Chapter Text
1. Regret
Jon has never known how to connect with people. He wishes he could feel that his grandmother loved him; that he was more than an inconvenience and an imposition on Georgie’s life, that he understood how to return Tim’s broad gestures of friendship and be kind enough to Martin to build a real connection without needing deep and abiding trauma to bring them together. Instead he muddles through, snapping at friendly overtures and shrinking from the slightest hint of vulnerability until it’s already far, far too late, and if there’s one thing he wishes he knew how to change about himself all the way to the end it’s the ability to trust, to connect, to feel understood. It sounds like something that might have changed his life for the better.
2. Fulfilled
The first time he manages to force the words “thank you” out of his mouth to Martin feels like so much more of an accomplishment than it really ought to. He knows this, but can’t help but feel proud and satisfied and thrilled to have managed to say them without feeling like he’s trying to manipulate or encourage behavior that he wants. “Thank you” is not an obligation to continue behavior, it’s an expression of appreciation. It’s satisfying to find himself believing it, rather than just knowing it logically.
It turns out that “I Love You” is even better.
3. Family
Some days he wishes he knew more about his parents. He has very little recollection of his childhood, and what he does have is largely the smell of a new book or the grass he sat on to read it and an ongoing sense of being in the way. Sometimes he wonders if his parents would have felt the same way his Grandmother did, or if perhaps she’d have been more welcoming if he’d only been to visit occasionally rather than having the full responsibility for him dumped in her lap in her twilight years. Other times he’d really much rather not think about it; it tends to leave him feeling empty and drained and sad.
4. Obsession
He has to know. It seems impossible that the others can’t grasp this ,can’t understand; even more impossible that they can’t feel it themselves. Something is wrong in the archives and he has to know what it is .
He’s not going to feel safe until he does.
(He’s never going to feel safe again.)
5. Tested
There’s a song playing in his mind as he ventures into the lonely, an earworm he thought he must have left behind in his uni days. It’s from a musical, an adaptation of the Tragedy of Orpheus and Euridice. It’s not a happy thought as he ventures into a place of mist and isolation to find the one person who still makes him feel human, and he wonders, briefly and entirely against his will, if this is some kind of test by some bemused entity trying to give him a happy ending he will never be able to get.
The earworm comes back as they trek through hellscape after hellscape, hand in hand and terrified of losing one another. It’s not helpful, exactly, but it does give them something to laugh about when Martin asks him what he’s thinking as they walk.
It’s a tragedy, but at least it’s one they get to go through together.
6. Overcome
He tries so hard not to crack in front of the others. The illusion of normalcy is quite nearly the single string keeping him boud to sanity at the moment, and he’s not entirely sure what he’s going to do if he loses that, but he desperately doesn’t want to find out.
He waits until after hours, until he knows for certain that everyone but him has gone home, to sink to the floor of his office to gasp and wheeze for air around the sobs that force their way around the fist he’s shoved in his mouth, to let his legs tremble so hard that they can no longer support him, to curl up under his desk and let off some of the pressure that’s going to shatter him if he keeps it inside for too much longer.
It’s not a good solution, nor a permanent one, but it’s what he’s got, and he’s going to cling to it for as long as he can.
7. Triumph
“No.”
“...Yes.”
“You’re joking. You’re messing with me.”
“I’m really not.”
“I can see you grinning, Jonathan Sims. You kept this quiet just so you could shock us, didn’t you?”
“I mean that wasn’t the original intent but I’ll say it is rather satisfying to see you so alarmed by something so mundane.”
“I— In what way do immortal space pirates qualify as mundane?”
8. Passion
He’s mortified to realize how long he’s been talking about emulsifiers, but it’s not like he can stop now. He has no idea how to redirect the conversation, how to apologize for taking up so much of the verbal space. This is why he doesn’t come out with people. Every conversation he’s in turns into some kind of lecture. It’s the only way he knows how to speak.
He’s kind of saved when Tim convinces the restaurant staff to join him in singing a raucous “happy birthday” chorus to Martin, but the humiliation doesn’t fade. He mentally retreats, forcibly silencing himself as the ridiculous things he personally finds interesting but most people find dull at the very best continue to try to force their way out of his mouth. He realizes his ice cream is largely melted, not having been touched whilst he was oversharing.
Taking an embarrassed scoop of soppy rum and raisin, he kind of wishes he could just disappear. He definitely wishes he hadn’t come. If any of them had truly wanted him here to begin with, he’s certain they don’t any longer.
His thoughts continue spiralling until Martin nudges him to get his attention and thanks him for sharing.
“I never realized how interesting food science can be. It was really awesome to hear about why ice cream works like it does.”
Jon isn’t sure what he stammers out around the flush in his face that’s overloading his brain, but whatever it is, he’s glad.
9. Jealousy
He feels a bit bad for laughing at Martin’s jealously over Oliver Banks, but it’s so odd to him. Even after however long of knowing that Martin values him and wants him to be a part of his life and views him as a net positive in his own, the idea that anyone would find him important enough to feel entitled to wake him up from a coma, and feel jealous at not having had that opportunity when it presented itself, is astonishing to him.
It’s kind of nice to feel like he’s worth something to someone.
10. Deception
He’s glad he can’t really sleep after the world ends, grateful that he can’t dream. It’s bad enough that his waking brain has decided to play the words that ended the world on repeat; if he had to dream them too, along with the usual nightmares of all the fear he’s personally consumed, he’s not certain even Martin could keep him grounded enough to try to do anything about this world.
Hello, Jon. Apologies for the deception. Hello, Jon. Apologies for the deception. Hello, Jon. Apologies for the deception....