Chapter Text
Jonny had just been promoted to head archivist… somehow. He wasn't entirely sure what being head archivist meant, but it did mean that someone had finally recognized his flawless leadership skills.
He fiddled with a pen staring at the mess in front of him; maybe if he disassociated hard enough the files would sort themselves.
At least Tim and Sasha were going to be helping him, they were the only people in this godforsaken place with any common sense. His fingers twitched towards the gun hidden in his desk drawer just at the thought of Elias. His dislike of the man stemmed from nothing provable as of yet, but something about his condescending tone would get him shot on sight in any other situation.
He paused as he heard a knock on the door, it was probably Tim or Sasha inquiring about something archive-ey. However when he hastily shouted “Come in,” he was met with the round bespectacled face of a man who he may remember vaguely from having seen him in passing around the institute.
“Sorry you haven't seen a dog have you?”
The unexpected identity of the person at the door, caught him so off guard he mind-blanked and just spurted out.
“Like, in general or…” Instead of some clever excuse about not having the foggiest clue what a dog is. Gp-Tim might have mentioned them at some point. He didn't pay enough attention to the weapons masters rambles about Earth to know such niche knowledge like what a dog is.
“Uh uhm sorry its just,”
Dogs must be truly terrifying if they made people this nervous, maybe this would be exciting after all.
“I sort of, maybe, let one in…”
“You what,” Jonny said this trying to project shock and horror into his tone but inside he was vibrating with excitement.
“intothearchives, you see I was trying to pet it and then it just, kind of, slipped past me”
The man in the jumper grew progressively red as his tale continued.
“Who are you?” Jonny interrupted, having deflated slightly over the course of the explanation, after realising that dogs were not in fact monstrous beasts he could battle.
“oh uh I’m Martin Blackwood, one of the new archival assistants, you must be Tim right,”
It took Jonny a second to remember that he should probably correct this, now red as a sptomato ‘Martin’ person on his name and yet another second to remember the alias he was using momentarily. This lead to quite the awkward silence.
“Ah no I am not Tim, I am Jonathan Sims, head archivist,”
Martins face fell.
“I expect this ‘dog’ situation to be dealt with immediately,”
“oh yeah, uh sorry, sorry again, I’ll get right to that,” and with that, the door was closed.
Being head archivist was exhausting, he had to speak to people, instead of just shooting them, or stabbing them, or some other method of murder.
—-----
It was his third day as head archivist, and Jonny had done a sum total of nothing for the past hour and a half and would have lost his sanity, if he had any in the first place.
He had resigned himself to spinning in his chair and contemplating his very long life, while that had been fun for about ten seconds, it quickly got very existential.
Maybe he could make a statement about something that had happened, but that would require writing a bunch of stuff down, and writing is tedious.
“uh boss you good?”
Jonny nearly fell off his chair in surprise. It took all of his self control not to shoot Tim (not the one with the luscious hair) on the spot.
“ah yes sorry, how long have you been standing there?”
“long enough to know somethings up with you”
Tim eyed him suspiciously.
“You’re usually such a workaholic, what are you doing just spinning in a chair?”
He usually didn't have a nice private office, where no one could watch him.
“Is something wrong?”
Tim made his way farther into the room, and leaned slightly on the desk.
“No, no, nothings wrong Tim don't worry about it”
“Really? This is very out of character for you, ‘mr works through lunch and break unless forced’”
Tim seems almost scrutinising, in the way he peers at Jonny then.
“yeah sorry my flatmates decided to have impromptu band practice at three in the morning, so I am running on coffee, and a dream at the moment,” he joked.
“Oh I thought you lived alone, did you move or something?”
right, Tim had only been to his ‘flat’ and not the aurora.
“uh yeah something like that”
Tim was now fully sat on his desk.
“Anyway Tim, what did you come in here for?”
“Oh right yeah so we found this statement that wouldn't record, whenever we tried to play it back it just came out as like this garbled static, which is a bit spooky to be honest, so we figured we’d just give it to you,” huh maybe ivy would know how to deal with it.
“Thank you Tim, I can deal with that if you just leave it to me,”
“right-o bossman, take care of yourself yeah,”
Tim left the room and Jonny relaxed with a sigh, picking up the file Tim had left on his desk 'statement of Nathan Watts regarding an encounter at old fishmarket close, Edinburgh’.
—-----
“Had you known that the bossman moved recently?” he directed the question at Sasha.
“No I didn't think he had” she turned around in her seat to face him.
“What, did he say something about having moved?” she replied, cocking her head to the side in inquiry.
“Well he mentioned his flatmates and having been to his flat, he definitely didn't have any then so I asked if he had moved, and he said he had but that feels like the kind of thing he'd tell us at some point, I’d like to think we are good enough friends with him for him to tell us that kind of news,”
“Hmm yeah that is kind of strange i’ll check if he has recently,” Sasha turned back to her computer and started looking for records of Jon having moved.
—-----
When he got back to the Aurora that evening, he made a beeline for the ratty old couch and collapsed into it, squashing Gp-Tim who yelped, before shooting him in the head. Jonny just glared up at him.
“Fucking asshole,” Jonny mumbled into the now-bloody fabric of the couch pressing against his face.
“shithead” Tim said, the slight smirk at the corner of his mouth giving away the underlying affection in the words.
“So how was work,”
Tim pushed Jonny off the couch and he landed on the floor with a thump, Jonny just lay there; unable to summon the willpower to do anything about his current position.
“it was so fucking boring you have no idea,” Jonny rubbed his hands across his face in exasperation.