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His knuckles hurt from knocking on the door, but only for as long as it takes Helen to answer.
Their conversation is... Not productive. He doesn't get many answers — he has more questions now, if anything.
"Do you feel better?" Helen asks him, after a few moments of silence.
"Not really," Jon snorts. "I'm still lost in all of this."
Helen cocks her head, red curls jostling with a little more inertia than they should.
"You don't need to lie to me, Archivist," she croons. "You enjoy talking to me."
Jon begins to deny it, because he — he can't, couldn't, she's a monster, but...
She's right. When Helen Richardson had come to his office, scared and half out of her mind, she'd found comfort in telling her story. Jon had briefly helped her feel human again, and that was likely the last human interaction she had before taking the Distortion's mantle.
"Alright," he admits, reluctantly. "Yes, it's — it's nice to talk to someone that understands."
"I don't know if I understand," she laughs. It laughs. It's been odd getting used to this version of the Distortion; Helen's laugh is lower than Michael's, a thick resonance that seems to muffle a room as opposed to Michael's high, glass-shattering giggles. "But it is interesting, isn't it?” she continues. “We were both humans, once. Imagine that."
Jon's stomach turns considering himself having ’been’ human. He's not human now, obviously, he knows that, but thinking about it is still uncomfortable. He'd rather live in comfortable ignorance again.
Helen either senses his denial or had intended to lean forward anyway, because she is suddenly close enough for Jon to feel his own breath deflect from her face.
"I think Helen may have fancied you," it laughs. "Michael, too, maybe, though he wasn't quite sure about it, in the end. We've got all kinds of fluttering things under our skin."
Jon, God help him, feels his cheeks flush with heat.
"Oh," is all he can think to say.
The flickering imitation of a face crowds close enough Jon swears his teeth buzz with static, eyes darting to where there might be a mouth if there weren't already patterns burning afterimages into his eyelids.
She is tall. Michael Shelley had been tall, he'd found while researching the man's pre-Distorted life, but Helen Richardson hadn't been nearly this height, even in heels.
"Well, look at you, Archivist. Finally speechless."
This close, she doesn't speak the words so much as twirl them into the air. Has she spoken at all, or is she just toying with him? Is she conjuring hallucinations for him or teasing him with never-spoken confessions for the fun of it?
A sharp hand cradles his jaw, sudden enough to startle but soft enough to leave his skin unsplit. There's something pressed to him, his mouth, and it's —
She's kissed him.
Trying to watch her from so closely sends agonizing pain through his eyes, so he shuts them. Without attempting to see, to Know her features, the kiss becomes a little more solid — the way she pushes forward is unnerving, like the shove of water without the wet or the cool.
Jon gasps softly when her other hand comes up to hold his face. Helen's thumbs drift over his cheeks, down his jaw, over his throat. She presses her 'mouth' harder against his to part his lips, and she swallows another noise of his when she shoves something like a tongue between them.
Jon nicks himself on her fingers when he suddenly pulls away.
"Helen," Jon shudders, one hand flying up to cover his mouth. "I — that was — i-it wasn't, um..." He trails off, face burning redder and redder as he tries to come up with something. Make excuses for why he let her do that for as long as she did, or make excuses for why he'd like to but can't right now. "I w-wasn't expecting that," is what he decides on, with a nervous laugh.
Helen's arms fall to her sides again. She allows Jon to take a step back, put some distance between them for his own peace of mind.
"Always happy to surprise you, Archivist," she smirks, or sneers. "I suppose I'll let you get back to your work. Busy man, hm?"
Jon doesn't trust himself to speak.
He nods a little too vigorously instead as Helen waltzes back through her door.
"Be seeing you, Jon."