Chapter Text
"I need a new assistant",
Jon snapped before he had even properly walked into the office. The space was lined with trinkets and ornaments from varying time frames, carefully placed and hung on bookshelves and walls. Jon had always thought it rather pretentious, displaying time like that as if it were something to be owned. Time was wild and free and knew no bounds. Or at least that’s what Martin always said. Jon thought the same thing of course, but would never state it in such a poetic way.
The Handler looked up at Jon over the rims of her sunglasses, which she wore always, even indoors. She had been absorbed in some sort of file or progress report and didn't seem too amused to be rudely pulled out of it.
"That's no way to address me Archivist, and besides, if you need a new assistant, you could have just sent a memo up to management. No need to bother me about it", she declared, trying to sound professional over her bubbling frustration.
"That's the point", Jon started, walking casually over to the desk, hands clasped tightly behind his back to hide the recent burn mark that stretched over his palm and up his wrist, "the people they send are useless. Obviously not at the actual archiving part of the job, but as soon as they see anything remotely dangerous, they freeze up. The last person you sent down only lasted three days before being eaten by some hallway!"
He raised his voice at the last sentence, trying to subtly convey his anger without fully blowing up. The Handler paused. She seemed to be considering something, or perhaps she was trying to remember the person Jon had just mentioned. He could never really read her expressions after all.
"Wait a minute, three days?", she said before her eyes drifted off again, only for a second this time, "We sent her down almost four months ago!", she declared like Jon wouldn't have known. Her usual casual tone was replaced by one of slight bewilderment, and Jon was genuinely impressed with himself for making her mask slip, even if it was the tiniest amount.
"Yes, I am aware", Jon stated through gritted teeth, not liking the Handlers patronising tone.
"So you mean to tell me that you've gone four months with no assistant?", She queried flatly, the professional mask returning as she spoke.
"That would be correct, so I would appreciate a new one. Preferably someone who is a bit more suited to the more physically demanding aspects of the job", Jon replied, mirroring his boss's flat tone. "Perhaps someone from the corrections department", he continued, making sure not to sound too authoritative. He knew from experience not to behave like that around his superiors, "although, if that is the case, could it be one of the more intellectual ones, the job still requires the basic archival duties to be carried out after all. And, well some of the assassins we have here are, um, well to put it lightly-"
"-Incompetent?", the Handler finished for him, seemingly unaffected by the dig at her management skills.
"Yes, quite”
"Well Archivist, I'll see what I can do but there will be no promises. I'm a very busy woman.", she looked down when she talked, and Jon took it as a sign of dismissal. "If you're quite finished complaining for the time being", she continued, making a small waving motion with her hand, as if to swat a fly which wasn't there, "you should probably head back down to the archives. After all, there is no one to oversee them when you're not there".
"Yes, yes, I'll be on my way", Jon said as he left the room, making sure to rearrange the position of his hands to keep the fresh bandages out of sight.
The door closed behind him with a quiet slam, and he scanned the waiting room as he crossed it to get to the stairway. There was only one person there, a young-looking boy in a rather preppy school uniform. Like one of the ones the kids wore at those fancy private schools, Jon thought. The boy reminded him slightly of Callum Brodie, although that might have been because Callum was the only child he'd seen in years. The Commission didn't exactly have them running around the place and child avatars were incredibly rare. However, the kid did seem to have the same air to him as Callum had had. He held himself in a way that children usually don't, and the expression on his face was one of frustration and bitterness. All in all, his demeanour lacked the inherent innocence a child usually had. Strange, Jon thought as he started descending the stairs to the basement.
The stairs leading down to the archives were steep, and slippery from all the dust that lined them. No one other than Jon (and sometimes Martin) frequently used them, and the cleaners obviously didn't bother, so Jon resorted to grabbing the rickety banister like a lifeline as he walked down, careful not to slip. He really didn't need another injury right now. With this thought, he glanced down at his hand. The bandages were only a day or so old, but they would need to be changed soon. He hated to have to bother Martin with all these medical needs, but he seemed to enjoy caring for people, and Jon certainly needed caring for. Besides, he, unlike the medical staff at the Commission, understood the severity of these wounds, and didn’t ask prying questions to make Jon feel uncomfortable. As he made his way through the dim passage into the archives, he heard a crashing noise. Startled, Jon rushed to get to the door, expecting to find the place on fire, or covered in flesh-eating worms. Oh, eye above, I leave for ten minutes, and this place goes to hell, Jon thought frantically as he burst through the doorway and into the cluttered and frankly quite messy, but thankfully worm-free archives. He sighed a breath of relief, but looking around he saw a yellow door on the back wall. A yellow door that definitely shouldn’t be there.
“Oh, for fucks sake”, he muttered to himself, before yelling to the seemingly-empty-space-that-he-knew-for-a-fact-wasn’t-empty. “Michael get lost! You ate my last assistant, and I haven’t gotten a new one yet. However, you can probably expect one in 3-5 business days so you can come back then I suppose.”
All Jon heard in response was some distant, echoed laughter.