Chapter Text
Jon’s feet patter down the steps with mild fervour, he whispers a string of curses; Already running about 15 minutes late, after a small series of unfortunate events. “Bugger… Run faster– Come on, Sims– fu…” The ancient wooden steps creak under his weight even if he barely touches each one, toeing all the way down with one hand gliding down the wall and one grasping tight to his bag and cane.
In his haste, Jon misses the last step; falling forward to his demise with more momentum than he was expecting. His hand pulls the bag up to his chest while the body curls inward, wings instinctively trying to move to stabilise himself yet to no avail as Jon’s foot drops right down onto the floorboards to his surprise and his luck.
Catching himself on a dusty shelf, the Archivist slowly lets out a soft pant, he’s at least not 20 minutes late (He tries not to dwell too much on that).
Yet a tight tug at his spine brought Jon’s attention to his back– he squirms for a second to try to get the fabric back in place, twisting and moving his arms sporadically yet to no luck.
This lasts a second before he gives up and pulls a hand up and over his shoulders to adjust a piece of tight fabric and a misplaced buckle that stretched over his wings to hide them, a binder if you will.
Said wings were currently under quite a few layers for a late August day in an un-air conditioned basement and Jon was really not in the clothes, nor in the mood to put any more unnecessary strain on his already tired back muscles yet he still needed to put his things away in the office, having an early morning meeting with his boss.
The week before, Elias had lovingly scheduled a brief meeting on Monday for what he called a: ‘Run down on the initial issues of the Archive and what he should be doing to help keep progress on a smooth and fast track to organisational perfection’. Although, that was Jon’s job anyway, despite how the previous Archivist had left it.
Jon just sighed, dragging himself around the bullpen– None of his assistants had arrived quite yet, having an extra 30 minutes to either go to morning meetings or prep some tasks for the workers under his care. On the way, his foot catches on a stack of papers, that’s haphazardly placed in his footpath,
“Oof–” He grumbles in annoyance, kicking the offending stack away, “We should organise these miscellaneous statements from the outside in…” Yet he does not pick any up, instead making a mental note to write that on the small blackboard of ‘To-Do’s that Sasha put up for efficiency.
In his office, Jon just placed his bag by the desk, sitting in his strangely comfortable desk chair and logs on the computer to run his eyes over the couple emails that grace his inbox: A request for some documents about an ex-employee trying to reapply, a complaint about Tim sneaking into the general break rooms to utilise the stove the Archives lacked and stunk up the whole room and a reminder of his meeting with Elias in about… Seven minutes.
In order of request, Jon sent off a scan about data of the guy that they had digitalised (If only they had that with the whole Archives) he then promised to have a ‘talk’ with Tim about ‘the situation’ and requested their own little induction stove to at the very least minimise both the ability to directly burn any Statements and also maybe the ability to heat up any stew from his freezer that he had forcibly been given as meal prep.
Finally, the Archivist sighs, stands from his chair and starts the trek back up to Elias’ office in one of the higher floors. Rolling his shoulders back, once, twice, Jon just grabs his cane, rounds the desk, pulls his office door open and climbs up the basement stairs.
When he wasn’t racing against the time, Jon was fighting his own body’s instability; wings themselves were used for balance the same way a cat's tail would be, often unfurling to catch themselves or to redistribute weight. Although, Jon had his own wings bound behind his back in a harness, which made his already shaky balance worse, hence the cane.
Jon was in the Lobby in about half a minute, which actually had a lift to the higher floors (it wouldn’t go all the way down to the Archives as it kept getting stuck when it hit the basement floor), pressing the button and stepping inside the steel box.
The Institute had 3 floors, not including the Archives’ that housed the 4 other departments, including Elias’ office somewhere on the third at the very end of the winding corridors.
Only the heads of departments were really arriving at the time, so without the fear of the lift stopping on every floor Jon let himself lean on the railing for a couple seconds. The red LEDs increased from G to 1 to 2 before the door slid open silently for Jon to start his short walk down the corridor towards the head’s office.
The door itself was this simple wooden one yet much more ornate than the rest of the offices; Gold accents, a polished doorknob with an engraved title where a peep hole would be. Jonah Magnus, the founder, was either really proud of his business or a prick.
Knock. Knock.
Jon raps on the door, waiting just a couple seconds before the muffled call comes from inside the room; The doorknob turns and Jon steps right in.
The current head, Elias Bouchard sat behind his large wooden desk with this obnoxious smile on his face– He was staring right through Jon. Grey eyes piercing his own as Jon just puts one foot in front of the other towards the vacant seat, leaning slightly on his cane when his wings shift enough to knock him off kilter.
“Ah, Jonathan. A pleasure to have you this morning.” Elias leans forward slightly, his forearms resting in front of him while Jon gets settled in the arm chair that he’s really surprised people get sacked in.
“I’m wondering how you’ve been settling into the Archives these past few months,” Elias’ voice is clear and concise as he explains his aspirations for the meeting this morning, “I heard you’ve been digitising quite a few Statements.”
Jon’s head just nods slowly, remembering to sit up straight and focus his gaze on his boss’ nose, “Yes, my assistants have been quite the help, Sasha has been scanning Statements, she has been the most help; Making folders on the local servers for ease of organisation.” In hindsight, Jon probably should have asked what that meant when Sasha had said it instead of taking it at face value– He majored in Parapsychology and Literature, not Computer Science.
“Excellent, Jonathan but monthly reviews for your assistants are not due until next week.” The majority of those were in fact written up and in Jon’s desktop, (which is a mess of icons) only having a total of three assistants under one department head was really a miracle for Jon– He couldn’t imagine having to write up more than three reports while being overloaded with request work and having to organise a whole department from scratch with almost no system in place.
“I wish to inform you about live Statements.” When he was in Research, Jon had seen a couple people head down to the Archives to speak to Ms Robinson but he hadn’t assumed anything more than a complaint or even just a mailman handing in Statements (it’s not like Jon just assumed she had no friends but… well), “You will have quite a few individuals who will come in to give you a Statement and I request, even with paper Statements, that if technology deems to fail for digitisation, you find means to record the Statement for Archiving, it is much easier to link ties in with emotion and verbatim gives that exact link.”
That made sense at the very least, “Right, yes.” Jon just found himself nodding again, “I’ll keep an eye out for any Statement givers… Will they be giving any notice?” Fiddling with his cardigan’s buttons, Jon has to remind himself about eye contact, his head flicking back up to focus on the tip of Elias’ nose instead of the piercing grey eyes. “They will do, so don’t worry too much about that aspect.”
“I apologise about the lack of training, I would have had you shadowing Gertrude if I knew of her… untimely departure.” Elias just moves some papers around on his desk before clicking through his computer for just a moment, “If you have a look on the Institute’s website, I’d suggest you read how the arrangement and scheduling works. Visitors, if they are to come in should have an email that you and Ms. Zampano should have access to.”
Tilting his head to the side, Jon gets a little peek at Elias’ computer screen, he makes note of where to find the website tab and leans back in his chair again, “I understand, Sir.” But there was one question he didn’t understand, “What do you mean by ‘technology failing’?”
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The familiar black and red double decker pulls up to the Institute, bustling with people at the ripe time of 8am, rush hour in full swing. A similarly familiar woman stumbled out the open doors of the bus, thanking the driver: The Institute’s own Sasha James, holding tight to her own messenger bag.
Her steps light as she enters Institute grounds, having a quick look in the window of the entrance, putting a loose hair out her face before pushing the door open to the lobby. Sasha passes a couple people in the office, one of the first of the Archives to appear as she approaches the receptionist.”
“Rosie! Morning!” Sasha just grins through the whole routine, clocking in, “Morning, Sasha.” Rosie just smiles up at her as she replies to some emails, “Is Tim in yet?” A shake of the head denies that statement, silly of her to ask. “If he has then he hasn’t come by me.” Sasha just groans and signs her name off on the sheet, “When is he ever early…?”
“One of these days, I’m telling you!” Sasha pockets that pen, just because she’s a model employee doesn’t mean she can’t nick a couple pens, not like Tim doesn’t do it too. “Keep telling yourself that, James,” and with that, Sasha scans her id and heads down to the Archives.
Her feet move slowly, casually down to the basement, wondering whether they should spruce up the walkway with a couple pictures when all of the organising is done and dusted. She scoops up a couple loose papers to add onto some of the more stable stacks on the closest shelf.
On the walk to her desk, Sasha sneaks a quick peek into Jon’s office; She sees his bag to the side of his desk and his computer logged on. She finally just places her bag to her own desk before collapsing in her spinny chair and is able to get some work started before Tim comes in to poke a hole through her concentration.
20 minutes later, at least some organising having done, most of the statements she’d found were almost all illegitimate made by drunk students or people who’d witnessed a sleep paralysis, at least that’s what she can find when doing some googling on the matter. Nonetheless, Sasha creates transcripts, saves them and files the physical statement away by year written with any appropriate notes and research made on a little lined paper both kept in a plastic wallet.
20 whole minutes. It really was all she had before the Archives door slammed open, echoing through the basement with loud music playing through headphones but loud enough to be heard anyway, along with chatter, “Oh– Careful, Tim.” Looks like her coworkers decided to arrive as a troupe then.
“We come bearing gifts!” Tim excitedly runs in, tripping over his own feet with Martin on his tail with a small box of muffins, fresh from the Bakery. Tim dumps his backpack right by his desk and chases Martin all the way to their breakroom, immediately nabbing a chocolate muffin, taking an extra lemon muffin to deposit onto Sasha’s desk. “How generous of you, Stoker.” Sasha took the muffin in hand and hummed in delight at the first bite, “And, thank you, Martin.”
Martin just stammered over his words for a moment before just grinning gratefully and giving a thumbs up, heading into the break room again for a little cleanup for the crumbs Tim left scoffing down his muffin, leaving both Tim and Sasha in the bullpen.
“Is the boss in?” Tim leans his body over Sasha’s desk, not so discreetly leaving his wrapper on her desk along with muddy fingers dropping crumbs everywhere, “He is, just out of the Archives for a bit.” Sasha herself just takes a more neat bite; There’s still crumbs that drop onto her trousers but she didn’t choke hers down like a starved wolf.
“I thought I was early for once…” Dramatically, Tim goes to flop in his own chair– A couple metres away from both Martin and Sasha’s desk. “He’s so cagey lately. ‘Oh Tim, aren’t you supposed to be working on this!’, ‘Martin, this formatting is completely wrong!’ Like, I love the guy but…” He lets out a long lasting sigh and pushes off the floor, the wheels of his chair squeaking all the way back to Sasha’s desk.
He picks up one of the pens off her desk, spinning it between his fingers, Sasha just turns to him and raises an eyebrow and Tim takes it personally, “I mean it! I do like him. I mean… not that the cane is bad, I don’t know if it’s a fashion choice or…” Sasha perked up and furrowed her brow, moving to switch tabs from the research she was doing to her files, clicking through a couple, “Actually, Tim… I saw Jon’s file once.” “He showed you that?” “No…”
She tilts her screen slightly to obscure Tim’s vision, obviously not wanting to give any information out that Sasha really didn’t have the right to properly share, “But, there’s no injury note on here…” She scrolls through the employee report that she definitely didn’t steal from Jon’s computer, he needs to stop logging onto his computer and just leaving it there. “Have you seen how many layers he wears? He could just be off balance!” Tim squirms in his seat and decides against sitting on it properly, giving up with the pen and just pulls his phone out to find an image from Research.
“He dresses like we’re going into the Ice Age, Sash! Look at this–” Tim scrolls through all the images, each one Jon is wearing at least four layers, usually a cardigan over either a T-Shirt or a dress shirt over a turtleneck or undershirt with a thick coat over that! “No man needs this many layers. He’ll tip over at this rate!”
Martin finds this the right time to walk into the room with three mugs in hand, Jon’s own unfilled sit on the counter for when he comes in, “I uhm, have tea?” He places all three onto Sasha’s desk and pulls his own chair over to sit with them before Tim spoke up, “Martin, have you noticed anything about Jon?”
A shrug, Martin takes a slow sip of his tea and hums in thought, “I don’t want to talk behind his back but…” Hesitating, Martin just sat staring down into his tea before Tim just scoffs into his hand and chugs half his tea before putting it down to push off the ground for a spin, “He’s not here, Martin. Plus we’re not speaking bad about him…” Sasha nods and pulls up the research tab again, “We’re just saying observations, no harm.”
Finally, Martin nods and just sighs, taking another sip, “Well… Have you seen the way he awkwardly backs out of rooms?” Both Sasha and Tim take a second to think back before nodding, “I remember when he did that when we caught him SO off guard with the jumpscare!” Tim hums as he reminisces on that day, just a small April Fools prank, “He jumped into the air and backed out of the room like he had something behind him...”
“Speaking of Jon,” Sasha pipes up again as she grabs another statement from her pile, “He asked me to research this but I swear with every statement he gives me, despite his…” She goes to try to be nice and Tim gets there before her, “Denial?” Then Martin, “Disbelief?”, “...Skepticism.”
“I swear these aren’t actually true? Every single researched statement is able to be disproved by witnesses,” She pulls up a report written about interviews taken around the place before continuing, “Police reports, thank you Tim.” Said man keens and hums, “Your welcome, Miss James.”
“Have either of you actually found a Statement that has no ties?” Neither Tim nor Martin spoke up and Martin just hums, “I suppose that’s why we have to organise it, separate the statements and fables.”
“You’re congregating.” Jon stood at the base of the stairs with an unimpressed look, hands slipping into his pockets as he sighs, rounding the bullpen, turning as his back starts to face the Archival Assistants. “I’d have a start on the To-Do list, otherwise I’ll have some work assigned.”