#but no - she's s.asha and she's still the same s.asha he loves - even if she's got new priorities now. he KNOWS her enough to know that

[ethereousdelirious]

Whumptober # 13 - Pneumonia

The original prompt was “chemical pneumonia,” but i had to alter it because lung stuff squicks me out.

Fandom: The M.agnus A.rchives

Characters, E.lias, J.on, Tim, S.asha, M.artin

Warnings/Notes: I characterized E.lias differently than i usually do, so YMMV with this one. Notes justifying this at the end. The fic is spoiler-free but the end note will not be, so just skip that if you’re not up to like, S4

It was odd watching Elias get sick in real time.

Jon swore he had never seen him so much as he did just following his promotion. First there was the scary meeting in Elias’ office, and then it felt like he checked on Jon at least once a week.

He was sniffling and tucking a handkerchief, an actual honest-to-god handkerchief, back into his jacket for the first visit.

“Ah, Jon!” he said, a little stuffed up. “Just the man I wanted to see. How’s everything coming?”

“Oh, um.” Jon had to fight not to shy away from Elias’ gaze. “Uh, good, thank you.”

“Yes?” Elias seemed to get closer, though he didn’t move. “Got your things moved over to the bigger office?”

“Yes.”

Elias nodded once, then turned his head to the side and sneezed.

This time Jon did step back. 

“Got a cold, then?” he asked with faux-casualness that made his voice too booming and jovial.

“Ah,” Elias sniffled. “Yes. No matter, I’m sure it’ll go away soon.” He clapped Jon on the back and left.

Jon went back to his computer, icy branches of discomfort tracing up his spine. Sometimes Elias didn’t act like a person.

He was worse on the next visit, but not by much. Jon was coming back from his lunch break and Tim was following, teasing.

“–and we’ll get you a great big nameplate,” Tim said, tracing the size of it with his hands. “Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist.” He snorted, not seeming to realize that he was being annoying. “We’ll get you a big, fancy badge to go along with it.”

Then Elias turned the corner and scared the daylights out of them both. Jon actually jumped and knocked into Tim a bit.

“Hello, Jon. Tim.”

Jon tried to catch his breath. “Oh, E-Elias.”

“You scared us!” Tim said,always eager to smooth things over. “How can we help you?”

“Yes.” Jon straightened. “Sorry.”

Elias didn’t answer right away. He gave a few juddering coughs into his sleeve first. Then he straightened and cleared his throat. “I wanted to see how the re-organization was coming. That’s an ambitious project, especially for four academics. I don’t suppose you used to be a filing clerk?” he asked Tim.

“No,” sad Tim. He hesitated. “Are you, um, alright, Elias? You look a little–” He waved his hand in front of his face. 

“Just a cold!” Elias said, too brightly for a man who evidently couldn’t breathe out of his nose. He turned to address Jon again. “Show me your progress?”

“Oh, yes, of course.” Jon turned and led Elias to the archives. He was never one for small talk, so he lapsed into a pensive, nervous silence. 

Jon knew he was a workaholic, but if he ever had the audacity to come to work as sick as Elias sounded, he would have at least locked himself away in an office and not inflicted himself on everyone.

“Remind me again why you’re–” Elias paused to clear his throat– “converting everything to audio format.”

Jon pursed his lips, trying not to feel too attacked. “Well,” he said. He didn’t like to look Elias in the eyes, so he kept bouncing his gaze between Elias’ raw nose and chapped, parted lips. “I, ah. I thought it might be good to have a backup. Some of the statements are so old you can barely read them. I thought we could convert them to audio format and derive transcripts from that.”

“Spelling might be an issue,” Elias said. Before Jon could even take a breath to speak, Elias was coughing again. It was a nasty, wheezing fit that lasted entirely too long for Jon’s comfort and left Elias short of breath. “Do excuse me,” he said when he was done, and smiled a little. It was still enough to make his chapped lower lip split and start to bleed.

“Oh, god,” Jon said before he could stop himself. “Are you sure you should be here? Sir.” He was not about to get written up for having an attitude problem. Again.

“Of course.” Elias sniffled and touched his lip, looking strangely bemused at the blood that stained his fingertip.

He looked so lost that Jonathan felt strangely compelled to give him a hint. “Maybe some lip balm? When the bleeding stops?”

“Yes, of course.” The confusion faded away, replaced with a businesslike demeanor that suited him better, somehow. In his black suit and charcoal-colored shirt, the paleness of his face looked all the more sickly. Despite the dark circles under his eyes, he managed to give Jon a keen look. “We’ll continue this later, then.”

“Feel better soon,” Jon offered, but it sounded hollow even to his own ears.

.

Jon always hated meetings. Especially meetings where he had to talk. Especially meetings where he had to explain his thought process to a room full of people.

He made sure to arrive first, so he had plenty of time to sit there and make himself nervous, and turn that into a razor-edged irritability he could thrust into anyone who argued with him too much.

Sasha and Martin came in together.

“Afternoon,” Jon said stiffly. “Seen Tim?”

“He’ll be along,” Martin said. “I think he popped out to buy donuts or something.”

“No, no,” Sasha said, pulling up a chair a respectful distance away from Jon. “Coffee, remember? He changed his mind.”

“Coffee, then,” Martin corrected himself.

Sure enough, Tim came in a moment later with a paperboard beverage caddy.

“Oh, thank God I beat Elias here,” he said, sliding into a chair. He passed out the coffees until only one was left. “Sasha, I got you a white mocha because you’re sweet. Martin, a vanilla latte because you’re timid–”

“What?”

Tim steamrollered over the top of him. “Spicy chai latte for me because obviously, and plain black for Jon and Elias because” he dropped his voice to a stage whisper, “they scare me.”

“Charming.” Jon examined the label on his cup and found that Tim had actually gotten him a flat white. He decided not to read into it.

“Afternoon,” said a terrible, rasping voice that might have had Elias’ smooth veneer buried somewhere beneath it. Elias sat with his back ramrod straight. Despite the high flush on his cheeks that bespoke a fever and the general paleness of the rest of him, his eyes were still as keen and bright as they ever were.

“You sound awful,” Tim said, sliding him the final coffee. “Maybe that’ll help your throat.”

“Have you taken any time off?” Sasha asked.

Jon took another sip of his coffee to hide his shock at their openness. If Elias wanted to work through what was obviously a miserable chest cold, that was his choice.

Elias dragged in a breath to speak and Jon winced. His breathing sounded heavy and wet. “It’s alright,” he said. He stared each of them in turn with his glittering, dark eyes, and Jon was just about convinced when Elias turned to the side and started to cough.

It was wholly unlike what he’d sounded like before. These were wet, dragging things, like every breath had to pass through a damp tea towel.

“Boss, I think you’d better go home,” Tim said when the fit slowed to a halt. “Or maybe to a doctor.”

“A doctor? For a cold?”

“That’s more than a cold,” Martin said with certainty. “That sounds more like pneumonia.”

Elias’ eyebrows went up. “Pneumonia,” he repeated. Then his face changed in a way Jon didn’t really understand. Something seemed to glint behind his eyes, well, not glint, but they changed and his expression became one of complete understanding. It was like nothing Jon had ever seen before.

It was gone in an instant, and Elias’ face went back to the same expression of gormless authority he usually wore, like he’d just woken up one day and found himself wielding an enormous amount of power.

“Of course,” he said, shaking his head and smiling sheepishly. “I’m not often ill– I’m sorry, we’ll have to postpone the meeting.”

“I think we’ll survive,” Tim said airily.

They all waited for Elias to leave, for the echo of his footsteps to taper off down the hall.

Then they all leaned in.

“My god, he looked awful,” Martin said.

“I thought he was gonna drop dead,” Sasha agreed. “Did you hear him coughing?”

“Honestly, who doesn’t know they have pneumonia?” Tim added.

Jon hivered, as he often did, at the periphery of the conversation. He let himself smile to show that he wasn’t going to be a spoilsport, but he wasn’t sure it would be appropriate to join in.

“Even Jon knows better than that,” Tim was saying.

“No, he doesn’t,” Sasha said, but she was smiling.

“I certainly wouldn’t call a meeting while ill with pneumonia, if that’s what you’re asking,” Jon said.

“Well, good,” Martin said. 

“Ah, but he didn’t say he wouldn’t come to work,” Sasha said.

The bantering continued. Jonathan leaned back, coffee in hand. He would have to corral them back to work soon, but for now, it was nice to just sit back and listen for a while.

Note: *Stop reading here if you don’t want spoilers*

I leaned into the “obfuscating stupidity” trope but because the fic is from Jon’s POV it’s not obvious how much Jonahlias knows about his situation. I figure he doesn’t get sick much and kinda of… forgot to take into consideration how bad it could get. Esp because he was so wrapped up in making sure Jon’s transition to Archivist goes smoothly. I just really love how airheaded and ineffectual Elias seems at the beginning of the series haha