Chapter Text
Jon should have known honestly. He had grown out of his habit of checking books before reading them, hell usually he only did that during work because the books there usually had to be contained to artifact storage. And yet here he is halfway through reading a seemingly indie published authors book, and finding out halfway through he felt drowsy.
It wasn’t a normal drowsy either, which was what put him off after his reading. Jon flipped back to the front cover, and stared in horror at the nameplate hidden inside the dust sleeve. Shit. A leitner. Of course nothing was ever easy for him. Nothing!
He practically throws the book away --with a noise of terror that was not dignified, which he will never admit to anyone. Immediately he starts checking over himself, running his hands through his hair for any unseen injuries, and checking his temperature. Nothing other than the drowsiness so far, he thinks with a smidge of relief. All he felt was just tired relief, thankful.
Maybe he hadn’t read far enough in to actually cause enough harm? Something like doubt wriggles in the back of his mind, something that says the danger is yet to come, he had read to the middle of the book.
Either way he contains the book into a plastic bag and throws that into his work bag, before shoving on some shoes, and heading to the door to bring the seemingly harmless book under the scope of statements and further research.
He didn’t make it out the door, instead suddenly feeling very very dizzy, and a nap sounded a lot better than a long walk to the oppressive basement he worked in. So Jon barely is able to kick off his shoes before he decides to sleep on the too small couch -- it was more like a loveseat than anything, but it will do, he thinks before slipping off into sleep.
-------
Sasha is the first one into work, and that is a surprise to everyone involved. Which is her and the empty archive. Jon is usually there before her, because he either sleeps there or he just likes to get an early start on all of the work. She worries a little but then thinks better of it, going to drink her coffee in the breakroom to see if he had just slept through his alarm.
Twenty minutes go by before the door to the archive’s opens to Martin who is now hooking his coat up on the coat rack.
“Hey Martin! How was the train this morning?” She asks, as was their usual morning talks. Always something simple, before they both decide to bicker just for the fun of it.
He hums, “It was good, got here early I think, anyone else showed up yet?”
Sasha looks over at the door and then deeper into the long maze of boxes and stacks, “No actually Tim and Jon aren’t here yet. So that means I am taking my iced coffee to my desk and you won't tell anyone?”
“Yeah you do what you want, I’m making some tea it’s bloody cold outside.” Martin snorts, and they share a bit of a laugh between coworkers, between friends, before they both do their own thing.
Tim is five minutes late, but that’s not because he was slacking it was because of his alarm going off ‘too quietly’ or whatever he told Martin and Sasha to get them off his back. (Neither of them really cared if he was late.)
“So boss man isn't here yet-” His phone starts ringing, and Tim looks down at the caller ID with a shit-eating grin, “Speak of the devil. Yello boss, you’re on speaker.”
There was a noise at the other end that sounded a bit like a growl, which set them all into a layer of unease, before the regular grumble of Jon’s voice comes through the phone, “I won't be able to come in, for a little bit. I think I’ve taken sick. You all do whatever work you can and email or text me questions.”
Now that is weird, especially for Jon. Tim says this very clearly, “Are you alright, you must be literally dying to not be able to leave your flat. Do you need an ambulance, cuz you usually come to work even when you’re sick?”
On the other end Jon scoffs, before there was a hissing noise, “I will be fine, just leave me be.”
He hangs up on them after that, and Tim looks at the other two of them, before Sasha voices her thoughts, “So that was weird. Like proper weird right?”
“Oh yeah that was really spooky.” Tim replies, before looking at Martin.
Martin looks at the two of them, “I think we should leave him be?”
“Martin you haven’t known Jon for as long as us, he hates not coming into work. I think he just got diagnosed with a terminal illness and is thinking about how to break it to us. Or maybe he's getting mauled and still had to call in.” Tim says, before Sasha smacks him on the back of the head and Martin knocks on wood. Always better to be safe than sorry.
Sasha then hums, “maybe we check on him after work?”
The worry must have really shown in her voice, because Tim very dramatically sighed, “no we must make the most of our time left with him work! We can skip work and bring him soup, then come back.”
“Is that a good idea, he might get mad.” Martin says, very rational and not eager to get on Jon's nerves this early in the morning, especially if he was sick.
Tim taps his foot a few times, looking a bit in thought, “We really should check on him though. I’m actually worried. You can bring him tea, we stop off at tescos in Sasha’s car get some soup and then boom. If he turns us away at least we see that he’s alive and not being impersonated at least.”
A few seconds of quiet pass before Martin sighs, “ Fine, only because Sasha is driving though.”
“That works for me! Lets go check on him.” Sasha says, before taking her keys and swinging them around by the chain.
-------
It is fairly sunny now, rare in London as it is. Tim carries a can of soup with Martin and Sasha in tow, until they are all to way up to Jon’s flat. They knock on the door only to find there is no answer, not even an annoyed grumble from the door. Tim is about to call Jon and tell him to open the door before Sasha tries the knob to find that the door isn't even locked. For a paranoid man he is not good at remembering these important things.
“Should we really be going- ok in we go I guess. That’s fine breaking and entering.” Martin mutters, following the other two.
Tim drops the can where he stands in Jon’s sitting room.
Jon is curled up on the couch, around a large stuffed fox. That isn’t the thing that had Tim, and subsequently the other two archival assistants in shock.
On his head were two very real black and grey cat ears, twitching every once in a while to announce the fact that they are not a questionably realistic headband but actual live attached to the head of their boss ears. They also notice a long intensely fuzzy black and grey tail. It was slightly wrapped around Jon’s leg.
“You two see that. Right?” Sasha says, mouth slightly ajar. “Like i’m not just going crazy from my cousin showing me anime right?”
“No we all see it.” Martin says lowly, staring dumbfounded at the man on the couch.
In his sleep clothes and laying on his couch under the pretense of sickness, their boss had cat ears and a tail.
Said boss’s tail twitched slightly, flicking in a manner that shows that they were not being as quiet as they thought they were. Slowly Jon yawns, way too wide for his face and shakes his head as if to clear the sleep from his eyes. And then he sees the three of them standing there and his eyes are flitting to each of their faces.
Then his face sets in fake annoyance, “What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing with cat ears and a tail!” Tim says back. Jon blinks a few times, before the real worry set into his face. He actually looked slightly scared.
Martin has the decency to close the door, before Sasha is literally flinging herself onto the couch to interrogate the poor man. He lets out a noise of confusion and startled. The fox he was holding fell to the floor, and now that they look at it, it looks old as if from childhood and a bit beat up but well loved.
“What happened?” Martin blurts out, before Jon is glaring at the three of them.
“What part of leave me be do you not understand.” His vehemence is very much real, but it was hiding something else.
Sasha stared at him for a second, “You literally never call into work except that one time we found you passed out from the flu that you let get too bad.”
Jon crosses his arms, and finally lets go of his glare, “Yes I guess i can see why you were worried.”
Tim and Martin stare for a second before Tim joins in, sitting on the floor like a child waiting for a bedtime story. Martin just stands there, while Jon finally tells them the story.
He had woken up in the middle of the night, after reading the leitner, and found that some things were changing. His teeth hurt, his hands hurt, and now that they looked at it his teeth and nails had changed and gotten slightly sharper. Much like that of a cats but still easy to explain away as little details they never notice.
“It was a book about something but… Now that I look at it I can’t even remember what it was about, but I think that It was supposed to do something even worse, but I stopped reading before any transformation could fully take form. So now I look like this.” He gestures lamely down at himself.
Martin nodded, “Where is the book now?”
“In my work bag.” He sighs, “I was going to take it to artifact storage and research statements like it but… I was too tired to leave.”
-------
They had come up with a way to hide the ears and tail. Jon just had to wear one of his longer skirts and then he could borrow a large sunhat from Sasha. He would look ridiculous but better than being seen as a cat/person hybrid. They made their way to the archive’s with less of a worry about that, and more of a worry about how to fix this mess.
“Hey Sasha we should get something to eat, Jon when was the last time you’ve eaten.” Tim said in his most steely tone, him being the mother of the group strangely.
Jon shrugged, before actually thinking about it, “Uhm yesterday around lunch I believe?”
“Alright that settles it, we are getting takeout and then we can get to work with researching this whole thing.” Tim says, “My treat.”
Martin, Sasha, and Jon went to the other room, leaving Tim to the breakroom to talk to the person over the phone. They all get comfortable and start searching the stacks for anything to do with weird books, and then Martin looks to see Jon staring at a bug in the corner. He keeps looking at Jon for a second, seeing his eyes slit like those of a cat’s as he tracks the bugs movements.
“Jon?” He doesn’t answer the first time, so he carefully taps Jon’s shoulder, to which Jon’s head snapped to look at him.
“What was that Martin?” He asked, cocking his head slightly.
Martin shrugs, “you were. Uh, looking at a bug.”
“Ah.” Was all he replied with before Tim came in.
“Alright gentlpeople I have ordered food from that sushi place downtown.” Tim looked at Jon, and Jon begrudgingly felt happy that Tim remembered his favorite place to eat.
Martin smiles, “Thanks Tim!”
“No problem martini glass, jonny boy, and sass master!” Tim puts his phone in his pocket and the starts doing his thing with trying to find files as well.
The food came in a record time, and Tim had (terribly) snuck the food back down to where they all ate in the breakroom. After a while, Sasha notices Jon simply using a claw to pick up his food instead of using his chopsticks. She says nothing about it though and finishes her food along with everyone else.
--------
Jon had to get used to his new center of gravity and better hearing and almost slicing his lip open while doing his work and absentmindedly chewing at his skin.
There was a knock at the door, and Jon’s head snaps up to see the door opening to Martin who walks in with a mug in his hands. It’s tea for Jon, and he looks up at Martin and gives a small nod, “Thank you.”
He tries to give a smile at Martin and takes the cup carefully. Now that he wasn’t worrying about being seen as incompetent, and the morning being full of all four of the archive crew talking it out he really feels like he can let down his walls, for just a little bit.
Martin smiles back, “ You’re welcome Jon, if you need anything uh give us a shout.”
“Alright, and… if you find anything I would greatly appreciate if you came to me.”
He nods, before leaving Jon to his research and his tea.
Martin was feeling a lot of emotions, because Jon had looked up and his eyes went all big. He looked adorable, loath as Martin was to admit that to anyone. At least this predicament left him with just some new appendages and did not fully turn him into a cat.
But Martin was not equipped to deal with how cute that was, so he retreated as fast as possible.
-------
Sasha had been to one to find something that was like Jon’s predicament, a statement about a man who didn’t read through the whole book either. It was rather unpleasant to see actually, because the only solution this man saw was to cut off the extra appendages and then go to hospital and say he got mugged. It was in horrible gory detail as well.
“I am not doing that.” Jon said, tail flicking in horrified irritability, hands coming up to touch the very real ear on his head.
“Yeah hell no we will find another way to fix this, not going to have an mutilation in the archives. Or like ever.” Tim says, trying to make a joke but it fell flat even to himself.
There were other statements about cursed books, and the only solution ebing either dying or burning the books in question.
Sasha sighs, “I guess we wait until we either find something better or we burn to book and hope that helps.”
Martin clears his throat, getting their attention, “As much as I like setting things on fire, maybe we shouldn’t do the book burning, what if it just means that Jon will be stuck like this. Not saying anything mean I just- you know.”
“Yes I would also rather we not set it on fire.” Jon said, before yawning. The clock had now hit nine in the evening and they were all very tired.
Tim stares at them all before having a brilliant idea, “Alright sleepover at my house! It’s the closest.”
“Actually mine is Tim.” Sasha corrects him before he elbows her lovingly.
“But I actually have toiletries in case anyone wanted to sleepover.”
“I am refraining from calling you something not very nice Tim.”
“Were you about to call me a whore Ms. James!”
“... maybe.”
The walk to Tim’s place was not very long, they even passed Sasha’s flat on the way. Jon pulled the large floppy sun hat down further, as if to make sure it wouldn’t fly away and show off his ears. He was feeling a bit uncomfy, walking around where anyone could see him, but it was a bit better than going all the way back to his flat. At least now he had a brief solution before they fixed this whole debacle.
As soon as they made it back to Tim’s place, a small but not crampy flat with a nice kitchen. Sasha shucked off her shoes by the front door with Martin and Jon copying her behaviour. Tim threw his shoes into his room before gesturing to the whole of the flat.
“Welcome to mi casa folks! Time to lay low from all the stress of today.” He gives a smile, and Sasha pats his shoulder.
“That includes you too Tim. Do you want to cook or do I need to call a takeaway place?” She hummed, pulling off her coat as well.
Jon took the hat of in a swift motion, leaving it on the coat rack that Tim must have gotten from a charity shop. He wriggled, waiting until he was acknowledged to sit down. Jon had not been over to many people’s houses, and had no clue what to do, especially not with more than one person. The last time he had been at a person’s house, it was when he and Georgie were still together.
He kind of missed her and the Admiral, but now was not the time.
“You good there bossman?” He feels a hand on his shoulder and flinches slightly, before looking to see Tim looking down at him.
“Ah, yes I’m perfectly fine.”
“Mhm, go sit down with Sasha and Martin, I’m cooking.” He says before patting light and then heading a few feet away to the kitchen, and Jon does go sit down, but claims the armchair as his own. He wriggles a bit to get comfortable and then sits still. Martin and Sasha are looking over something on her phone, and Jon busies himself with trying to find something interesting to read on his phone.
When Tim finally comes back from the kitchen, he sees that Jon had taken over the armchair, and then fallen asleep on it. He looked worn out and the sleep is probably good for him. So he gestures for Martin and Sasha to come get their food. He takes his plate and sits by the coffee table on the floor and starts the TV onto do other things.
They choose a weird cooking show that Sasha adores, and eat their food with relatively quiet talk. Martin went to make tea in Tim’s hardly used kettle, which the other awake people can appreciate.
Now Tim was curious, as he went to go change into night clothes. He carefully taps Jon’s head, to see if he would wake up. There was nothing but a tail twitch, and he taps a few more times before Jon blearily opens his eyes and bats at Tim’s hands.
“What?”
“You fell asleep. And you might wanna get changed into sleep clothes, I have some in the bathroom you can use.”
Jon thinks about it and then nods, “That’s probably smart, thank you.”
He gets up out of his spot, and Tim let’s him be. Now wasn’t the time to poke and prod at anyone, Tim knew that well enough. Jon moves to go get on night clothes, and when he comes out he is wearing one of Tim’s very old shirts that was at least three sizes too big. Martin comes in with a mug, and hands it to Jon. Without realize it, Jon had started to -- was that really a purr?
Martin noticed it too, and looked a bit red in the face, before going back to the kitchen to not absolutely die. Sasha peeks her head around the wall and grins, before pulling her head back and talking.
Jon is almost curled around the cup, and seems to realize what he was doing and looking both embarrassed and annoyed.
Tim does not hide his smile, “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight Tim.” He sips his tea, and feels tired still.
---------
Jon wakes up, and his teeth hurt. That’s all he could feel in the moment, his teeth hurt. He had a terrible habit of chewing on his hand’s and now he feels his teeth on his hand, he is chewing on his fingers.
He tries to stop for a second, staring up at the wall.
Jon quietly gets up of the armchair, and creeps over to the bathroom. He tries not to wake up Tim and Sasha who had fallen asleep on the floor, or Martin who was sleeping like the dead on the couch. He knows something is wrong, and he closes the door behind him before turning on the bathroom light.
He looks in the mirror and pulls his lips back, to see his teeth. They were already sharp from the morning before, but something was hurting. Jon stares at it, and then keeps staring as he realizes that the teeth are loose. Oh god, they were going to fall out.
That’s what the pain was from, he thinks in a horrified haze, he was growing more teeth.
--------
Martin wakes up first, as sunlight was assaulting his eyes. He looks around to notice Tim and Sasha on the floor, her hand was slapped over his face, as if pushing him away. He snorts, because even in sleep they were bickering like an old married couple. As he slowly comes to he notices his phone alarm about to blare. Then he sees that Jon is not on the armchair from the night before.
He thinks that maybe Jon had gone to work early, and drags himself up off the couch. Martin stretches and he hears his back pop. It was too early for his back to be hurting.
There was a moment where he wondered if he should wake up Tim and Sasha, but then he decides to go to the bathroom and brush his teeth first.
When he opens the door, he sees Jon laying on the floor. What the hell?
“Jon?” Martin says quietly, before crouching down next to the prone body, “Come on, wake up.”
There is not an answer, and Martin goes to tap the man awake, he notices something in his hand. What is that?
“Christ is that teeth?” He says, a bit too loudly to be polite. Then he sees Jon’s eyes flickering under his eyelids. Martin tries again, “Hey, Jon, come on get up.”
Jon finally seems to wake up, and he flinches at the proximity of another person, “Martin?”
His words are a bit slurred with something like pain and Martin is still reeling over the fact that Jon is able to speak, and he can see teeth in his mouth as he talks.
“I know you just woke up but why do you have teeth in your hand?”
Jon looks down at the teeth in his hands, and then back at Martin and he looks frantic. He shoots up from the floor, ears flattened, as he looks in the mirror and pulls his lips back with his finger to see that he did, in fact, still have teeth. But there were more than he should have, teeth that are a bit longer, a bit sharper than whatever happened te first night that he read the leitner.
“Oh.” Jon takes a deep breath and then sighs, looking at Martin.
“Maybe you want to talk about it after you eat something?” He says carefully, and Jon blinks and nods, following Martin into the kitchen.
Tim is in there, and looks confused at the looks on their faces, before seeing the issue himself, “Ziplock baggies then.”
Jon appreciated the bag, even if he felt immediate despair at the idea of changing further. Tim looks at him, expecting an answer now.
“Found him in the bathroom this morning.” Martin said in an almost whisper.
Tim then looks to Jon, gesturing his hand as if to get the explanation faster, Jon blinks a few times and then starts, “I think that we have to burn the book.”
“What? You were against the idea yesterday!” A voice comes from behind. Sasha had woken up it seems, and she was standing leaning on the wall of the kitchen. She looked at them like they were crazy.
Jon shakes his head, “I have a feeling.”
“A feeling?” Sasha says again, deadpan at his blunt but unreasonable jump.
His ear twitches in annoyance, tail flicking, “It’s just. Last night I had my normal human teeth fall out Sasha! I either let this thing change me completely or I burn the book. I feel like if we burn the book it will stop this from getting worse.”
Tim looks at him now, disbelief on his face, “What if that just gets rid of your chances to fix this?”
“It won’t.” Jon says with complete confidence, eye’s slits as he stares down at the baggie that geld his teeth. And maybe he had a good idea.
Martin sighs, “Can we at least wait until tomorrow, if anything else happens we can do that, but I think we should… Hang back a bit?”
“And what! Wait until I start walking on all fours?” Jon hissed in frustration, and they could see his hair was starting to actually bristle, the man in question shrunk slightly.
Sasha looked at the three of them and then put her foot down, “That’s a good idea Martin. Jon if you start feeling weird, like something bad is about to happen, or if you feel the need to slap a cup off the table then we can burn the book, but we can’t just jump straight into conclusions.”
Jon looks at all three of them like they were crazy before finally sighing in defeat, “Fine. Alright.”
Then he pauses for a second and mumbles, “Sorry.”
“Hey we understand why you’re upset here, but remember that we are all only human, even you with the additional appendages.” Sasha says, “though I do think you should apologize for hissing at Martin.”
Martin splutters, “No sasha really it’s fine I get it-”
“I am sorry for hissing at you Martin.” Jon says, he still sounds a bit like he’s not used to apologising, but hes trying, “That is a good idea.”
“Ah. No worries Jon.” Martin says, before Tim looks at all of them.
“Alright, break it up. It’s time to eat and go back to spooky basements.”
“Eugh, must you always use the word spooky, it’s not even that bad-” Jon says, before he’s interrupted by Tim.
Tim raises his eyebrow, “Oh no it is so spooky. Also you cannot dodge the fact that this is supernatural now! Are you still a skeptic?”
Jon rolls his eyes, running a hand through his hair, “I was never a skeptic, I just thought… If I pretended it didn’t exist it would go away. Look where that got us.”
“I knew it!” Sasha crowed, before realizing her volume and looking sheepish, “I mean. You came up with the most bizarre reasons for things, I knew it was either you were in denial, or you were just really really dense.”
“Hey it’s ok, I just thought he was dense.” Tim chimed in, his smile showing now remorse for the jab. He meant it all in good fun, and Jon again rolled his eyes.
“Remind me to never tell you anything ever again Tim.” He snarks right back, and Tim laughs.
Martin watched along and smiles, before snorting when Tim goes, “Do you think you could use regular dye on the cat ears?”
Sasha laughs, “Animal friendly of course!”
“I hate you both so very much.” Jon grumbles, but he looks relaxed now at the ease in which they had meshed together.
“Would that count as cruelty?” Martin says, barely above a whisper, but it send’s Sasha in to ugly laughing fits, and Tim slaps his knee.
Jon hits Martin on the leg with his tail, seeming to have more control over it now, and Martin laughs along with the other two.
“Food time. I got some plates out.” Tim says, and everyone listened.
------
They were all researching vigorously again, until the door opened to Elias. Jon’s eyes went small, and he flattened his ears against his head. The hat was in his office, and all of them had been looking through statements for the past few hours, forgetting about Jon’s condition was not known to others. Shit he should have thought about this. Still he straightened up, and looked over to the man who was slowly approaching.
“Hello Jon, what is all of this?” Elias asks, in the voice that says he both annoyed and pleased. Jon blinked a few times and then tried to think of what to say.
Martin looks over, “We are looking for statements pertaining to this one case. It was similar, and we wanted cross reference.”
That was the most easy lie Martin had come up with. Jon could almost marvel at it, before turning back to Elias, “Yes, exactly.”
Elias stare for a second, and the four of them felt pinned like bugs, until he raised a single eyebrow, “Ah. Of course. I’ll leave you all to that then. Though I do want to say to continue digitizing and reading statement Jon.”
He leaves then and they all let out a breath, the feeling of being watched hadn’t left though. Jon still felt wary, pressing himself into a place a shelf and the wall didn’t quiet meet. Tim looked over, and gestured for Jon to walk over to him.
He did just that and Tim wrapped an arm around his shoulder, “You look like we just saw a 200 year old ghost. You alright?”
Though Jon could tell that Tim was the one who was more disturbed, and that he needed to be holding something. He did not mind that at least, so he shrugged, “Just jumpy I suppose.”
“Hey Sash?” Tim says, with Sasha turning to him he grinned, “Are we staying at your flat tonight?”
Jon sighed, “It might be smarter with us all together.”
“We could keep a better eye on you at least.” Sasha says thoughtfully, “I mean imagine if Martin hadn’t found you in the bathroom, you might have skittered off to do something on your own. Or maybe hid it.”
Said cat/man hybrid looked offended, but then had to give her credit, he probably would have done that, “Yes that sounds like a good idea.”
Martin nodded, before looking at the plastic bag with the book that caused this mess. With that they all went back to researching, Jon had taken to climbing the shelves for certain boxes. Then he sighed, and looked at the other three, “i’m going to read these statements, they all have something to do with Leitner’s and I would rather do work while fixing this.”
“Sounds good boss!” Tim says, before going back to flipping through pages.
Martin paperclips a few relevant notes and statements together, “I’ll make tea in a few.”
“You’re a godsend Martin.” Sasha says, at the same time Jon says, “thank you.”
------
That night Jon finds himself scared to lay on the armchair alone, and sits next to the couch since Sasha and Tim and Martin took up the whole thing. He sits crisscross on the floor, next to Martin’s legs -- since he was the closest to the end. It was not as comfortable as the armchair, but he found himself a little relieved to be near someone.
Sasha gets up from her seat and then absently as she walks past she pets his head. Jon startled himself by purring, until he realized that Sasha was now standing.
“Oh my god I am so sorry, I shouldn’t have.” Sasha looks apologetic though, and Jon tries to find it in himself to get annoyed, but now he felt sad that she had stopped.
“Uh. It’s fine. I don’t mind. Just? Ask first next time.” He stumbled through that sentence, and Sasha nods her acknowledgement before going back to get whatever she was going to get.
Jon looked up to see Tim and Martin looking at him and he irritably went, “Yes?”
When they didn’t answer he just hisses, “Go ahead, is that what you want?”
Martin looks at him, “You sound annoyed, you can have boundaries Jon. If you dont want us to touch you we wont.”
Tim nods his agreement, “Consent is important.” He jokes, though they know hes being serious.
With that Jon thinks about it, “I would prefer you use words when you ask. Reading people is hard.”
“Of course, may I pet you then?” Martin asks now with words.
“Same question here.” Tim finger guns at him.
Again he thinks about it, and then says, “Ok. If I say stop you do so or I’ll…” He can’t think of a threat.
“Bite them?” Sasha says, as she walks back in with popcorn and a soda.
He makes a face, “Eugh, I would prefer to not do that.”
She laughs and takes her place back on the sofa, Tim pets his head carefully and Jon lets it happen.
“Stop.” Immediately Tim withdrew his hand. Jon shakes his head, hair puffing out.
“What hair products do you use boss, your hair is soft!” Tim asks now, more interested in stealing whatever conditioner Jon uses than in the TV. Sasha snorts, and Martin is giving Tim an amused look.
Jon himself thinks about it and laughs as well, “I don’t remember I’ll actually have to look when I get home next.”
Tim boos quietly, “Send a picture of it if you can, that would help a lot.”
“I will do that Tim, you might have to remind me though.” He hums and then turns to Martin, “Go ahead. It’s only fair I suppose.”
Martin cocks his head, “you sure?”
“Yeah yeah.” Jon says before looking at the popcorn bowl, “Sasha pass the bowl.”
'
“I will throw the bowl at you.”
“And I will bite you.”
Sasha gasps, “You just said you didn’t like the idea of biting people!”
“You are an exception.” Jon says very primly, and Tim snorts.
While Sasha and Jon fight over the bowl, Martin pets Jon’s hair. Said man does get the popcorn he wanted, but he also did get a few kernels pelted in his face. Jon grabs a handful and hands the bowl back with a face of pure smugness.
Throughout whatever horrible comedy movie Tim put on, Martin was petting Jon’s hair absentmindedly scratching behind his ears.
After the movie they saw that Jon and Tim as fallen asleep. Sasha takes a moment to snap a few pictures of their friends. And wow isn’t that nice? Martin thinks, to think of them as friends and not coworkers and his boss.
She and Martin bicker over what else to watch, after Sasha wrestled the remote away from a dead asleep Tim. They ended up watching something about aliens, on Sasha’s behest, as she was the one with the remote. Martin could not move to take it, since he had someone asleep against his legs.
-------
Again he wakes up in pain, hands shaking and feet hard to walk on. It was as if something was stabbing him. He almost gets up to repeat the same thing he did the night before, stumbling a bit less gracefully.
As he finally sits down on the bathroom floor he notices his nails growing strangely now. The claws he had before was nothing compared to this. He stared as the grew and changed before his eyes in the most painful way possible. They grew at a slight curve. He tested them in a morbid curiosity to find that they were stronger than normal nails.
He looks to see the bottom of his feet had grown pink, as if he had….
“Paw pads. Fuck.” The same pink was on his hands, standing out against his darker skin.
Jon ponders if he should wake his friends up, when had he started thinking of them that way -- it didn’t matter -- but he decided against it.
Instead of passing out from pain on the floor this time he limped back to the kitchen and took out a bottle of advil from his bag and laid there, on the cool floor, finally able to sleep.
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Tim looks around and saw the missing member of his sleeping party on the kitchen floor, curled up in a little ball.
He kneeled next to him, “Bossman, Jonny boy, Jon wake up. Did something happen?”
Said man sat up tiredly, and groaned at the feeling of his bones after laying on the cold ground twice in a row. He was too old for this.
“Yes. Look.” Jon shows Tim his hands, and Tim looks him over and sighs.
“Suppose I should go get my lighter?”
Jon nodes before carefully putting a hand on Tim’s shoulder, “And a nail file please.”
“Gotcha.” Tim gives him fingerguns, before going to grab said things. Jon sits on the floor and glares at his hands. He feels out of control. The only way he can at least get the situation from getting too out of hand was to burn that leitner. He knows it.
Something good had come from the past two days, he thinks in a small part of his brain. Jon made friends. Well, maybe they had been friends before, but now he doesn’t feel the need to be as professional feeling. He doesn’t feel like he has to pretend to be more than he is. Sasha and Tim won’t get mad at him for needing help. And Martin well, he seems nice and he has been really helpful during this.
He shouldn’t have been so mean to them in the beginning of his tenure as Head Archivist. Before he can get too self deprecating though, Tim comes back with a handful of lighters and a nail file. Jon gets to work on his hands.
When Martin and Sasha wake up he has made it as good as he can, if he files too far down it’ll hurt, and he left them just a little sharp, because it made him feel panicky in a way he can’t explain when he doesn’t have them a bit pointed. Still he gets up and puts on fuzzy socks that Tim lent him.
“We’re burning the book.” Jon said with finality, and Martin and Sasha look at him as if looking for more changes, “Paw pads.” He said in lieu of explanation and shows them his hands before Tim with a little baggie of lighters rolls in.
“Hello all, after book burning we can go get coffee or something.” He says, to hurry Sasha and Martin into putting on their day clothes faster, which is the same clothes from the day before except for Sasha and Tim.
Jon puts on the big floppy hat and they are all putting on their shoes to go and grab the book from the institute.
When they get there they find Elias holding said book in the archives.
“Mr. Bouchard!” Martin says, greeting him for the all of them. Jon is strung up with tension in his chest, staring at the man and the book.
Elias looks at the four of them, “Hello, I see you have a Leitner down here?”
“Yep we do double boss, we were just about to look at it. Not read it of course.” Tim says, and Jon is about to say ‘too late’ before he just decides to not.
Their boss stares at them, “Well it’s a very dangerous book, I might send it down to artifact storage-”
“No, that’ll be alright. We can handle ourselves, Mr. Bouchard.” Jon says, his tone not yet betraying his fear.
Elias seems to see through him, and Jon can swear Elias can see the ears, can see everything. He just hopes his eyes weren’t giving him away.
“Of course. But please send me the report from Artifact Storage when you send it down.” He puts the plastic down and leaves, “And of course, if you read it I do encourage you to tell me. So that nothing bad happens.”
They all think that he is full of bullshit.
He leaves, and Martin snatches up the book and they all wait until lunch to leave the institute.
Sasha pulls out a metal trash can, and Tim hands Jon a lighter. The purple and red thing flicks to life as Jon flicks it with ease that spoke of many years of cigarette addiction, which he was craving one right now.
Either way. He holds the book in his hands and lets the edge of the pages catch with flame, the flames almost licking up his hands before he finally drops it into the trash can. They watch it go up in flame, and Jon’s ears are flicking.
They stay there until it’s ash.
Jon is slammed with the information that he had stopped any further transformation.
But he’s stuck with what he has now.