Chapter Text
"What?" Jon said.
"I'm offering you a promotion," Elias smiled widely, his eyes piercing. "To the role of Head Archivist. Now I know that you might to believe yourself to be the most fitting candidate, but --"
"No," Jon said, shaking his head. His voice trembled slightly, but he wasn't sure why. He could feel Elias watching him, head tilted slightly, and runs a hand through his hair. It felt shorter than it should be, cleaner --- but that doesn't make any sense. He's due for a trim any time soon, if anything. "What? Where am I?"
Elias laughed, but it rings in Jon's ears like a gunshot. He leans forwards into his hands, rubbing desperately at his eyes. He felt blinded, though the glimpses he caught through his fingers of Elias' hardwood desk are clear, if... dim. Unreal. Like watching the world through water. "I knew this would be a surprise for you Jonathan, but I do believe this is a bit of an overreaction."
"Why is there --" his head was pounding, "-- there's no --- there's not --!" Jon's breath keeps hitching, like there's something lodged in his chest. Still glancing around wildly through the gaps between his fingers, Jon's gaze finally latches onto Elias' eyes, and he watches something like understanding dawn there. Something almost like fear. "Where am I?"
Elias jolted, as if catching himself before running off a ledge. He only stared at Jon for a moment, before wrenching his hands off of his face and pulling him up. Jon's cry catches somewhere behind his teeth and instead came out a hiss as he's pulled to lean awkwardly across the desk. In one hand, Elias holds his wrist, and with the other he tilted Jon's chin up. Then left, then right, and still they stare at one another.
"Who are you?" Elias --- is that his name? Jon isn't sure --- questioned, tone as clipped and businesslike as ever. His eyes betray him, however, as they drilled into the furrowing of Jon's brow and the quivering of his lip with hunger.
"I -- I don't ---" Jon's words are slurred with fatigue and Elias' grip on his jaw. His eyes were burning, and he swore he could see an almost greenish light reflected in Elias' gold-rimmed glasses. His head was pounding, as if his brain is trying to burst free of his skull --- or his skull is trying to push back against the crushing pressure of a tidal wave. Visions of that ocean impress themselves over his sight in flashes, but they're too short and too bright for Jon to properly make out. But it smells like the sea, and there's the coppery taste of blood in his mouth. All at once, he seemed to come back to himself, or lose himself, or something else entirely, and his legs fell out from beneath him.
His body slammed into the edge of the desk, and his neck cricked as Elias' hand around his jaw becomes a noose. He cries out in pain, and Elias drops him, leaving him to collapse into a heap on the floor. He makes a disgruntled noise, and Elias sits back down, apparently satisfied.
"What," Jon spits out, jaw aching, "was that?"
"You don't remember?" Elias asked, almost coy in his tone.
"Remember what? You grabbing me?"
"You were having a medical episode of sorts, I believe," he said. "I was trying to assist. Are you feeling alright, Jonathan?"
"Wha -- yes. Fine."
Jon pressed a hand to his temple, trying to ease the dull, harsh pressure of an oncoming headache. He could still feel Elias watching him, over the carved edge of the mahogany table. Groaning, he pulled himself back up into his chair.
"Now," Elias said briskly. "While I would usually take that sort of outburst as an indicator that you're not quite up to the challenge, I do believe you're the perfect fit for the role."
"Of Archivist?" Jon questioned. He didn't quite hear himself say it though; not through the drill of static in his ears. Lord, is he getting tinnitus already?
"Of Head Archivist, yes." Elias' smile looks... wrong. It's the only way Jon can describe it. Like it belonged on another man's face.
"Right... well, when do I start?"
"That's the spirit, Jon," Elias laughed. Jon suppressed a flinch at his own name out of Elias' mouth. "Today."
"Today?"
"Yes, well there's no reason to put it off. Not with the state the archives were left in following Gertrude's... departure."
Ah. Yes. The sudden disappearance of his -- his predecessor, he supposed. Of course, Gertrude had been getting on in age but, well... it's not like she had passed calmly in her sleep. It's not like there was any proof that she had passed at all, either. It was the mystery of it that scared Jon the most, out of all of it. He didn't want to become another...
What?
"Jon? Can you hear me, Jon? Are you sure you're feeling alright?"
"Yes," Jon says sharply. "Fine. If it's your judgement that I'll start today, then I'll start today."
He hardly even tried to smile.
+++
"Boss!" Tim called out to him, smile wide but oddly tight. "Gosh, look at you, living up to your old man outfits. I didn't even know you applied!" Jon shifted slightly under Tim's gaze. The air in the Archives was stifling, he had recently discovered.
"Yes, well, I saw it more as a 'put my resume in and forget about it' but apparently Elias..." Jon ran his hand through his hair, still staring at the small box of personal belongings he was yet to unpack. Tim opened his mouth, but was interrupted my a soft knock on the door. Jon had to suppress a flinch. What was wrong with him today?
"Sash! Took you long enough!"
"One of us had to have an organised desk," Sasha said, straightening her glasses. Had she always worn glasses? "Otherwise you'd have nowhere to dump all of your stuff. Oh, Jon! Didn't see you there."
"This is my office, after all," he said, pushing the words past his encroaching migraine, and immediately regretted them. A tacked-on apology made it half way up his throat before he reminded himself that he didn't need to apologise for getting a promotion. He ignored how Sasha frowned, and how he didn't really know if that was what he wanted to apologise for.
"Now," he said, taking as deep a breath he could manage without triggering the pain in his chest. "I need to get to work if I'm --"
"Are you alright, Jon?" she asked. "You look..."
"Like shit," Tim finished gracefully. "No offense."
"I'm fine," Jon bit back. "Just... fine."
"If that's what you say!" Tim said obligingly, while Sasha twisted her lip in concern.
"Jon, listen," Sasha began, but he waved her off.
"I've just got a bit of a headache. Nothing a bit of ibuprofen can't fix."
"Yeah, Sash, come on. You can help me unpack all my dead plants," Tim tugged at her arm. She finally relented, sighing deeply. She and Tim were already halfway out the office door when Jon felt his mouth moving.
"No!" he called, desperation flooding his body and forcing the words out. He lurched towards the desk for support, gasping for air. "Stay --" he gritted his teeth, "gah --- within my Sight."
+++
Jon hardly remembered falling to the ground, but he awoke with Tim clutching him and Sasha barking orders from a point he couldn't quite see. He hissed in pain as he felt static fizzle on his tongue.
"Woah there, Boss," Tim said, and Jon could just make out his wide eyes above him. "You okay? I mean -- Just, stay still. Sasha's getting someone to help."
"Martin?" Jon felt his mouth shape the name, and heard the breathiness of his voice. It felt familiar, like he had said it a thousand times before. He didn't know a Martin. "I need Martin."
"Uh, sure Boss." Tim rubbed at Jon's shoulder, the warmth of his hand pressing into Jon through his shirt sleeve. "Yeah, we'll get you Martin."
"He'll know what to do," Jon smiled, eyelids fluttering weakly.
"I'm sure he will, now just keep your eyes open, yeah? Uh, fuck. Sasha said to keep talking. Tell me about Martin. Where did you meet?"
"Here."
"The Institute?"
"The Archives. He was my assistant."
"Was he now?" Tim's voice had a strained edge to it. "Okay, now don't worry, I'm just checking your head for injuries from your fall, alright?"
"Yeah," Jon said as he was maneuvered. He felt sort of like he was floating, separated from his body. "I always said he was bad at his job, but that wasn't fair. I was just... rude. Afraid."
Tim huffed a laugh at this, placing Jon's head back on his lap, apparently appeased by the lack of blood. "Hey, eyes open, remember?"
Jon hardly saw the point in that. He could See anyway. But he wanted to keep Tim happy. He opened them and Tim gasped.
"What?"
"Oh, no, it's nothing." Tim's hands were shaking slightly on either side of his face.
"What is it, Tim?"
"Did you... did you always have green eyes?"
Did he always have green eyes? No. Not as a child. The eyes that engrossed themselves in A Guest For Mr. Spider had been a muddy sort of brown. Common. Unworthy of attention. But he was not the same person who had read that book. At what point did his always begin? Up to 20% of adults do not have the same eye colour that they were born with, the hue shifting gradually over their first year of life. Was that when always began? When your eyes finally settle into what they will always be? Or is it when your mind learns to truly see what is in front of it, to understand? Jon did not think he had ever really understood, even with all the information in the world. Maybe his always was when time had collapsed in on itself, when there was nothing left to understand, except the rawness of fear. Jon Knew fear.
"Jon? Jon can you hear me? Jon? Fuck."
"Yes," he said finally, to Tim's sigh of relief. His breath lingered on Jon's cheek, hot and heavy, like a being in a building on fire.
"Good, that's good, Boss."
"Tim?" an unfamiliar voice called. "Tim? Jon?"
"Still here, Sash!" Tim yelled back, removing his hand from under Jon's head to wave it over the table. Heels clacked heavily as they ran over, followed by a pair of boots. Jon felt himself being loaded onto a stretcher.
"Is he okay?" that same voice asked.
"Yeah, yeah," Tim breathed. "Well, no, but he's conscious. Confused though, I think he must have hit his head." Someone hummed in agreement as he was hefted off the ground.
"Sasha?" Jon asked.
"Yeah, Jon, it's me."
He couldn't turn his head with all the straps holding him down. Like being buried. "You sound different." Like how no two crackles of static sound quite the same in this strange, wordless way.
"See?" he heard Tim mutter under his breath.
"No, Jon," Sasha laughed anxiously. "Same old me."
Jon felt himself begin to shake slightly as they exited the Archives, but couldn't quite manage it under the straps.
"What's happenn -- Jon?" the man who called himself Elias Bouchard cried. He didn't even sound surprised. Excitement tinged his voice. His dress shoes joined their awful parade. Sasha was grasping at his hand.
"He collapsed," her voice broke slightly as she spoke. "I don't -- I don't know why."
"Does he have any kind of history of it? Any other health issues?" Elias asked.
"Not that I know of? He smokes, I know that much, but I'm not sure how often. But he was just off today, if that makes sense?"
"He said he had a headache," Tim added. "Looked sweaty, on edge."
"You two should return to the Archives," Elias said finally. "I'll stay with him."
Jon groaned, but nobody really seemed to notice over all the commotion. Sasha and Tim were protesting fervently, but Jon couldn't quite make it out as they passed over the Institute's threshold.
"You will stay," Elias said firmly, to which Jon's vision went dark.
+++
He heard the beeping of the heart monitor before anything else.
"Ah, Jon," Elias said. "You gave us quite a scare."
"What? I did?"
"Yes. Do you not remember again?"
"No, no, I do," Jon said, pushing himself up and rubbing his temple. "It's just..."
"You've been through worse?" he suggested gently.
Jon turned to Elias, who was smiling at him.
"I don't know. I -- I mean, no, of course --"
"Your eyes are still green."
"... they're what?"
"Green, Jon," he replied, standing suddenly. "Strange isn't it?"
"Yes," Jon murmured. "Why -- why would they be green?"
Elias leaned over him, considering him. Considering his eyes, more than anything. The phrase 'the window to the soul' came unbidden to him. He looked away.
"I don't know," Elias said finally, standing back up. Each footstep of his pacing felt like a drill in Jon's skull. "Though I suggest you find out."
"You do?"
"Yes, I do," Elias glanced at him over his shoulder. "After all, I can't imagine your body acting without your mind would lead to the wisest doors."
He knows, is all that Jon could think. He knows about Mr. Spider. Elias smiled slightly, before the door crashed open.
"Jon!" Sasha cried out.
"Bossman! You're awake!"
"Ah, yes, I suppose I am," Jon grinned weakly.
"Oh, Jon, we were so worried," Sasha said, sitting down by his bedside. Jon flushed.
"Don't, I'm fine now."
"Do you know why it happened?"
"Iron deficiency," Elias cut in, to Tim's glare. He flicked his wrist to see his watch. "5:01. You two got here quickly."
"Yeah," Tim said, before turning away from the man. Jon couldn't help but smirk, which Tim returned. "Oh, Jon, you might not remember this because, you know, everything, but you asked if --"
"Um, hi. You're Jonathan?" Martin said from the doorway, and Jon felt his heart twist.