Archive of Our Own ^beta

Jon tries to fix his mind on his computer screen and nothing else. There’s not a dozen researchers filling up the office with their talk and laughter. The fluorescent lights aren’t buzzing and flickering. The stale smell of whatever the canteen was serving for lunch today hasn’t drifted in and lingered, and neither is it mingling with the scent of the bins down in the alleyway, which aren’t emptied until tomorrow. The August heat isn’t making him feel sticky and disgusting and like he wants to peel all his clothes off just so that he doesn’t have to feel them touching his skin. There’s nothing but the statement he took this morning and the action plan he’s supposed to be creating to investigate it.

Even his fingers are sweating. It feels horrible every time he touches his keyboard, even worse when he has to use the mouse. It’s supposed to cool down soon, he thinks. Not soon enough. Every time someone raises their voice to call across the office his brain seems to vibrate a little harder in his skull. He wonders what they’d do if it exploded. Mop up the bits and carry on, probably.

It wouldn’t be so bad if they had cubicles, even just a small wall between him and the others, so that he could hide. It’d be so much easier to block out the voices that way. Or if not the voices, then at least the movement. It’s one of those days where Jon can’t seem to block anything out by himself. Every time Lyla, a few feet away, starts typing or moves her mouse, Jon sees it in his periphery. Every time someone gets up, he has no choice but to pay attention to the movement, the shift of colours, the way their shadow passes over him.

God, there’s still two hours left until the end of the day. Two whole hours. Jon isn’t sure he can make it.

He can, of course. He always does.

One time, a few weeks after he’d started working at the Magnus Institute, he’d asked the Head of Research, a tall, peevish man called Duncan, about working from home sometimes. Just on the really bad days. When Duncan had refused, Jon had asked about a slightly more private workspace, maybe some cubicle dividers, but apparently the Head of the Institute feels that everybody being visible to everybody at all times creates a better atmosphere for the team, and Jon’s request had been denied.

So when he does occasionally have a bad day like this, he just… gets through it. He grits his teeth together so hard that his jaw starts hurting by halfway through the morning, but at least pain is something he can focus his mind on. He gnaws on the ends of biro after biro until half of them splinter and the other half become unuseable, misshapen mockeries of their former selves. He wears one of the oversized cardigans that he can pull right down over his hands, although not today. It’s far too hot.

And he gets through the day. He’ll get through today, too, even if it feels as though he can’t possibly. Even though if one more person comes and cheerfully asks him to cast an eye over some report they’ve written he might just stand up and scream wordlessly into their face. Normally he quite likes it when people ask for his advice. It makes him feel as though he knows what he’s doing. Not today, though. Today, everything is bad.

He realises, all of a sudden, that he’s had one hand shifted over by one keyboard key as he writes and it’s all come out as nonsense. He stares at it in dismay, feeling his throat close up with despair as he scrolls back up. Three pages of it. Jon grits his teeth even harder, selects the whole block of nonsense text, and deletes it. His collar feels too tight, like it’s choking him. It’s so hot.

“Hey, Jon?” someone says, and a shadow falls across him.

Jon squeezes his eyes shut, trying to block out the feeling of another body far too close to his, before he realises the voice belongs to Sasha, who never stands too close. He opens his eyes again.

“What?” he says, aware that his tone is sharp and unfriendly, bordering on rude, and unable to change it.

There’s a pause. “Are you okay?” Sasha says.

“Fine,” Jon snarls. He doesn’t look at her, can’t bear even pretending to make eye contact right now. And then, horribly, he realises that he’s rocking, right in front of Sasha. Not to mention everyone else. He stills himself, feeling sick. Sasha’s silent for a long moment, and Jon tenses, ready for the inevitable questioning, laughter, teasing, even disgust. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Sasha says, “Bad sensory day?”

Jon does look up at her then, just for a moment. She’s frowning slightly, but not in a way that looks unkind. She’s leaning against the desk, not too close to him, and her fingers are tapping against the underside of it in a way that’s instantly familiar to Jon.

“Yes,” he says, instead of angrily pretending he has no idea what she’s talking about, the way he usually would.

Sasha nods. Hesitates again. Finally she says, very abruptly, in a way that’s also deeply familiar, “I’ve got something that might help, if you want.”

“All… right?” Jon says, warily.

“Good,” she says. “Come on, then.”

And before Jon can question her further, or object, she’s off. Jon wavers for a moment, still a little afraid that this is some elaborate joke, but he doesn’t think Sasha would do that. They don’t get assigned to work together a lot, but whenever they have, they’ve got on quite well. So Jon, his fingers clumsy with nervousness, logs out of his computer and follows Sasha across the room and out into the corridor, where she’s awaiting him with a bag slung over her shoulder.

“Where are we going?” he says. It’s already a huge improvement just to be outside the busy Research office. Jon hadn’t realised quite what a relief it would be.

“Just down here.” Sasha strides on ahead of him, down the corridor, around a corner, and pushes open a door with a small notice that reads, OUT OF ORDER. The Institute usually has several rooms out of commission for deeply unnerving reasons at any given time, and Jon balks the moment he sees it.

“Um,” he says.

Sasha flashes him a bright, wide grin. “Don’t worry, it’s safe,” she says. “I put that there myself.”

Okay, that’s… a choice. But since he has no reason not to, at this point, Jon follows her into the room.

At first glance, it’s a pretty normal meeting room, the kind that there’s at least a dozen of scattered around the Institute, though only a handful are regularly used. There are a couple of tables and a few chairs arranged, haphazardly, more or less around them. Then Jon’s tired eyes drift past the tables, and he realises that in the back corner, almost hidden by the way the other furniture is arranged, there’s a huge green beanbag, the kind that’s big enough to sprawl across. Jon immediately wants to.

“Come on in,” Sasha says, closing the door behind him and then skirting round the chairs and tables and heading for the beanbag. Jon follows. Closer up, he sees that there are two or three blankets tucked in behind the beanbag.

“I don’t understand,” he says faintly, looking at Sasha for explanation.

“I come here when I’m overwhelmed,” Sasha says simply. “I mean, if it’s a really bad day I just call in sick, tell Duncan I’ve caught a stomach bug or something.”

Jon blinks at her. It’s never occurred to him to just lie about the reason he can’t come to work. Sasha shrugs.

“Shouldn’t be such an ableist shithead, should he, if he doesn’t want me to lie? Elias is no better, I’ve tried. Anyway, yeah, if it’s just that I need an hour or two to myself, then I come here.” She opens her bag and starts digging around in it. “Obviously I don’t keep any of the expensive stuff here all the time, but the beanbag and the blankets I found in a charity shop, so it’s not a complete disaster if they get nicked. But I’ve got noise cancelling headphones, if they’d help?” Jon nods. Sasha hands them to him and digs in her bag again. “And a few different stim toys. A weighted blanket, just a small one, but it still helps for pressure. There’s a big hoodie under the blankets, too, it’s got paint all down the front but it’s comfy. You’re welcome to use it. Do you want the curtains drawn?”

“I… yes,” Jon says. He feels a bit overwhelmed again, but in a good way. A way that tells him he’s going to survive, after all.

Sasha pulls the curtains, which are a dull brown with some sort of faded pattern on them, across the window, and steps away. The half-darkness is such an immediate, blessed relief that Jon almost bursts into tears on the spot.

“I think that’s everything,” Sasha says, putting down a carrier bag containing the weighted blanket and stim toys next to the beanbag. “Use whatever you like, just bring the headphones and other stuff back to me when you’re done, okay? Or tomorrow’s fine if I’ve already left.”

“Of course,” Jon says quickly.

She smiles at him. “Cool, thanks. Then I’ll just… unless you want me to stay?”

Jon shakes his head. Of all people, he thinks Sasha being here would be okay, but he knows he’ll recover better, more quickly, on his own.

“Okay,” Sasha says. “You’ve got my number, haven’t you? Text me if you need anything else.”

“All right,” Jon says, although he can’t think of anything else he could possibly need. This is more than he even has at home. He looks up again, and realises that Sasha’s almost at the door. “Sasha!”

“Yeah?” She turns to look at him.

“I… thank you. For this.”

Sasha beams. “You’re welcome,” she says. “It’s just nice to know there’s someone else like me, you know?”

“Yes.” He nods fervently. Until today, until ten minutes ago, he’d thought he was the only one. It means more than he can say to realise that he isn’t.

And then Sasha’s gone, closing the door quietly behind herself. Jon seats himself on the beanbag and picks up the headphones. There’s a little sticker of a cat on each ear, and it makes him smile. He switches the noise cancelling on and places them over his ears, and feels himself immediately relax a bit. He relaxes even more once he’s lying down on the beanbag with Sasha’s weighted blanket over him. It’s too hot, really, for a blanket, but the pressure feels so good that Jon can’t bring himself to push it off himself.

He shuts his eyes and lets the tension seep incrementally out of his body, his head gradually still and quieten. It isn’t a perfect solution, he’s still going to have to get home on the tube, which will be a nightmare, but here, with the quiet and the dark and the pressure, Jon knows he’ll be able to manage it.

Thank god for Sasha James.