Chapter Text
Tim, Sasha, and Martin are all huddled in a corner near the basement break room when Jon walks into the Archives. He’s not late– he'd arrived at quarter til seven, right as Rosie was unlocking the front doors– but it's still an unsettling feeling to walk in and find his entire staff waiting for him.
Especially when, as it seems they are now, they're talking about him.
“--just think he doesn't need to know,” Martin is saying in a carrying whisper, “it's not as if we need to do follow-up on every statement, is it? And–”
“Good morning,” Jon says, with as much acid as the greeting allows. He's rewarded by seeing all of them jump.
“Hiya, boss,” Tim says, recovering first and waving at him. “Uh, you’re late!”
Jon holds up his coffee in answer. Sasha twirls around and perches on a desk in faux nonchalance.
“Ooh, fancy,” she says, noting the cafe on the cup sleeve. “What'd you pay for that, ten quid?”
“It's just a black coffee, Sasha,” Jon says, shrugging out of his jacket and hanging it on one of the hooks by the door.
“Yeah, alright– seven quid?”
“Nearly,” Jon admits dryly. “Tim, what are you quibbling about in the corner, there?”
“Quibbling?” Tim asks, the picture of boyish innocence. “Am I quibbling about something?”
“Can I get that word in a sentence?” Sasha asks. “Er, no– I guess Jon already did. Root?”
“Latin,” Tim answers.
“From quibus, which itself is a portmanteau of the Latin words for who, what, which,” Jon continues, “which is exactly what I want to know.”
Sasha examines her fingernails. Martin stares at his toes. Tim glances between the two of them.
“Honestly?” he asks, and then sighs. “It’s nothing to worry about, boss.”
“Hm,” Jon grunts. “Yes, it certainly seems like nothing. Well. I suppose I can't stop you from gossiping the day away–”
“We weren't gossiping!” Martin says indignantly, and then goes instantly beet red and flustered when Jon raises his eyebrows at him.
“No?” Jon inquires politely. Martin withers.
“It…it was…it just…” Martin looks at Tim, biting his lip. Jon feels himself start to itch. He doesn't know what it is about Martin, but perhaps it's this constant facade of innocence that Jon simply can't stand. When Tim acts innocent, he at least does it with a smirk and enough charisma to make you forgive the act. Martin seems to believe it. It's atrocious.
“Martin,” Tim says warningly.
“I know, Tim,” Martin frets and splutters, “but–”
Sasha slides off the desk, scooping up a file folder on the way, and sweeps over to Jon.
“Here,” she says, rolling her eyes. “Statement. Spooky. The use.”
“And this is causing an office incident because…?” Jon asks, taking it.
“Because it's…” Sasha sighs, “well, just read it.”
“You don't have to read it!” Martin exclaims.
Jon silences this outburst with another raised eyebrow. He flips the folder open and scans the statement.
It's a fairly banal one, by most standards. Statement 02150101. A woman, Mellissa Faroe, goes out, gets drunk at a club on New Year's. Normal so far. She gets picked up by another woman at the club, who invites her home.
Home, predictably, is a nightmare of a council flat– riddled with black mold and smelling oddly of rotten fruit and old fish. The statement's subject nevertheless spends a few hours, during which she evidently performs the act she meant to with the strange woman and receives an unpleasant and unwanted gift in return.
She's infected with something. She thinks it's a hangover, and spends the day in bed. When it doesn't get better, she sets up an appointment with her GP. She feels terribly, terribly lonely.
The woman she'd spent the night with won't answer her calls, and so she spends the day on social media. When that's not enough, she runs down her contact list, messaging everyone who might not be back at work. She stumbles across the contact of an old flame. The next thing she knows, they're messaging, then talking on the phone, and then she's inviting him over.
She cancels her GP appointment when her symptoms are gone the next day.
For a week, she's the most social person at the office. She seems to be effortlessly charming. She picks up dates at any bar she decides to walk into. She brings most of them home. Her skin aches, sometimes, but she ignores it. She can even ignore the faint smell of mold she can swear is starting to invade her flat.
She can't ignore it, though, when her fingernails start to blacken. She can't ignore the lines that begin to stretch across her skin like stretch marks, or like mycelium. Her work suffers– she's tired, listless. All she wants to do is talk to people, have fun, go to clubs. Soon, normal conversation is boring. She's always been social; but now, it's only the thrill of chatting someone up, of bringing them home, of intimacy, of daring, of meeting as many new people as possible and adding them to her list of contacts.
Contacts. That's what she needs. New, and more, contacts.
She's been scared for a while, but she's been able to pass it off as the thrill of her lively social life. Now, it deepens into terror. She starts to wonder about the woman she met on New Year's Eve, but she can't find any trace of her. All that's in her flat, when Mellissa goes back to check, is black mold that coats the walls and water stains across the abandoned furniture.
By the time she comes to the Magnus Institute, she's sun-sensitive. She wears layers: trench coat, long trousers and boots, rubber kitchen gloves, a scarf, a pollution mask, sunglasses, a wide-brimmed hat. She blocks as much of her skin from the world as possible. She requests a room alone to write down her statement. The two members of research who take her statement find themselves strangely compelled to help her. She smells sour, and earthy, like composting fruit. It lingers in the room after she leaves.
And there it ends. The explicit nature isn't all that shocking, given what they normally deal with. Jon scoffs to himself and flips the folder shut again, handing it back to Sasha.
“Supernatural STD’s,” he sighs. “I think we might need an entire section for that. And no wonder, with the state that the flat was apparently in. In this case, I believe Martin is correct.”
“Oh. I am?” Martin asks, looking hopeful.
“Not every statement requires follow-up. Now, I do have a lot to do, so if you need anything else…” Jon pauses in the act of walking to the blessed sanctuary of his office and frowns. All three of them look various degrees of uneasy. “What on earth is it?”
“You don't think it's…sort of weird?” Sasha asks cautiously. “The…symptoms?”
“Ms. James, we deal in weird,” Jon says. “It is rather our modus operandi.”
“Okay, yeah– but what about the fact that she refused to give an in-person statement, or let anyone in the room with her?” Sasha continues doggedly. “The rubber gloves? The rotten smell? Research had to throw out the chairs in the statement room after Mellissa came in.”
“Supposedly,” Jon says. “Tim and I were in Research, then– and I don't recall anything of the subject. I do remember we had to replace the chairs around 2015, but that was because they were, to put it bluntly, simply atrocious.”
“Oh, come on,” Tim speaks up suddenly, the edge in his voice that means he's actually upset, “are we doubting our own Research Department, now? Our colleagues?”
“No, it–” Jon grimaces, “the power of suggestion is substantial. I wouldn't blame any of our previous staff for taking extra precautions with a woman who claimed to be a walking…sexual mold spore factory. That doesn't make it proof. Now, if you think there are enough oddities that it does warrant a closer look, then I won't stop you. Tim, if you wanted to take point–”
“Hell no,” Tim says vehemently.
Jon freezes, feeling every bit of his hard-won managerial respect slipping out of his grasp. He’d thought he'd been convincingly blasé about the statement, but that attitude is difficult to maintain when the others won't play along.
“Excuse me?” he asks coldly.
“I think what Tim is trying to say,” Martin offers, “is that if there is something to the statement– er, um, supernatural or not– it seems like it's not one you'd want to tempt. Right?”
“We can't just ignore a statement because it's distasteful,” Jon says, feeling a frustrated itch beginning at the back of his teeth, “so if Tim is so set on not going–”
“I'm interviewing Marsha Ranier about statement 02170413,” Sasha says quickly.
“Oh. Right,” Jon says. He looks at Martin for a moment. Martin gives him a weak smile. Jon rubs the bridge of his nose with a sigh. “I suppose I'll look into it, then.”
“No!” Martin bursts out, and they all turn to look at him. He flushes again, but sets his jaw. “I'm sorry, Jon, b-but you can't.”
“And why not?” Jon asks impatiently. “Are you volunteering?”
“No! I– um, I g-guess? Maybe?” Martin shifts his weight and looks between Tim and Sasha with a pleading expression. “It's– it's dangerous. You of all people shouldn't have to–”
“Me of all people,” Jon repeats. Martin looks slightly more desperate.
“I-I mean, you’re the boss,” Martin says in a nervously conciliatory tone, and he's lying again. Jon's hackles raise. “If something happened–”
“I'm sorry, Martin,” Jon says sharply, “what exactly do you think is going to happen at an interview with a woman who, most likely, suffered from an acute case of mold poisoning almost two years ago?”
“Oh, can you come off it for once?” Martin snaps back, to Jon's shock. “You know it's real. Otherwise you wouldn't be making such a big deal about follow-up on it! You know it, it– it feels like it!”
Jon gapes at him for a few seconds. There's a fluttering feeling in his chest, that familiar prickle on the back of his neck– the feeling he's being watched.
The others are looking at Martin the same way he is– with the discomfort of an unspoken rule being spoken aloud. Martin is flushed but stubborn, staring just over Jon's shoulder as if he still can't quite meet his eye.
Jon needs to get this back under control at once. He needs to. He can't let…let it know they have any inkling about statements that feel real; that scratching in the back of their minds. Jon is reeling from the fact that he's not the only one who's noticed the phenomenon, but more than that he's filled with the knowledge that they can't let it know.
“I make a ‘big deal’ about follow-up because it is our job, Mr. Blackwood,” he manages at last. He ignores the trickle of sweat running down his temple. He can't seem weak now. “I'm almost certain a phone call to Ms. Faroe will suffice. In case it does not, checking in with her about her experience after a few years will give us invaluable data and context.”
“Then I'll do it,” Martin says, his face still blotchy with embarrassment but his expression stubborn. “I’ll do the follow-up. Just in case.”
“Frankly, Martin, with the way you're acting right now, I don't trust that you’re capable of having a discussion with Ms. Faroe about her experience with the degree of…finesse and investigation it requires,” Jon says.
“But you shouldn't have to–” Martin says. Tim steps forward.
“If it's real, boss, then none of us should put ourselves at risk,” Tim says. “A phone call should be all it takes, right?”
Jon narrows his eyes, a suspicion creeping up inside of him. It's an old paranoia. They're still tip-toeing around something, around him. He makes a sharp gesture at Tim and turns on his heel to go into his office.
“Tim. With me.”
As soon as Tim closes the door behind him, Jon wheels around, already furious.
“Why doesn't Martin want me to look into this case?” he demands.
Tim bounces on the balls of his feet, not meeting Jon's eyes. “He's just uneasy with it. Maybe he's got a thing against mold.”
“No,” Jon presses, pointing at him, “he wants to prevent me in particular from looking into it. Why?”
Tim sighs and lets himself go flat-footed.
“He just…doesn't want you to be uncomfortable,” Tim says awkwardly.
It's the awkwardness that confirms Jon's suspicions more than anything else. Jon takes a breath, resisting the urge to fiddle with the black ring on his middle finger. “And do I need to ask why?”
Tim glances at Jon's hand. Jon feels his jaw lock.
“Right,” he says. He barks out a laugh, angry. “Wonderful. I'm being discriminated against by a…by a librarian.”
“He doesn't mean anything by it,” Tim says with a grimace. “He's…worried about you.”
Jon glares at him. “Oh, good. I'm so glad someone is so concerned with my comfort. I'm not at all discomfited by being…infantilized.”
“Jon–”
“Don't tell me I'm overreacting,” Jon snarls.
“I wasn't going to,” Tim looks pained. “I'll talk to him. Or maybe you should, if you can do it without ripping his head off. You know he didn't intend any harm, he just doesn't–”
Jon snorts, going to his desk and slamming down his coffee with a little too much force. “What a wonderful thing it is, what we can do without intention.”
Jon flips open the folder again and scans it. He hates the statement. It makes his eyes itch. He wants to read it aloud. With only a glance, he can feel it starting to raise his blood pressure, feel the first pricklings of terror and disgust. It scares him.
Balls.
He stands again, deciding.
“What?” Tim asks, pausing just as he reaches for the door.
“I'm going to go speak to Ms. Faroe, in person,” Jon says. “I am going to prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that her statement was the result of…of drunkenness and poor recollection, not the supernatural.”
“Jon, don't be a martyr,” Tim groans.
Jon glares at him and pushes by to open the door.
“I am doing my job,” he says coldly. He gives another bark of laughter. “And if you're all truly so worried about this statement, then perhaps I'm precisely the person to investigate. If I come back infected with some kind of…urge for libidinous acts, I'll be sure to keep them to myself.”
He opens the door and gestures out. “After you,” he adds, with the unsubtle subtext of get the hell out of my office.
Tim hovers for a moment, clearly unhappy, before stepping out.
“Just don't–”
Jon shoves past Tim, letting his office lock behind him, and strides to the door out of the Archives without a glance back. Martin stands up at his sudden exit, looking alarmed. Jon ignores him, although he feels a deep, seething anger rolling in his gut.
Do the work, he reminds himself. He clenches his fist hard enough to feel his ring dig into his palm. You don't care what anyone thinks.
Jon's moving so quickly up the stairs that he almost runs fully into the person walking down.
“‘Scuze–” he begins tartly, and then nearly falls down a step when he looks up. “Ah– Elias. Pardon me. I was just–”
“Jon,” Elias says. He glances at his watch. “A little early for lunch, isn't it?”
“Oh, I–” Jon clears his throat, discombobulated. Why would Elias be going down to the Archives? “I'm on my way to look into a statement, actually.”
Elias raises one eyebrow. “Am I to understand you require more assistants? Or have Mr. Stoker, Ms. James, and Mr. Blackwood all gone on leave?”
“No, no,” Jon says, a little too sharply. “They're all fine, it's– Sasha is already working on some follow-up, and– well, the others are, um, well honestly, they're a bit spooked.” Jon rolls his eyes, regaining a bit of his composure as he does. “Since the situation is a delicate one, I thought it best I take over myself. There's no need to overindulge these flights of imaginative drivel in the others, or in the statements themselves. I hope to set a precedent of unbiased skepticism.”
“Quite right,” Elias says, with one of his enigmatic smiles. His eyes dance with some kind of knowing humor. “Well. Don't let me keep you.”
Jon breathes a sigh of relief once he steps out of the Institute. The feeling that Elias is silently laughing at him still crawls over the back of his neck.
“On with it, then,” Jon mutters to himself, and heads towards the nearest underground station.