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Jon wanted to start keeping track of how many times he truly, truly thought he was about to die. It seemed to be rising every day, and though he was sure it wasn't going to lessen anytime soon he still thought he should record it.
He supposed the list could've started when he was a child. Watching his bully wrapped in web-thread and snatched away by spindly, black-haired limbs made him realise in that moment that it was almost himself that could've been... taken. Eaten, likely.
But he wasn't eaten, and he got out easy enough, even if he still sometimes had panic attacks when he found spiders in his home.
Then the attack from Jane Prentiss came, and he was more than just emotionally scarred. It took weeks, months, to recover physically, and he was still walking with a limp. His physical therapist said it might never heal entirely. At least he didn't need to use a damn cane to get around anymore. That was the least the universe could give him.
When he'd smashed that table, which was really entirely his fault this time around for nearly getting killed, he figured he'd die right then and there. Or by Michael. Either way, he was in trouble and trapped, again, in those damn tunnels. The last person he expected to see after being chased by a monster wearing his (dead) coworkers face was Jurgen fucking Leitner.
So he wasn't processing information too fast. The more Jurgen told him, the less he understood, and by the time he was hearing about the Eye, The Beholding, he could no longer think. There was a dryness in his throat, something itchy under his skin that wouldn't go away. Jurgen may have said something about it 'not being the time for a breakdown' but all Jon could think about was the one or two cigarettes and web-design lighter he had in his pocket. All he could think about was that lifting smoke, the burn that settled at the back of his throat and softened the world around him. He had to get some air.
Leitner was dead by the time he got back. It'd been minutes. Minutes. The pipe he'd been dragging around the tunnels with him, gripping so tight the smell of iron had stuck to his hands, was blood-soaked and laying on the ground. A foot away was the cracked skull of Leitner, split open and smashed into the ground beneath it. Blood had only started to pool. His body was twisted wrong, clothes awry and the center of his back caved in, like his spine had snapped in half. Something in Jon's bad leg ached.
The itch in his skin worsened. Subconsciously his nails began scratching and digging into his arm, repeatedly enough that the movement was immediately monotonous, unnoticeable. The one cigarette left had found it's way into Jon's hand. Something thick had stuck in his throat. It made it even harder to spit out a few stammered words before taking the still running tape recorder, sliding it into his jacket pocket, and walking right out of those tunnels.
The February chill sliced straight through Jon's jacket. For a while he just... walked. There was no where for him to go, not really. His grandmother had died years ago, and that was the last of his family that he knew of. His friends were — well, not friends. He'd been accusing the few people he actually spoke to of murder for the last few months. His apartment was off-limits; it was no doubt about to be swarmed with cops when they found Leitner's body on the floor of his office. He wondered, briefly, if it was too late for him, if he was just going to die out there. If it's what The Eye intended for him: to learn the truth and die for it.
There was quite literally only person he could think of to find, and he only remembered her because of his first unfortunate encounter with Melanie King.
That's how he found himself knocking on the solid wooden door of his ex-girlfriend's flat.
Georgie was almost sure her Thursday night was going to be calm. Her research and notes for the next What the Ghost were finished, she'd ordered takeaway from the nearest kebab place, and the Admiral was currently napping peacefully beneath the radiator. The tv was playing some reality show, but Georgie both wasn't familiar with it and didn't care. It was just something to have on in the background while she ate.
The muffed sound of cars outside and the slow beginnings of a rain storm were trickling in from the street. It was a nice ambience behind everything, and as the rain deepened it droned out almost any other sound. Almost.
It did not drown out the tentative knock on her door. For a moment, she thought she'd imagined it — who was knocking at her door at nearly ten p.m. on a Thursday night? — but then another knock came, a little more urgent. Even the Admiral raised his head. So with a heavy, possibly over-dramatic sigh, she got to her feet. Maybe one of her neighbours got locked out of their flat? It wouldn't be the first time it happened.
Possibly the absolute last person she expected to see is who she found when she opened the door: Jonathan Sims, soaked wet to the bone and shaking.
She hadn't seen him in years, and he looked horrible. In uni, he'd been annoyingly neat and organised. He'd always been clean-shaven, hair cut relatively close so he didn't have to cut it often. His clothes were always unwrinkled, even ones he threw on hungover the morning after a night of heavy drinking. She knew by the time he'd graduated, after his grandmother had died and their relationship was spiralling down the drain, there had been a few grey hairs amongst the dark, dark brown.
This Jonathan Sims was near-unrecognisable. There was a shadow of a beard on his face, clearly having not shaven for days, and his always-neat hair had grown out of control and somewhat-curly just above his shoulder. There were long streaks of grey all throughout, which Georgie thought made him look at least five years older than he was. The bags under his eyes were purple, as though bruised, and his face appeared somehow... thinner, as though emaciated. In clothes now too big for him, he was definitely far skinnier than he'd even been before, and that's comparing to a 180 centimetre height with the body type of a green bean.
And the scars. That's what threw Georgie off the most: the pockmarked and nicked pink scars all down his cheek and neck, and up and down his arms. He even looked to be standing mostly on his right leg, slightly hovering the left like it was injured. It certainly didn't help that the cold rain had soaked him completely, making him tremble uncontrollably where he stood.
"Hi," he croaked.
Georgie tried not to recoil. Christ, he sounded terrible, too.
"Jon," was all she could manage, for a very long moment. Then he shivered and his teeth clacked together audibly, and Georgie realised that regardless of how they'd left off this man was about to drop dead at her door. Wordlessly, she took his shoulder and ushered him quickly inside, shutting and locking the door behind him. She didn't know why he showed up like this, especially at her door, but she didn't want to take any chances if he was in trouble.
"Take off your jacket," Georgie said, then realised how intense she sounded and lowered her voice. "You're soaked. Just... take off your shoes and jacket, I'm going to get you something... something to wear."
She fled the room almost immediately. Her brain wasn't moving too fast, still thinking about what her ex had looked like prior to this... appearance.
There were sweatpants and a large jumper she'd stolen from a past hookup, a pair of wool socks, a towel, and a blanket from the back of her closet. She dragged out the space heater with her as she went, despite the radiator cranking and her well-insulated windows.
When she returned, his dripping-wet jacket was hanging on a hook beside the door and his shoes and socks were deposited neatly by the front mat. That, at least, was comforting — he may have looked like he was seconds from death, but he was still the same Jon. She almost had to look around for where he'd gone, but, to her delight, he was sitting on the floor with a hand held out to a suddenly very curious Admiral. She couldn't hear exactly what Jon was whispering under his breath, not between the creakiness of his voice and the heightened stammer, but she could assume it was the same way he used to talk to the cat, just before they broken up.
"Hey," she called, keeping her voice quiet. Jon still flinched at the sound of someone in the room, but turned with a grateful smile as he saw the clothes. The Admiral let out a very long, loud yowl when Jon's hand retreated to take the towel, and nudged under his arm for more pats. Jon let out a breath that could've been a laugh and began drying his hair with one hand, keeping the other reserved for scritches. Georgie, in the meantime, set the space heater pointing directly at the couch.
It was silent, for a moment. Georgie turned and handed over the clothes, setting the blanket on the couch as well. Jon had the towel resting over his shoulders and took the clothes gratefully, but paused before trying to stand up.
"I— I- I," he muttered. "I- I need... help."
Georgie looked again at his left leg, unbent and set down awkwardly, then at his right leg folded easily inwards. It was definitely injured. She offered a hand, and Jon took it, struggling to pull himself upright. With the greying hair, she felt like she was helping her dad or something. No. Weird, bad feeling. She stopped that thought immediately.
"You... alright?" Georgie asked, hesitant, still trying to keep him upright and balanced. But Jon didn't really answer. He couldn't meet her eyes — there was still something deeply, deeply empty there. Georgie let him go to limp over to the bathroom, where he hardly shut the door behind him. It didn't really matter, Georgie thought. It wasn't like anything was going to happen, like he'd want her to see. God knows.
It was a little while before the door opened and Jon stepped out, no longer shivering but looking altogether... lost. Georgie had sat back on the couch and grabbed another plate to share whatever was left of the rice and chicken. After Jon didn't move for a moment, Georgie shot to her feet, realising that with that limp he might not be able to make it to the couch. He startled at the fast movement, again, but fortunately didn't complain when Georgie took his arm and helped him sit (fall) onto the couch. She sat back down. The Admiral hopped up to squeeze himself between her and Jon, purring immediately.
"Do you..." Georgie cleared her throat. "Do you— want to tell me what's... happened? Why you're here?"
Jon thought about it for a very long time. After a moment, his head fell to his hands; after that, he leaned over to set his elbows on his knees; then his shoulders began trembling, and it took Georgie longer than she cared to admit to realise he was hyperventilating, possibly crying.
She didn't remember him crying while they were dating. She didn't think she'd actually ever seen him cry, not even when his grandmother died. Maybe once or twice, actually, when he was already run down and found a large spider on his bed.
This wasn't spider-panic-crying. Georgie had had a few friends in uni that'd had a... hard time, she'd say, with life. She didn't know if there was something about her that brought people in crisis to her, but she certainly wasn't going to complain about being a safe space for others. She thought, briefly, of Alex from her first year of uni; she thought of that room of living cadavers, and the look on Alex's face. The panic that'd been suffocating her for over a day.
"Jon," she called, still careful to speak so, so quietly. She didn't know if he wanted any kind of comfort, if she was just supposed to sit in silence and listen to his panting breaths. Hesitantly, she set a hand gently on his shoulder.
Immediately, he fell over onto his side, clutching her hand like it was a lifeline. He wasn't crying, not really, but the panic attack he was definitely having was squeezing tears from his already reddened eyes. The Admiral squeaked something before he got laid on, then wriggled out from under Jon to sit, instead, pressed up against his chest.
"You don't have to say anything," Georgie murmured. "But I'm here to listen."
It took another long moment before Jon was able to sit back up. He pulled his right leg up to hug against his chest, leaving the left to splay out in front of him. He was still breathing far too quickly, not looking like he was able to get control over it anytime soon. Well, it wasn't the first time someone had come over to Georgie's flat for a breakdown.
"I—" Jon tried, voice still weirdly shaky and the nervous stammer Georgie remembered being very infrequent now impacting his speech consistently. "I- I didn't- I didn't... have anywhere. Any- anywhere to go."
Georgie narrowed her eyes a bit. His voice was so dry it was rasping his words, so she took the glass of water on the table and handed it over. He had to hold it with both hands to drink about half and then handed it back.
"You didn't have anywhere to go," Georgie parroted. "...You didn't lose your flat, did you? There's no- friend you could've gone to?"
The moment she said it she knew it was the wrong thing to say. At the state of him, and the fact that he was at her flat, all pointed to not having any friends. And she already knew there was no family to see. She sorely hoped he wasn't homeless or something, though.
His head shook, one trembling hand dropping to stroke the Admiral. "I'm sorry," he muttered. "I- I shouldn't have c- c- come."
"Jon," Georgie sighed, almost a laugh of disbelief. "You look like death. I'm glad you came here rather than freeze to death out on the street."
Jon said nothing, only sniffed and stayed where he was. After a long, long moment of silence, he muttered the quietest little, “thanks,” Georgie had ever heard. The Admiral yowled and hopped down off the couch, tail raised high to show them all his fluffy butt as he trotted away. Georgie snorted despite her attempt to remain serious, and she was glad to see a smile quirk up the side of Jon’s lips, as well.
“Alright,” Georgie huffed. “On that note… I’ve got some takeaway here, and I’ve had on this truly terrible reality show, and we can sit back and watch. You don’t have to say anything else if you don’t want to. If you do, I will sit here and listen. What’ll it be?”
There was a relieved look on Jon’s face, which Georgie had predicted. “I’d rather not- I don’t- let’s watch this- this show.”
Despite the halted speech, Georgie heard him loud and clear. She dragged the blanket from the back of the couch over Jon, made sure the space heater was pointed right at him, and unpaused the show still freeze-framed on the tv. The second the noise began to drone on, Jon settled back into the couch and let his eyes drift shut. Georgie said nothing when his head tipped to rest on her shoulder.