Chapter Text
“Statement of Charlene Emerson, regarding her grotesque and unusual demise. Taken direct from subject at the time of death, plus three days, one hour, five minutes.
Statement begins.”
Jon nodded encouragingly towards the late Ms Emerson, trying not to let his annoyance at the appalling backlog they were experiencing show on his face. He had found from experience that people - whether dead or pre-dead - tended to take a bad mood personally; and Jon seemed to have become nothing but pure solid bad mood (with pokey elbows) ever since he’d acquired this job.
Fortunately, Charlene Emerson was more focused on getting stuck into her last moments (with surprising gusto) than in worrying about the wait time, or the flaws in Jon’s earnest attempts at seeming like a decent and functional human being.
Elias had been on his case about it twice in the last month.
“You, Jon, are the last point of earthly contact for these tortured souls, the bridge between their mortal lives and the ungraspable regions beyond. The least you could do is to smile occasionally. Or at least drop that ‘I’d rather be chewing wasps’ expression.” Elias had narrowed his eyes, as Jon scowled at the floor. “Yes, that’s the one.”
It wasn’t intentional, was the thing. Contrary to popular belief, Jon did not, in fact, hate all of humanity (and their little dogs too). He was just … very bad at not giving off that impression. Especially when his job was getting worse every day and he was hanging on to his sanity by his slowly peeling fingernails.
“ … and, I mean, it’s not like flensing is an everyday term? I don’t see how I was supposed to guess …”
Jon had already known what it meant, even before this role began, but there were plenty of other words he was learning on the job; to his deep and continual regret.
He gritted his teeth as he experienced Charlene’s terror and a measure of her hurt (and, honestly, chewing wasps would be almost be a delightful experience, by comparison; though not, he supposed, for the wasps).
Jon had talked to Elias about that, after the first one, about how draining and traumatic and unexpectedly painful it had been; and had been given the distinct impression that he’d acted like a wailing toddler, whose mild graze was the worst thing that had ever happened to them. Being given the verbal equivalent of a sticking plaster and a pat on the head had … not been his most cherished memory.
He had not brought it up since.
“… I mean, I suppose, on the plus side, I would have done pretty well on an anatomy quiz, by the end. My mum always wanted me to be a doctor …”
The statement drew to a close, Charlene’s energy dropping at the end, to a moment of reflection and realisation; that this was it, this was real; that all she was and all she might have been, was over. She looked right at him as she spoke the last words - they always did - and he felt that sort of all-body click, as her story was locked into him and her essence departed; not happy, exactly, but glad to have been heard.
Despite everything - and there was a whole lot of everything - Jon always felt a fierce satisfaction at these moments; when the restless spirit went to their place of peace, assured that they would not be forgotten. Sometimes, they were even also avenged - a side effect of the job was that murderers could usually be pretty conclusively pinpointed; though that still relied on a certain amount of police effort and confirmation - but that was less often a concern for the departing spirit than Jon would have imagined.
Mostly, they just wanted someone to listen.
Jon just wished that it didn’t have to be him.
~~~
“Hello, this is the Department of Paranormal Easement. How may I help you?”
Martin had felt a little surreal the first few times he answered the phone like this, but it was amazing how quickly this had just settled into being a job, just like any other; full of filing and data entry and soothing tea breaks; office sweepstakes, in which he got the worst possible option, guaranteed; and the constant emotional mosquito bites of all his small, frustrating mistakes (which, okay, sometimes escalated into whacking great big ones, because this was all still fairly new and he wasn’t strictly qualified and his boss had this way with a glowering look of disappointment, which made him mess up three times as bad, next time, out of sheer panic.)
“Don’t mind the human hedgehog, Martin.” Tim had patted him reassuringly on the shoulder and swung his legs off the edge of Martin’s desk, the picture of nonchalant ease. “He’s not always this bad. I’d almost gotten him to relax and eat slugs tamely out of my hand, before we transferred here and he curled right back up into a ball of distressed prickles again.”
Martin sincerely hoped that Tim was speaking metaphorically about the slugs (and refused to find his own mental image of hedgehog Jon in any way unbearably cute). But it was pretty plain, when he took a moment to look, that Jon really was in distress. And it was no wonder, really. The role of Archivist was a tough one; and isolating.
Even as an archival assistant, only granted comparatively low level paranormal sensitivity, in order to handle the queues and keep track of the backlog, Martin sometimes found himself exhausted and affected by creeping second-hand trauma, which coated him like a residue he could never quite wash off.
He could only imagine what it must be like for Jon, having to open himself up completely and tuck countless horrors away in his heart, all neatly stacked and filed. Even reading them second-hand, as he typed Jon’s neat handwritten records into the computer, had given Martin nightmares, at times.
But, on the only occasion that Martin had summoned up the courage to talk about it - to express a little friendly sympathy - Jon had gone all extra stern and stiff and told him “I can handle it, thank you, Martin” in the most discouraging possible fashion.
After that, Martin had opted mostly to package his sympathy into tea delivery, with an occasional experimental biscuit, if Jon looked particularly tired or sad. It would be easier if he’d just give himself a break; but he was determined to get the waiting times down to a few hours maximum - preferably zero, which was frankly impossible - and wouldn’t take any hints on the subject, not even from Tim and Sasha, whom he actually liked.
Jon had explained it early on.
“The greater the build-up of resentful, lingering spirits, the greater the corresponding swell of potentially dangerous paranormal activity. Spot fires, poltergeist strikes, freezing zones or even worse. There have been at least four major global disasters, over the last century alone, which are directly attributable to …”
“A constipation of ghosts.”
“Thank you, Tim, that is … not exactly how I would term it, but close enough. If we don’t help them move on as quickly as possible, than something of the kind could very easily happen again. And I don’t propose to risk it.”
Which was very noble and all, but Martin couldn’t help but think he could factor just a little more sleep into his schedule, without devastating consequences.
“Oh no.” Sasha didn’t often sound defeated, so Martin’s heart made no hesitation in plummeting down to his knees and sloshing about there, nervously, as he turned towards her.
“Three really nasty ones just hit the queue, all at once. That’s going to bump the waiting time up quite a bit. Jon’s going to have a fit.” Sasha considered. “Well. Not a fit. Just do that thing where he ratchets up his personal tension level so high, you could lay him down and use him for a tight-rope, and telling us he’s ‘perfectly fine’, while his eyes are busily setting off flares and scrawling ‘help!’ in giant, messy letters.”
Martin could picture that exactly. He had had to forcibly stop himself from physically picking Jon up and just hugging the hell out of him, more than once.
“It’s still way better than when we started though, right? I mean, it was actual weeks there, for a while.”
Sasha nodded, grinning over at him with a deserved sense of self-satisfaction.
“Yup. We’ve done an amazing job. But Jon always sees even the smallest delay as a personal failure.”
“Pretty sure Elias has something to do with that.” Tim put his usual sunniness aside for a moment, in order to work up a respectable scowl. “I swear that man must have won the International Sliminess awards, for at least three years running.”
Martin opened his mouth, in his habitual tendency to defend people; and then shut it, because, yeah. Elias Bouchard was a master of seeming completely reasonable, while expertly cutting away your self-esteem and relentlessly undermining your arguments and/or spirits. Plus, he just had this thing, this intense, gloating sort of stare, like he was trying to dig right into your soul and scoop out the soft, sweet centre. He did that with most people, to some extent, but especially to Jon.
And Martin had found that he really didn’t like that, not one little bit.
But, as to actually being able to make things any better … well. His options were limited.
“I’ll … get us a round of tea.”
~~~
Jon would deeply, deeply appreciate it, if people would just kindly not fall into industrial meat grinders, thank you. It would make life better all round. And, in some cases, longer. And less … shredded.
At least it made a change from brutal murder.
Ghosts - or, at least, the potentially harmful variety - didn’t result every time someone died, of course, nor even every time someone was murdered; but only in cases where the death was deeply and exceptionally horrific, leaving the sort of emotional scars which were so stubborn, they couldn’t even be erased by death. A mere brutal beating, for example, wouldn’t usually result in a ghost, whereas slowly lopping someone up, one small piece at a time, had a very respectable chance.
(He hadn’t eaten for two days after that particular statement).
Unlike most people, Jon had been aware of all this, even before he’d joined the Department; his interest in the subject going all the way back to when he had been caught up in one of the lesser-known side effects of serious ghost pollution, at the age of eight. Colloquially, they were known as ‘reality snack attacks’; when the build-up of pulsating negative forces temporarily broke a tiny section of the universe and warped it into some brief nightmare scenario, which hungrily snapped up some unfortunate and swallowed them into non-existence, before reality healed up over the bump.
Jon’s own experience had involved a very, very big spider, with an unreasonable quantity of leg; and he really didn’t want to think about it any further that that: except that it had pretty much coloured his entire life afterwards.
He had fully intended to stay permanently in the research department, investigating incidents and looking for more effective ways to detect and contain ‘harmful residue’ (there were some who used outdated terms like ‘ectoplasm’ and others who used more modern, and scientific, terminology - some of which was so long and complicated, it had actually broken tongues - but the sheer viciousness of the nomenclature infighting had led to vague and neutral stalemate words being used as placeholders, until everyone got a bit more chilled about it).
Being shoved abruptly, and with no preparation, into the Archivist role had never been part of the plan. But the previous Archivist had died and Elias had made it seem like, if he didn’t immediately step into the breach, the build-up would become instantly catastrophic and Jon, personally, would be responsible for the subsequent meltdown of civilisation.
It would have taken someone a lot braver than Jon to say ‘no, thanks’ to that one.
He took a deep breath, trying to shrug off the meat grinder story, and the residual memories of getting minced, as he shuffled his notes. Officially, there was supposed to be a minimum two hour break period, between statements - and four hours after any three - but there was no hope of getting the backlog down to anything sensible that way and Elias had already expressed his disappointment more than once, that Jon hadn’t got the wait time down to less than twenty four hours post death yet.
“Well, why aren’t there more Archivists? One seems like a ludicrously inadequate amount, if the risks are so high.”
Elias had shaken his head and done that ‘stifling a long-suffering sigh’ thing.
“Because, Jon, the Archivist role is not merely a job, but a metaphysical construct. The rules are not negotiable and they seem to work very much on the ‘there can be only one’ principle.
“Technically, we could appoint as many Archivists as we wanted, but only one of them would be able to actually do the work. In this case, you. And, besides, as I’m sure you’re aware, the percentage of deaths resulting in ghosts is vanishingly small. There’s really no reason you shouldn’t be able to keep on top of things, with a little application.”
And Jon had tried hard, he really had, but, it had taken months just to get to this point; and still people kept inconsiderately turning into ghosts, in what felt like droves - statistics be damned - increasing their numbers spitefully, every time he was starting to get close to his goal.
Jon was just reflecting that the mature and sensible thing to do, at this point, was to take up smoking again, when Martin bustled in with a mug of tea and two malted milks.
“Hey Jon! Thought you might want a little something.”
“A rope to hang myself with?”
Ah. By the look on Martin’s face, that was probably not an appropriate use of humour. Or maybe Jon had looked just a little too much like he meant it.
“Sorry, Martin, that was just a joke. A bad one. Thank you for the tea.”
Martin nodded, giving Jon a small, uncertain smile.
“Maybe you should come out of the office for your break? Get a change of scenery.”
“Ah yes, the wide open vistas of slightly more desks and a broken photocopier.”
Martin looked like he was going to wilt again, for a moment - Jon didn’t know whether to feel more guilty about that, or relieved that he was going to be left alone with his embarrassing post-statement shakiness - before looking suddenly determined, with a unexpectedly combative spark in his eye.
“Actually, I think you’ve underestimated the charms of the departmental offices. Let me give you the tour.”
Jon was surprised - and exhausted - enough to let Martin take his hand and lead him out of there.
“The first thing you’ll note, besides the wall covered in snapshots of Tim photoshopped with various celebrities …”
“Not photoshopped, I met all of them. Including JFK and Marvin the Martian.”
“… is this luxuriant fake plant, with amazingly unconvincing leaves and a weirdly huge bite out of one, which no one has ever admitted to. And don’t forget to take a close look at the computers, which are genuine antiques …”
Tim and Sasha added their own commentary and, for a few minutes, Jon almost enjoyed himself, playing along with his hapless tourist persona, expressing a suitable awe at things like Post-it Note Mountain and asking deliberately guileless questions, to his guides’ delighted amusement.
Then guilt kicked him hard in the sides and pointedly showed him a queue of the insufficiently dead, getting increasingly impatient.
“Well, this has been … illuminating, thank you. But I’d better get back to work.”
He nodded at his team and walked briskly back into his office, before anyone could dissuade him; including himself.
The next ghost had suffered an insect infestation so horrific, that Jon spent half an hour throwing up afterwards, putting him even further behind. But he focused on the memory of Martin’s staggering smile, Tim’s gleefully inaccurate ‘fun facts’ and Sasha’s straight-faced presentation of her pen collection as one of the modern wonders of the world; and found that it helped a little, with ploughing on through the next one. And the next.
“Statement of Armand Delille, regarding a grisly encounter with a lawnmower. Taken direct from subject, at the time of death, plus three days, seventeen hours, thirty seven minutes.”
“Look, before you say anything, I should start off by pointing out that I was very, very drunk …”
~~~
It had always been clear that there was more to Jon than a snappish exhaustion, under a stiff professional veneer - all wrapped around a deep core of sadness - but it was nice to have that officially confirmed.
After the ridiculous office tour - which Martin still couldn’t quite believe he’d had the guts to actually pull off - Jon had mellowed considerably. His voice was softer when he relaxed (even more beautiful) and it sank into parts of Martin he wasn’t aware could even be affected by that sort of thing and gave them a thorough warm tingling. Traces of kindness shyly slipped into his demeanor; or, rather, were now more visible, with less sharpness being layered over the top, obscuring it.
Discovering that he could be funny, though, was the big surprise for Martin and it utterly and completely sealed his doom as the man with the biggest and most hopeless crush in the world. Because, even if Jon was being a little more sociable and smiling at him as if he actually meant it (rather than having his mouth pulled up at the edges, by sharp, invisible wires) he was still Martin’s boss; still working about five times harder than was good for him - Martin was pretty sure there were nights he didn’t even go home - and, as for Martin himself, well … he had never exactly been a prize, had he?
But the fact that Jon was unattainable, didn’t seem to do anything to stop Martin’s feelings from getting wildly out of control and whispering the ‘L’ word to themselves, alternating between smitten little giggles and a deep pining ache that reached to every corner of his being and gave it a good hard, bruising pinch.
All of which would have been perfectly fine, as a rather novel and exciting sort of underlying pain, overshadowing his mother’s steady poison drip of resentment (which had been with him so long that, even when she wasn’t talking to him, he filled in the blanks for her and berated himself, as a good son should).
Except that, when Martin cared about someone, he tended to want to take care of them; an inbuilt instinct that went so deep it overrode diffidence and common sense and almost everything else.
Tea was a start, but it didn’t really cover the wider picture. Martin claimed a victory every time he managed to drag Jon out of the office for lunch, but always lost the battle when it came to his taking any other mandatory breaks or leaving on time.
“Jon, it’s almost nine. You should have left hours ago.”
Jon looked up, startled and wary, like a meercat taken by surprise and not sure whether to bolt or just style it out, with a flash of claw.
“Martin? What are you still doing here?”
‘Monitoring your preposterous work hours with grim disapproval’ really didn’t seem like the best way to answer that one.
“I like to record poetry here after work sometimes. It’s peaceful. A nice atmosphere.”
Jon raised a sceptical eyebrow; which was an unfairly hot look on him.
“A nice atmosphere. Full of horrifically murdered souls.”
Which was … a fair point. But Martin didn’t buckle so easily (except at the knees, if Jon kept doing that eyebrow thing).
“Sometimes poetry needs that. A little bit of haunting dread. The echo of severed limbs all through your couplets.”
Jon gave him the smallest hint of a ghost of a smile, before solemnly reciting.
“‘I wandered lonely as a cloud, that floats on high o’er gristle and gore,
When all at once I saw a crowd, a splash, of innards on the floor’ ”
“Exactly. A big improvement for anyone who hates daffodils.”
Jon’s smile became almost visible.
“Personally, I’m rather fond of them. They’re … bright and cheerful and warming.”
Jon looked at Martin with far too much intensity for one heart to bear and he was dangerously close to blurting out something unwise, when the chill of the dead slipped in through the door and proceeded to tap its foot so fiercely that even Martin could practically see it.
The lightness left Jon in an instant, leaving him looking small and tired and as if Atlas had, not just slipped the world off his own shoulders and onto Jon’s, while he pissed off for a pint, but stacked up a few extra planets, and a cherry on top, for good measure.
“Jon, please …”
“I’m sorry, Martin. I need to do this. Just one more and then I’ll go home.”
“And then you’ll be right back here at six again and working until nine or ten or until you fall asleep at your desk. You can’t keep doing this, Jon.”
And, damn, too much exasperation (too much desperation) had slipped through, smothering the would-be persuasive tone and Jon had set his shoulders back stubbornly, his face slipping back into that haughty, disgruntled frown he had seemed to live in for a while. And, yes, fair, Martin had no right to talk to him this way, as if he had some actual say in Jon’s life; but how could he just stand there and watch him slowly crash? Just ignore it, as Jon was eaten alive by his own exhaustion, chewing him up throughly and not even bothering to spit out the bones.
“Martin, I’ve already explained how behind we are.”
“And I’ve checked that against the guidelines and we’re still way, way under critical levels.”
“As far as a global crisis goes, yes. But even a comparatively small amount of residue can cause … incidents. Not so big, perhaps, but still potentially bad for someone. Very bad.”
Jon looked down, his eyes shadowed by something that Martin deeply wished that he could yank right out of him and viciously stamp on, and then pull Jon into his arms for a hug.
“I need to keep on top of things. I’m sure, if I just try harder …”
Ah, yes. Jon had had a meeting with Elias earlier. Polite. Insidious. Devastatingly critical. Martin knew that modus operandi well, like a scar on the spirit.
He switched tactics.
“Look, I understand that this job is important. But, if you end up burning yourself out, working like this, then the queues are only going to go up even more, while you recover, or while Elias finds someone who’s willing to take over the job.”
Martin half wished he would; that Jon would just quit and be done with it all. Find a nice quiet erudite research job, where nothing mattered, and get a cat and a hobby and some sleep. Except that, then, Martin would never see him again and the thought left him howling and whimpering into his own lovesick bowels.
“He … he can’t do that, actually. Find a replacement. Not until I’m dead.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Once you’ve been officially made Archivist, the role’s yours for life. It’s all very metaphysical.”
“So, wait, this is it now? You don’t even get to retire?”
“Well, traditionally, Archivists don’t tend to reach retirement age, so I suppose it’s never come up as an issue.”
Jon smiled at Martin, as if this was mildly amusing, instead of about the most chilling thing he could possibly have said.
“Christ, Jon. Wait, did you know about this before you took the job?”
“It was ... not made exactly clear to me until afterwards, no.”
Jon looked embarrassed, as if it was his own fault he’d been trapped into what amounted to a terminal illness. Martin took a moment to consider what would be better; suing the hell out of Elias, or simply beating him slowly to death.
Apparently something of all this was showing through, because Jon reached out and took his hand; which quite effectively derailed any and all such thought processes from occurring.
“Martin. I know it’s not … ideal. But there’s nothing to be done about it now. I’ve accepted the job and I’ll do it. I don’t really have a choice in the matter.”
Martin squeezed Jon’s hand - because it was right there in his own and how could he not? - and Jon squeezed back; before gently letting go.
“Go home, Martin. I promise this will be my last one for the night.”
Jon had a quiet authority to him at times, when he wasn’t trying too hard; and Martin found himself nodding and leaving, before he could put together a cogent argument for staying.
But he didn’t sleep, until the light was already reaching up thin, wavering fingers and snuffing out the stars.