floor.  The muzzle flash burned itself once more into his retina and Crew was dead.  Daisy had done that.  Daisy had done that right in front of him and Daisy had meant to do that to him and the fear threatening to spill over.  It was too much, just too much!

“Will you stop it!” he shouted out loud, pinching the burn with all his might, abruptly returning to the physical experience of pain in the here and now; the nausea coming back with vengeance.  He whimpered, pressing his face into the cool of his desk.  Breathe.  Just, breathe.  What good was it to be a monster if it hurt so badly?  

Once more he wraped fingers about a slim wrist, attempting to cut off the circulation.  Anything to dull that burning.  He longed to submerge it in ice.  If he couldn’t stop the pain, maybe he could numb it, a little at any rate.  

With heavy eyes, he calculated the distance between himself and the door.  Funny, it never seemed like it was that far away before.  Jon wanted nothing more than to close his eyes and rest for a few moments, but his body simply protested too much. 

Ice, right, ice would help.  

He pushed himself upright on elbows and forearms.  Jon’s legs felt heavy, as though he were borrowing someone else's.  It was hard to move, much harder than it had moments ago- he glanced at the clock, jared to see hours had slipped by.  How had that happened?  

He couldn’t understand why his body was having such a hard time moving when he’d been fine this morning.  He couldn’t understand why the world wouldn’t stop spinning.  The door to his office was closed, meaning he’d have to let go of the burn to open it.  For an insane moment, he considered surrendering and curling up under his desk.  But Jonathan Sims never knew how to give up, did he?  

Martin had had a bit of a day.  

Why wouldn’t he of?  It wasn’t every day that you find out your very life is tied to your place of employment, your coworker had been killed over a year ago replaced by a supernatural imposter and that your “double boss”, to use Tim’s turn of phrase, was a cold blooded killer.  

And Jon-

The man knew how to make an entrance, stumbling into the archives, covered in grime, flanked by Detective Tonner and Basira.  And core, he looked bad.  

After the, Martin had been whisked away by Basira and Daisy to...answer a few questions.  It had felt more like an interrogation than anything else.  He wondered why it had been so difficult for them to accept that he had been as much in the dark as the rest of them.  Tim hadn't helped matters by continuing to make a string of dark comments and Melony had started to genuinely unnerve him.  Which was saying something considering he literally worked among Eldritch horrors.  

After everything, he needed a moment to himself.  Away from angry coworkers and murderous bosses and prosecutorial police detectives.  He retreated back to the old cot in document storage, mulling things over late into the day.  For once he didn’t worry about wasting institute time.  If Elias was to be believed, Martin could no more be fired than he could quit.  Always, his thoughts returned back to Jon.  He hoped the man had good enough sense to go home and rest up.  

“I need a cup of tea-” he said to no one in particular, scrubbing a wery hand down his face.  As far as he could tell, the others had left hours ago.  Just as well, he didn’t feel up to peacekeeping at the moment.  

Martin froze at the door of the employee lounge.  Jon was there!  Standing with his forehead pressed against the fridge.  Looking for all the world like he was about to fold at any second.  Even from his vantage point across the room, Martin could tell he was trembling.  

“Jon?” he regretted speaking at once.  As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jon lept like a spooked cat.  

“M-Martin-'' his voice was faint, frayed at the edges with exhaustion.  Concern gripped Martin’s chest as he took the man in properly.  

Even covered in ruddy mud; the bruises under his eyes were stark, stretching his gaunt features in agonized lines.  He had a death grip on a thin wrist of a badly bandaged hand.  It reminded Martin of the aftermath of Jane Prentiss and having to chase him away from the tunnels to ensure Jon had time to heal.  

Only this was worse, somehow.  Then, Jon had been angry, driven by the single minded purpose of finding out who had it in for the archivist position.  But now- the fight was gone, leaving him small, vulnerable and lord, he looked defeated.  

“Can I help you?” 

Jon made a complicated spazam of a movement Martin couldn’t make heads or tails of.  Muttering something about getting some ice as he listed to the side.