Archive of Our Own ^beta

***

cut the tether

send them away

but where do they go?

…

they go to him

and they go to him

and they go to him and him and him and him and him and him and him and him and him and him and him and him

***

• The End

Jonathan Sims does not tell anyone, after his two-and-a-half-decades-dead mother arrives to give him cooking advice.

He’s never been keen on the idea of being institutionalised. As much as he enjoys routine and clarity, he’d far rather it be on his own terms. There is only a short list of people who he would even consider telling, and the phrase for your own good fits rather nicely in each of their mouths. They mean well, he tells himself, grimacing.

Besides, loathe as he is to admit it, he probably needs the advice. His grandmother taught him some recipes, but this was limited to once every four-to-six business weeks, when she condensed all the affection she ought to have spread a little more evenly into one terse afternoon of bonding. Jonathan Sims could knock up a mean beef wellington, had he access to beef, or wellington, or five hours of free time. He has none of those things, and cannot boil rice without it clumping up into charred little balls.

Until, that is, his mother breezes through the doorway of his kitchen quite without ceremony, and laughs high and bright like a chiming bell.

Jonathan Sims drops his spoon, and his mother says, “You are using the wrong spoon,” and Jonathan Sims begins to hyperventilate.

Which he thinks is a very appropriate reaction.

She chuckles and shakes her head.

“Such a lot of fuss for a bit of bad rice,” she chastises gently, and reaches up to cup his cheek. Her fingers pass through his skin, because she is dead, but up he thinks, up. That is a detail he had not known, had not been able to parse from the few photographs of him perched on her lap that he has engraved into the underside of his skull.

“You were shorter than me,” he wheezes.

She smiles, a warm pinched thing.

“Am, beta. I am still here.”

He barks a hysterical laugh. It cuts off abruptly, as all at once numbingly calm, he considers, “Oh. Am I dead, then?”

She shakes her head.

“Not here you’re not. But death is with you now. Maybe you will not mind so much? Because it looks like me.”

Jonathan Sims takes her in. She is wearing the clothes from his favourite and most crinkled photograph, the one he keeps carefully tucked inside his wallet along with a spritz of her rosewater perfume on the back of a Pokémon card. She is smiling softly, and she is smiling unafraid.

Be brave, she had whispered, before they had wheeled her away, I’ll be back soon.

She had been smiling unafraid then too.

“I should mind,” he croaks, “I should mind, this isn’t right, or maybe I’m not right -”

“You are perfect, beta. Like the day you were born.”

Death curls her fingers around his wrist and for a moment he feels nothing.

“I don’t mind,” he whispers.

She nods, and her dark eyes twinkle.

He feels death around his wrist, warm and solid.

***

• The Stranger

What is a face? Jon thinks, cross-legged on the floor of his shower with lukewarm water hammering on his back.

He knows, academically of course.

A face is a…

A collection.

Not quite an archive, noun, a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people, but a living collection; a zoo, perhaps, a congregation of activity. Most have eyes that roll in sockets and lips that part and noses that twitch. Pores that open and wrinkles that crease and hairs that sprout and brows that, around him anyway, seem to frown more than to smile.

He knows what a face is.

But somehow, he’s sure that it used to be something different.

Something has changed, in what a face is. It used to be so much more…

Useful?

He used to be able to use faces, to identify people. He had a gallery, first left in the corridor of his mind, of neatly labelled faces. Fig 31, Rosie, Brown eyes, white skin, curly brown hair.

But one day, after waking from a nightmare about dolls and music, he had found the gallery locked. He had rattled the handle, and rammed his shoulder into the door, and something within had laughed thin and cruel and crooned, don’t set off the alarm.

He’s lucky that it happened at the beginning of term. He could get away with it with his classes – who can remember what year nines look like anyway, they’re so caked in mud and ill-matched foundation. But his whole life isn’t his classes, not even his whole working life.

When he had failed to recognise Basira at the photocopier, she had said, You’re not funny, Jon.

When he had failed to recognise Basira at lunch duty, she had said, You’re still not funny, Jon.

When he had failed to recognise Basira in his classroom, and had buried his fingers in his hair and pressed the heels of his hands into his eye sockets; when he had moaned, it’s not funny, it’s not funny at all –

She had frowned and started googling neurologists.

He has an appointment next week, Tuesday.

Basira had offered to go with him and he had choked out a bitter, scared, what, to be a familiar face? and laughed far too hard.

Basira had blinked at him as the laughter petered out, and then she had said, I’m coming with you.

The water has run cold.

He tries the door one more time.

That same, thin laughter.

• The Slaughter

“Fuck.”

Is the first thing he hears.

Ever?

He thinks possibly not.

But anything before that is –

Fuzzy?

More than that.

It’s -

Then he hears –

“Oh no, oh fucking –”

A rustle of fabric and a wet slap beside his ear.

Pressure on his chest.

Pain?

Possibly.

It’s sort of hard to tell these days.

Which is odd, because he…

Can’t…

Remember -

“No you fucking – hey!” fingers on his jaw, “Hey, look at me, prick.”

The fingers twist his jaw from side to side roughly.

They are sticky.

He wrinkles his nose.

They slap him.

Pain?

Pain.

That one was definitely pain.

He opens his eyes.

Crusty and sticky and -

Blurry.

Blurry and… blue?

And angry, but also scared.

Some red too.

His red?

Probably his red.

He is producing a lot of red.

“There, yes, now fucking keep it like that, keep looking at me, because if you die in my arms Georgie is going to fucking kill me, and I will get revenge in the afterlife, so keep fucking looking at me, while I –”

That was… a lot of words.

He tries to pick out the most important ones.

Georgie sticks out for some reason, and so does die.

That one he definitely understands.

“Fucking” came up quite a few times.

As did…

Looking.

He tries to look but instead he –

Drifts.

“Ambulance. Come on, come on. How long can it take to – hello? Yes, he’s breathing for now, but he’s going fucking blue because someone’s fucking stabbed him in the chest. Yes, a knife, what else would it be, a bloody javelin? Yeah, it’s still there. I’m already doing that. He’s sort of conscious but only because I’m shouting at him. Oh, really? JON, YOU’RE A REAL FUCKING ARSEHOLE. STAY AWAKE. Yes, it’s working. JON, YOU’RE A TWAT AND YOU LOOK LIKE A SQUIRREL. What kind of – uh… fast, very fast. Yeah, yeah, he’s all sweaty and gross. No I… I don’t have a coat. If I get something to put his feet up I have to let go of the – HEY. PRICK. NO, YOU’RE NOT DOING THAT. JON. JON. Jon? Come on Jon, please. Jon? Jo-n…”

Looking…

Looking…

Look –

“JON!”

***

• The Lonely

The advisors had warned him, is the thing.

“Once first term is over and you no longer have the structure of taught modules, it is very easy to get to the end of the week and realise you haven’t spoken to a human in the last seven days.”

He had scoffed at this. That wouldn’t be him. He had a good supervisory team after all, who assured him that he was free to contact any time between their scheduled monthly meetings, that their inboxes were always open, and their office doors too. He’d also see people in the lab of course – Karina kept a similar schedule to him and she was working with the lichen, and Grant was always keen to pop in to avoid his own work, arriving as he unfortunately and inevitably had at his writing-up year.

He wasn’t going to cook for himself, perish the thought, so he’d at least say his pleases and his thankyous to the canteen staff. He might even talk to people socially in the canteen, because this was a new start where nobody had to know that he didn’t really do that, that he couldn’t really do that, that he’d been reading about how to do that on slightly patronising Reddit threads. After all, he was among academics now. Proper academics, not undergrads who had stuck a pin in a prospectus at random, or takers of the infamous panic masters. No, he was among people whose hearts pounded in rhythm with the clacking of the microscopes as they focused in on something new and fascinating, people with matching soil caked beneath their fingernails, people with passion, people with drive, people who were, hopefully, a little bit odd.

He did ever so well at first. He managed to chat (chat!) with Karina about her dog (extrapolating cat knowledge as best he could) without the guilt-sharpened claws of unfinished work snatching him back to his workbench. The was called Lily, and he only called her Rosie once, and Karina didn’t mind correcting him with a small and breezy laugh. Grant casually tilted the bag of crisps he was munching at in his direction and he took one, he actually took one, and he smiled at it in his palm for a second too long before popping it into his mouth. Grant gave him a funny look, but not funny like he was going to end up in a ditch with a split lip by the end of the day, but funny like he was trying amusedly to work something out.

Jon didn’t mind at first – preferable to the ditch after all. But the squinting across rooms and the heavy gaze on the back of his neck, the probing concentration on the words he spoke and the sideward glances at his notebooks - he found himself starting to feel a little bit like the cells he was carving up to place under microscopes. Especially when he overheard Grant say, “I think I’m making him my little project,” as he rounded the corner, and the startled widening of his eyes left no question as to who “him” was. Logically he knew that Grant’s project was a desperate plight to do anything other than his actual PhD. He probably had fifteen other little projects beside, because he probably had fifteen other people regularly in his life aside. But Jon did not have this, so the weight of scrutiny made him curl up like a wintertime daisy.

He tried to hold on for a while, he really did. He managed the questions, about what Lily had chewed up that morning, how she was responding to her new food - but could only get mono-syllables out after that. Shame rose in his throat when he ran out of questions, and he desperately blurted one he had stored, and Karina sighed exasperatedly and said, “Same as when you asked an hour ago, Jon.”

He is working on vines, presently. Great sprawling things tucked away in the corner of the lab. They sprawl over his work surface and tickle his chin, they tangle through his hair and brush against his wrists, and snake around his fingers in enchanting patterns. He doesn’t try as hard as he could to resist. The first time it happens, he pulls away, sure – unwraps the twine from his forearm and takes a step sideways, but he does not take two. And when it crosses the step easily and closes around his bicep, more firmly this time, he pulls his notebook closer and does not struggle against it until it is evening and the lights go out on his forgotten self.

The grip grows more insistent each day. It still lets him leave each night, once the lights have been turned out. But by daytime, it begins to hold him in place, tethering him to the spot, legs straight and knees locked in such a way that he must shake them out carefully before trying to move, lest he pass out. He thinks the vine would catch him, but he is not sure what that would mean.

He cannot blame it, on the day it takes him.

The lights go out, and he feels it begin to relinquish its grip, free him to his evening of aloneness, of staring at his wall, of silence. But he does not move, or rather he does not move away. Instead, he raises his hand, and reaches through the leaves to a central tangle.

And he says, please.

The vines need no further instruction. They separate and twist, they sprawl and they curl, around his arms, his legs, so gently around his neck. Tiny threads intricate around his fingers, smooth and flat and soothing across his forehead, warm and thick across his chest. It scoops gently around his thighs and hoists him close, spreads his arms like something biblical and – stills.

The leaves are cool, and soft, and he is hidden and hurtless.

Soon, nobody notices the untended vines, that simply will not die.

***

• The Vast

you have to get up, jonathan

i can’t

jonathan, it’s twenty past eight. the gates close at ten to nine, and i refuse to march you to reception and tell them that you were having too much of a tantrum to get out of bed on time. so you are going to get up. now.

i can’t.

*sigh.* look jon, i know school has been difficult for you recently, and i am sorry about that but -

it’s not that. i. just. can’t.  

why can’t you?

the bed’s too big.

what?

the bed’s too big. every time i try to get closer to the edge, it just gets bigger. if i roll it gets bigger, if i crawl it gets bigger, if i stand up and try to walk i just get dizzy and fall back down again. it’s too big and it won’t let me leave.

i really don’t want to lose my temper, jonathan…

you try then. try and grab me, pull me out.

jonathan…

try it.

i’m not negotiating with you, jonathan.

try. it.

…

try again.

…

do you see? i’m not lying. i never, ever lie and nobody ever believes me –

i’ll… i’ll tell the school you’re having a tricky day. they’ll… they’ll understand, they know you’ve had a tricky time, these last few… these last few months… years… i do understand that jonathan, i do, i…

wait, don’t go

i’ll ring the…

gran… gran, don’t go, don’t – don’t leave me here, it’s – it’s too big, i – i can’t hear you anymore i – gran please don’t leave me here – don’t leave me –

***

• The Dark

“That painting’s wrong,” Jon frowns, popping a Malteser from the gift shop into his mouth.

Sasha turns from where she’d been examining a bulbous red statue, and wrinkles her nose in amusement.

“Wrong how, Professor?” she asks drily, steeling herself for a lecture about composition or paint consistency or something.

He frowns at it again.

“Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars…” he counts off, indexing all of them with a pointed finger. “Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto…”

Sasha raises her eyebrows.

“All present and correct?”

“No. No there should be… should be something else,” he moves his hand to his jaw, and taps his fingers across the bone as he searches his memory. “There used to be something else, I’m sure of it.”

“Asteroid belt? They’ve done that, it’s a bit faint, but look, between Mars and Jupiter – ”

“No, a… before Mercury. A sort of… fire, thing?”

Sasha blinks at him.

“A fire thing?”

“Like a… a big… ball of fire,” he swallows, around a half-memory. “In the sky.”

“… a big ball of fire in the sky?”

He nods faintly.

“Really big…”

“Really big?”

“Really… really big…”

Sasha scoffs and shakes her head, and pinches a Malteser.

“Okay, Jon.”

“Wha-”

“Really big ball of fire that floats in the sky, sure. You’ve been reading waaaaay too much sci-fi.”

Jon squints at the painting.

“Hmm. Perhaps.”

The artificial lights buzz, and the artificial heating hums, and outside the birds do not sing because they do not and never had existed.

Jon hears them anyway, and they fly in front of the thing that he’s sure he knew once.

The sun.

The sun.

***

• The Eye

Jonathan Sims had been halfway to the table-read of the role that would have cemented him as an all-time-great, when his driver saw a face in the mirror and crashed into the hard shoulder.

Now, Jonathan Sims’ left eye lies in particles, despite the rain that ought to have washed it away, on the side of the M1, somewhere between Warrington and Olney.

He is still uneasy in cars, and apparently wears it on his face, the taxi driver allowing a tight frown to pass over his face as he climbs into the back seat. The upholstery is bright white and the driver’s watch an imitation Rolex. He grips the steering wheel tight, and does not seem to know who Jon is.

Small miracles, the first paramedic who had crossed his blood-hazed vision had said breathily. Small miracles.

The driver’s tight shoulders relax when Jon, through force of habit, states that he will pay double the fare. He can afford to after all, for now; the insurance money hasn’t dried up and neither has the fee for his previous role. He mutters something about how the driver need not worry about spending any of it on a cleaning bill – he’s not actually going to throw up - but he has turned the radio on by then. Don McClean is singing about Buddy Holly. It is the extended version.

He crosses his right leg over his left and his pointed shoe digs into the back of the seat in front like a frantic, idea-crazed pencil into unsullied paper. He folds his hands into his lap, the tightening of his body bringing his cashmere scarf close to his neck and making him shiver as it tickles lightly. He tips his head back and breathes.

It is his first time out since the accident, and he knows that he will be asked. He does not begrudge them their inevitable curiosity. He is bleak, he is a spectacle, he is a gruesome warning. He is an oxymoron of youth, beauty, fame, and loss. He wears his hair very long now.

He knows that before the questioning will be a period of waiting, everyone too afraid, too English, too polite to be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. The champagne will be steady, the red-wine slow to flow and he will wring his hands and try to balance on a knife’s edge. And then it will happen. Somebody with less tolerance or more haste to drink will sidle up to him and pretend to be sober. And they will say, “So I heard about what happened to you.”

And he will say, “Do you mean the eye, or do you mean my ruined career?”

And they will say, “Both, and a few other things.”

And he will shut his eyes (one real, one false) and he will say, “Yes, I thought that was what you meant.”

He plays the scenario over and over in his mind until the taxi stops. He thanks the man and does not move, and he does not say anything. The fare calculator is still ticking up.

He pulls his scarf around his shoulders and carefully unfolds his legs. He glances at himself in the mirror and his vacant false eye strays, as usual, too far right, as though sucked into the orbit of the freckle beside his nose.

His hand hovers over the doorhandle.

He pushes it down and swallows, hard.

And waits for the watching to begin.

***

• The Hunt

Sept 14 2012

Writing fast and bad grammar because in work bathroom but if don’t get away for minute and write things, will explode.

Gran still dead. Still feel weird about it but less weird. Georgie tried to call. Didn’t pick up because am stupid idiot. Also broke work computer with soup because am stupid idiot. Tim laughed because am stupid idiot or maybe because wants to be friends?? Don’t know which because am stupid idiot but probably first one.

Fox back in garden, still very big. Still growls and scratches at door and keeps me awake. If didn’t know was fox would think is wildebeest.

NOTE TO SELF look up wildebeest in UK??? If yes, look into if people just been seeing fat foxes. Fox weirder than fat though. Big teeth. Wants meat, I think. If continue being stupid idiot, consider being the meat haha.

If Georgie here, would tell not to make joke but Georgie not here because am stupid idiot who doesn’t pick up phone.

Stopped shaking now and maybe can go back to work.

If lucky, fox at desk in red cloak like red riding hood grandma haha.

Thought about grandmas and how gran still dead and shaking a bit again but am fine and nobody will notice.

Should burn page but no lighter, trying not to smoke.

Will rip into very little pieces instead

***

• The Buried

“Should be grateful, I guess,” Martin says lightly, twisting his hands in his jumper with a tentative smile on his face. “I’d convinced myself we’d never see snow again.”

“That’s not snow,” Jon drawls, frowning out of the window. “It’s just concentrated globs of inconvenience.”

A shiver shoots through him, head to toe, and he pulls his cardigan tight around his middle.

“Cold inconvenience.”

This was supposed to be it. This was supposed to be when he finally started to thrive, it was theatre, theatre for God’s sake. He was getting paid to organise things in a theatre. He’d pay them to let him do that, frankly. But no, the universe just knows that Jonathan Sims is not a man who is allowed nice things. He is allowed only stress, and torment, and to be really fucking cold.

“Silly of me really,” Martin continues, still twisting. “It’s called climate change for a reason, weather goes crazy in whatever direction it wants. Extremes are its thing, and maybe even when we’re all underwater, the water will have this like… icing sugar layer of snow, and - ”

“They’re sentient, Martin. The globs of inconvenience, they are sentient. They know exactly how much paperwork is stacked up on my desk, and they know exactly how many emails with great big red exclamation marks are in my computer, and most of all they know exactly how many people are going to shout at me, and jab their fingers at me, or worst, worst of all, just look at me, with pity because they knew, they knew I couldn’t handle it – ”

“Hey, hey.” Martin rises from the sofa, and wraps his arms around Jon’s middle, then reverses and pulls him into his lap, “None of that, drama queen.”

“I’m not being a drama queen,” he grumbles, shuffling miserably into Martin’s discordantly pleasant warm arms. “I’m reacting proportionately to the calculated attack being enacted upon me. Which you and your horrible great big biceps are contributing to, might I add.”

He squirms performatively, but not in any particular direction, Martin notices.

“Yeah yeah, I’m nasty and horrible and only ever wish terrible things on you. Terrible things, for example, like engaging that massive brain of yours and getting it to work out that if we’re snowed in, everyone else is too. They can’t reasonably bollock you for getting behind when they’re probably all in their PJs watching Homes Under the Hammer too.”

“Is that what this is?”

“Hmm.”

“Who’s that?”

“Owain, he’s new.”

“Where’s Dion?”

“Dion’s fine. He’ll be in the next bit. Anyway. Yes, this is what your brain should be doing right now, not constructing worst case scenarios and unfairly painting your co-workers as villains. You said you were getting on fine with them!”

Jon sighs.

“I am,” he admits.

“So why can I feel your heart through your spine, trying to outpace a hummingbird?”

Jon huffs and shuffles down to bury his face in Martin’s chest.

“S’my fault,” he mumbles.

“What’s your fault?”

“Everything bad that happens, all the time, forever.”

“Ah of course. I stubbed my toe on the bedframe this morning, was that you?”

“Yes.”

Martin nods sagely, pondering.  

“Library of Alexandria?”

“Me,” Jon replies, starting to feel himself smile against his will. “Thought it looked a nice place for a smoke.”

“Hmm. And the koala socks I lost in the last load?”

“Oh – that actually was me. I’m um…” he reaches down to peel back one layer of sock, beneath which a grinning cartoon koala is revealed. “Wearing them.”

“Jon, they must be about eleven sizes too big.”

“They’re sock layer four of five.”

“Jesus.” He pulls him closer, and concentrates. Then nods, satisfied. “The hummingbird’s chilled out a bit.”

“Chilled out?”

“Comedians, the both of us.”

Jon turns his head towards the television and watches it blankly for a moment. Ah, there’s Dion. Yet one less thing to worry about. He smiles around a soft sigh.

“Thank you, Martin.”

“For what?” Martin asks, light and slightly smug.

“Nonsense, I suppose. Your very therapeutic nonsense.”

Martin kisses the top of his head.

“I’m very good at nonsense.”

Outside, the wind howls mournfully, like it has failed at something.

***

• The Spiral

s: what do you mean jon?

*clunk*

j: s’different

*clunk*

s: …it’s not different

j: is

*clunk*

s: do you want me to try retuning it again

*clunk*

s: jon?

*clunk*

s: should i try retuning it again

*clunk*

s: jon stop hitting it –

j: won’t work. s’not the piano that’s broken. s’music.

s: music’s broken?

j: mmm

s: all of music?

j: mmm

s: …are you having trouble with your ears, or –

j: music

s: because if you’ve got an ear infection, I think it might have got quite bad

*clunk*

s: jon

j: argh. it’s gone wrong. music’s gone wrong.

s: you really don’t look very well, jon

j: m’fine. music’s all twisted up. violin is a tuba now. clarinet… flute. piano’s one of those… what they called. circus ones. calliope.

s: …

s: …I thought it was pronounced –

***

• The Flesh

They had promised that it would get better.

That the bones would knit themselves back together, aided by the pins and the rods that shriek their way through airport security; that the ligaments would wind their way back to each other and pull themselves taut but not too taut; that the ankle would yield and connect with the foot and it would not grind grind grind in a way that has him deliriously checking for dust each morning as he awakes from a fitful sleep.

“I feel like a toothpick art project,” he tells Tim miserably as he passes him codeine and a cup-a-soup. “I’m just sharp bits that could collapse at any moment.”

Tim rubs his arm sympathetically and pulls him under his armpit.

“Eiffel Tower or Taj Mahal?”

Jon scoffs into his soup.

Each morning he rattles his way onto the tube, on crutches that he’s frankly dreadful at operating, and he drags his way up the small set of steps towards the research office, and he trembles his way down the corridor, and some small part of him flakes away as he drops into his chair and every moment is pain.

You need to persevere, they had said, and he knew that, he knows that, he had been so optimistic to try, especially with Tim teary eyed beside him with a vice-grip on his shoulder, praising him as a miracle mate, a fucking miracle, Jesus Christ. But it’s been six months now, and they’re making quiet noises about non-union, like his leg is a bad datapoint for speed-dating analytics. They want him under the knife again, to put something else in him, to slap something else on him – he isn’t really sure, his ears had begun ringing halfway through and the air had turned to something unbreathable. He’d kept breathing it regardless, and they had not noticed, and they had laughed about come on, get some extra physio in when he had wobbled dangerously trying to stand up, and they had not helped him.

Tim watches him carefully through a curtain of Chow Mein – there again, too often, too necessary, too often he cannot move or speak or think but Tim should be allowed a fucking life – and does not ask if he is okay. The question is spoken into every hand between his shoulder blades, every elbow clutched tremulously, every tissue passed silently in a thematic match of silent tears and Jon does not, cannot answer because he is made of fucking toothpicks and his own breath speaking the words would be enough to collapse him.

He almost misses the ad. It looks like a normal scam pop-up, crowding the screen of the classic book cover quiz he’s trying in vain to vacantly click through to retain some part of himself. But as his cursor winds its lazy way towards the corner X, he finds himself reading the words. They are blocky and uneven, the font jagged and ugly, but at odds with what they are promising which is – clean.

So clean, and so painless.

He checks over his shoulder, even though Tim went home hours ago, and he clicks.

Immediately the screen turns black, and he jumps, then he groans for being so stupid – first rule of cybersecurity Jonathan, and you can’t even blame the codeine because it’s fucking wearing off already, isn’t it. But before he can start bashing buttons and unplugging things and whatever else you’re meant to do in this situation, it blinks back to life. His email is open, and he has one new message.

It reads:

WE WILL CUT IT OFF

The words grow on the screen, expanding and obscuring and sprawling until his gaze is hurtling through the middle C and his vision whites out. He hears the laptop clatter to the ground, as his head arrives at the cushion with a cracked gasp. The numbness starts at his fingertips and spreads up his arms, claws at his throat and scurries up his jawbone. But his leg, where the pain begins, just above the knee joint, is not numb.

It is agony, and it is sweet, and as he feels it come away in an oh-so-neat line, he laughs, and he laughs, and he laughs.

***

• The Web

Please.

Curling up tight won’t help you, Jon.

I’m not worth the effort.

It can still see you, you idiot.

Of chewing…

Really Jon, you’re just embarrassing yourself.

Or swallowing...

Deeply annoying…

F… for such a small meal.

I could almost laugh if it wasn’t so pitiful.

I… I’m just sinew and gristle, that’s…

You really think you’ve starved yourself?

That’s all I am, barely even a bite, I’m –

You think those hollows in your cheeks are going to save you?

Please don’t eat me.

Oh Jon.

Please don’t eat me.

Oh… Jon, my dear...

Please don’t –

Silly, silly Jon.

You forgot to starve that stupid heart of yours.

***

• The Corruption

“Can you remember?” Jon grins, eyes twinkling.

“… some of them?” Daisy says slowly, carefully. She is trying to be slow and careful these days. Otherwise, she and Jon will just be carted back to exactly where they came from, that palace of disinfectant and locked doors, padding and blunt knives, and the vague impression of straightjackets even though they don’t do that anymore.

“Prove it, go,” he clicks his fingers and spins in a circle, still grinning.

She squirms on the high stool she perches on, and leans over the tub. She winces, but obliges.

“Erm, that one’s Lisa. That one’s Felicity. The wriggly motherfucker with too many legs is Edric. Is… is the red one Marcus?”

Jon nods with an encouraging smile.

“Keep going.”

“Struggling now,” she says, and in more ways than one, she does not. “Erm, is the… the mucky one, is that Kate?”

“She prefers Katherine.”

“Katherine, right. And the uh… the really mucky one, that’s… starts with an S…”

“Susanna. Gosh, I am sorry, I shouldn’t be jumping in too quickly. Takes the fun away, doesn’t it?”

“No, you’re… you’re alright.”

She is trying to be supportive, she tells herself. But she is starting to wonder, very seriously, if OCD therapy can ever work too well.

“Jon, I’m glad you’re doing better. With all the contamination stuff, I… really I am. But like… do they really have to live in the butter dish?”

***

• The Desolation

Audio: Things Jonathan Sims Hears from Georgina Barker’s Sofa, Which May or May Not be a Hallucination

Georgie: Hello? Oh, amazing, hi, I think you’re –

(?): …

Georgie: No, pretty sure I’m not a cop –

(?): …

Georgie: If I were a kidnapper, I think I’d know better than to –

(?): …

Georgie: Why would a mugger –

(?): …

Georgie: No, I’m not Jon – why did you say not! like that? I’m on Jon’s phone - his password is still the year Frankenstein was published, fucking nerd. You… probably shouldn’t know that, and it’s wildly unimportant right now. Look, I’m a friend, or I’m a something-or-other that cares about him –”

(?): …

Georgie: (startled laugh) My credentials? For caring about Jon? Well, I managed to live with him for a year without snapping and stuffing him in the tumble drier - he never cleaned the lint filter, by the way. Can we stop the interrogation? I care about him, and apparently you do too, and apparently you’re also really fucking good at first aid, which would be very, very useful right now.”

(?): (muffled, indistinct) !!!???

Georgie: Yeah, he’s alright, I mean he’s not going to die, but we are very much in A&E territory right now, in all the ways other than actually being in A&E.

(?): …

Georgie:  Pah, track record you say? Yeah, I’m… I’m not surprised. Look, how are you with burns?

(?): …

Georgie: Degree? Uh… bad?

(?): …

Georgie: No, like, the hand is still definitely a hand with all the standard… elements and appendages, but it’s certainly not going to be much use for a while –

(?): …

Georgie: Not other than like… majorly spacey, but I googled ‘shock’ and I’m 99% sure it’s not that. I just have no idea what I’m doing with this burn, but once that’s sorted and I can manhandle his sorry behind into a straight-jacket made of fleece blankets –

(?): ...

Georgie: You’ll come? How soon can you –

(?): …

Georgie: Okay, wow, good, speedy, but make sure you stop to tie your laces –

(?): …

Georgie: Oh, uh… good, sensible choice, no judgement from me, full respect for a man who can pull off a croc. Okay, I’ll text you the address now, just let me know when you’re in the cab.

(?): …

Georgie: Um… pretty standard, I think? It’s got like… bandages and gauzey stuff and plasters and wipes.

(?): …

Georgie: Cling film? Yeah, should have. I’ve got a fair amount of vodka too.

(?): …

Georgie: Thank you. I will. Okay, bye.

(?): …

Georgie: (heavy, relieved sigh) Well I don’t know what you’re looking at.

***

somewhere, for one, the relief of a tether cut

for a human

a human

a human

***