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“Hello, you’ve reached Beholding Services London, your best option for professionally managed terror. How can we watch you today?”
You had to hand it to Martin, he might not be exactly scary or, well, competent in most areas, but he really did have an excellent telephone manner. Jon, himself, had been barred from any and all customer interaction (outside of the actual terrorising, of course) unless there was absolutely no one else available, including people who had just dropped in from other departments for a chat, or to deliver pizza.
He was, privately, not at all upset about the fact.
“Okay, that’s no problem at all, we can get someone over to you on the tenth. No, I’m really sorry, I can’t say exactly what time or what’s going to happen … we find that it hinders the effectiveness of the fear inducement procedure. But, don’t worry, we’re a strictly non-fatal service, barring specific health issues, which are outside of the warranty, and you’ll be guaranteed Fear-free for two years. That’s great. Oh no, thank you!”
Martin put the phone down, his smile slipping seamlessly from ‘pleasing customers’ mode to that smaller, shyer (sweeter?) one which seemed to be reserved for Jon’s personal use. It was … confusing, to have been allocated a smile of his own and Jon was not quite sure what to make of it.
It was certainly not going to shift his opinion of Martin, who had clearly wandered into the job by mistake, but, well. It wasn’t … awful.
“Jon, you’ve a slot free on the tenth, right?”
Jon checked his calendar automatically, but he already Knew his schedule off by heart. It was a perk of the job.
“I do have several bookings, but I suppose I could fit in another, if it’s not too far away from Paddington.”
“Oh, perfect, it’s only a few streets away.”
Jon noted down the address, trying not to look too disgruntled. One more booking wasn’t unreasonable to ask, of course - it was just, what with everything else … well, it was a lot. And they took it out of him.
There was the travelling, for a start. Unlike the Spiral or the Vast, where practically instant transportation was included as standard, those allied to the Beholding were forced to cover their assigned territory by foot, bus or tube (or be prepared to have one hell of a fight on the subject of reasonable taxi expenses).
On top of which, he was having to get increasingly creative and, well … dramatic … to deal with the inevitable fear fatigue and the Sense of Security Effect, which meant that he couldn’t simply stare creepily at people, any more, or even - when it came to the more hardened cases - erupt in a fountain of eyeballs, without risking a null response; something which would mortify Jon to the bone.
Avoiding that took great physical and emotional effort, to an extent which very few people really appreciated.
But there was also the fact that, while Jon was incredibly good at his job, he also detested it.
Yes, he was providing a valuable public service and keeping people safe from unsolicited Fear-attacks, which were not, unlike their own services, guaranteed not to actually kill, or otherwise permanently injure. But, ever since the most recent price increases (which their CEO, Elias Bouchard, justified using the sort of specious, manipulative nonsense he spoke so fluently, that Jon wasn’t sure he could even speak in a straight line any more) he had been very concerned that many people, despite the nominal Government Aid Programme, would be unable to afford the service and he was, therefore, only shifting the worse effects of the Fears onto the marginalised sections of society.
Besides which, there was no getting away from the fact that he scared people for a living. Deliberately and purposefully and horribly well. Jon’s role in life was officially the Bogeyman and that was something which depressed him to his core.
Martin, apparently, wasn’t entirely oblivious to his unhappiness.
“I’m really sorry, Jon. I would have chosen another day, but the client wanted to get it in before the last cover period ran out and, well, there weren’t a lot of options.”
“It’s fine, Martin. As you say, the jobs are very close together and … it’s fine.”
“Maybe you should talk to Elias again about getting in a little more help? The other Fear companies have a lot more operatives per area …”
“I hardly fancy sitting through the Cost Effectiveness presentation again, Martin. I swear, he adds a few extra slides to it, every time, to make it longer and even more patronising.”
“Mm, yeah, it really does drip with condescension, doesn’t it?”
Jon nodded, in an unaccustomed moment of complete solidarity with Martin.
“Like a faulty tap. Still. If the subscriber numbers keep going up, I suppose there’ll be no help for it. I have to admit, Tim and Sasha are running an excellent publicity campaign. I believe our numbers are finally beginning to exceed both the Lonely and the Dark in the South London area. Even catching up on the Vast.”
Martin shuddered.
“I’ve never understood why that one’s the most popular. You know, Simon Fairchild once offered to throw me off a rollercoaster?”
“Well, he does that with everyone. It’s his equivalent of asking about the weather.”
“Yes, well, it was not appreciated.”
They completed a little more admin in harmony, before Jon rose to leave for his first booking of the day, pulling his coat on sharply and with perhaps a tad too much resignation, as Martin’s little smile swiftly turned into the other expression he reserved for Jon; a roughly forty/sixty mixture of exasperation and concern.
“You know, I could ask him to let me try again to …”
“No, thank you, Martin. I think we’ve pretty much established that your talents lie … elsewhere.”
Martin hung his head, in a painful manner which sent shards of something sharp and self-loathing into Jon’s innards and wriggled them about a bit.
“And that’s fine, Martin. I mean, we’ve also established that I can’t do what you do, without risking our entire client base defecting en masse to the Spiral or Desolation, or anyone who doesn’t, as Elias put it, ‘have a post-graduate degree in ‘withering’’ , so … we all have our niche.”
That won him the smile back again, albeit a slightly watery version, and Jon left the office feeling peculiarly cheered by that.
A confusing person, Martin.
But he quickly put the man to the back of his mind, as he focused his attention on the effective utilisation of multiplying security cameras, for the installation of dread in his first client.
He couldn’t help feeling some satisfaction at how effective it was, even as he hated himself just a little more.
~~~
Martin had never intended to take a job with Beholding.
Certainly he had - with reluctance - decided that a career with one or other of the Fears was his best shot at earning enough to pay for the private care home his mother wanted, while still managing to cover rent and food. The jobs were unpopular and potentially dangerous, so, naturally, the salaries were a lot higher than most places would pay for anyone as unqualified as he was.
But he’d really been hoping for the Web. It seemed a far better natural fit for him and he rather liked spiders; so, the lies he wove through his C.V. were carefully designed to appeal to their fondness for subtle manipulation. Unfortunately, you couldn’t just apply to one Fear; your application had to be submitted to a central hub, from which you were then offered an interview by the particular Fear (or, more rarely, Fears) which took an interest.
Martin had not expected to be called in to see Elias Bouchard, the smug, detached Watcher-in-Chief of Beholding; but he needed the money and the Web had been resoundingly silent, so … what could he do?
As he’d half expected, his attempts to work in the most important part of the job he’d been hired for - as back-up fear-inducer to Head Operative Jonathan Sims - had been disastrous from the start. Three nulls in a week, whom Jon had had to then go in and rescare properly, to avoid both a refund (with standard compensation) and the hit to their reputation which would have ensued, had they been unable to ensure Fear Security.
Instead of being fired, however, as he’d immediately assumed would happen, Martin had ended up taking on a solely administrative and customer-facing role and no one more suitable had been hired to take up the fear-inducing slack; which left Jon nearly as overworked as before, though with fewer reprimands for upsetting customers.
Their initial relationship had been … strained, to put it mildly. But, unfortunately, Martin had never been able to help himself, when it came to a crush; and Jon had hit all his buttons from the start and just kept pressing them.
And he seemed to be mellowing a lot, recently, which made it even harder not to turn into every single lovestruck cliche possible around him. God, Martin was so pathetic, he even pitied himself.
Or he would do, if loving Jon wasn’t something which had crept softly into his heart and wrapped around it like a cosy scarf.
As for the rest of the job, Martin was slowly getting the hang of it; even starting to enjoy it. Persuading people of the benefits of a planned and controlled scare - and of choosing Beholding in particular - exercised his more Web-like traits quite nicely, while letting him have a nice chat. And, while he’d had some scheduling issues at the start, when getting used to the system, it was coming much more naturally now.
The hardest part was dealing with the complaints; and Tim and Sasha helped out there, so it wasn’t so onerous as it might have been. And they actually had remarkably few, given the nature of the service, because Jon really was outstandingly good at his job. In fact, they were mostly from people who failed to grasp that they had to be actually, genuinely scared for the process to work, or they would remain vulnerable from the Fears.
“ … had nightmares for a week! With the amount of money I paid you, I would have expected …”
Martin tried not to sigh down the phone. At least this one hadn’t literally crapped himself; people tended to take it personally when that happened, instead of appreciating the level of craftsmanship involved. Martin forcibly stopped himself from dreamily dwelling on Jon again.
“I do understand how upsetting that must be. But, as we clearly state in the contract and the literature, the Fears require a certain level of terror intake, in order to be satisfied. We would be failing you as a company, if we only provided a mildly startling experience, which would leave you at risk of being preyed on by one or more Fears indiscriminately and without our minimum harm guarantee.”
It often took a while to persuade people that they had got exactly what they had paid for and consented to - the problem was that, with so many fewer of the more severe Fear attacks - or fewer which made the papers, at least - people didn’t have anything to compare it too and didn’t understand that they genuinely were getting off lightly. Jon calculated his scares to be powerful, but not lingering. The nightmares generally stopped after less than a month and the whole experience could be shrugged off without major psychological harm, rather than the typical experience with the Fears, prior to this system, whereby they would sometimes kill immediately or, more often, hound an individual, sometimes over years, until their untimely and unpleasant demise.
Tim referred to what they did as the Fear Tax or the Infernal Revenue. Sasha suggested, cheerfully, it was more of a protection racket.
“Pay up your biannual instalments, or we’ll Know you to death.”
Jon just looked troubled, when the discussion turned to How Evil is Our Job, Anyway? and pointed out that it was better than the alternative.
“It gives people a measure of control, in a situation where there are very limited options. You’ve all seen the statistics for how dangerous the Fears were before the system was set up. You’ve read the horror stories. At least this … limits the harm.”
He always sounded like he was desperately trying to convince himself and Martin always had to restrain himself from hugging him.
Personally, Martin did believe that they were doing good, under the sort of circumstances in which the only ‘good’ available was ‘not quite as bad as it might be’. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be working here, regardless of salary. And the fact that some people got so angry about a little bit of a fright proved how far they’d come from the old days, when terror was thick in the streets.
No, all in all, Martin was happy to be here, to have made good friends in Tim and Sasha and to have lost his foolish heart completely to his skittish, brittle co-worker.
He smiled softly at the last thought, as he answered the phone again.
“Hello, you’ve reached Beholding Services …”
~~~
“I really don’t know if I can fit another one in, Georgie, it’s rather … yes, I know, I know and I do agree, obviously, or I wouldn’t be … fine. Tuesday.”
Jon hung up with a mental curse. He kept telling himself that he needed to be firmer, to explain more clearly to Georgie how draining it was; but this had been his own stupid idea in the first place and he supposed that he would just have to ‘suck it up’ as Melanie would put it.
It had started just under a year ago. Jon hadn’t been so overworked then, as Beholding was only in the middle of the Fear pack, numbers-wise and when he’d had the idea he’d actually been quite excited about it.
It had taken a certain amount of courage to approach Georgie, with whom he hadn’t spoken since their break-up, but she was the only person he could think of who might help; and, to his surprise and relief, she had agreed.
“Although I’d still prefer that you get out of the job entirely, Jon. That place is toxic, however much good you think you’re doing.”
“Let’s not go over the old arguments, Georgie. And you don’t have to do this, if you feel so strongly about helping the Fears …”
“No, no, I think it’s a good idea. I’ve been … reassessing my stance recently, let’s say.”
Neither of them brought up Melanie King, but it was clear that she was largely responsible for the change of heart. The Fear Management Companies had been falling over themselves to use her as an example of ‘What Could Happen to You’ if you didn’t access their services.
Oddly enough, she hadn’t appreciated this fact.
“I’ve got a pretty good idea of where to start. How many do you think you can handle?”
The idea was simple. Jon - with Georgie and Melanie’s help - would organise an unofficial pro-bono service, for some of those people who slipped through the cracks; unable to afford the Fear Management rates, but who didn’t qualify for the Government subsidy, for one reason or other; such as being ever so slightly in the wrong income bracket, being homeless, unable to fill in the forms, or missing out on one or other of the absurd qualifiers which applied.
Despite not being officially contracted, Jon’s powers could ensure that anyone he scared would be just as Fear-free as any paying customer - the Fears themselves were hardly fussy about correct paperwork, as long as they got their allotted food.
Jon could hardly help many of these people - barely scratching the surface - but it seemed better than nothing. He had given Georgie a moderate figure and, at first, he had been able to manage it reasonably well.
But then Georgie had kept finding more sob-stories and trying to squeeze a few more in; and Jon’s workload had gone up; and, even when he had finally persuaded Elias to get him an assistant Martin had … not exactly worked out.
Though, of course, he did take a lot of the administrative burden away, which helped, so … perhaps he was being unfair (he was being unfair, of course he was, it was just all so exhausting).
And it was entirely his own fault, because if he only properly explained to Georgie how hard it was, instead of giving off this front that, of course, he was managing just fine, she wouldn’t keep finding extra people, ‘just one more’ on top of their agreed weekly limit; and, if he wasn’t so … pathetic, he wouldn’t listen to their stories and agree.
If he wasn’t so pathetic, he would actually be able to handle it, instead of just pretending he could.
Sighing, Jon mentally reshuffled his workload for Tuesday. He had to make periodic appearances at the office, to document his cases and because Elias liked to discuss them in person, sometimes, critiquing the techniques used and absorbing a little second-hand terror, on behalf of Beholding; which never seemed to mind redigesting its own food, like a cow munching happily on the cud.
This complicated his schedule considerably, but at least the Knowing he got, as part of the job, helped him work out a travel plan without too much difficulty; including his more illicit jobs.
Most of those had to take place off the clock, of course, which meant that he’d dropped out of the small amount of social interaction he’d been - not entirely reluctantly - dragged into by Tim and Sasha, over the past few years.
He tried to tell himself he didn’t miss it, but, well. It couldn’t be helped. And he could hardly explain why he was so busy, which meant that another two friendships were steadily slipping away from him, and stalking back into the realms of stiff acquaintanceship.
It was fitting, for the Bogeyman. After all, he hurt people, every day.
And there seemed no way to stop, without doing more harm so … Jon gritted his teeth, knocked off another hour of sleep from his schedule and got on with it.
~~~
“How do you make a giant looming eyeball look welcoming?”
Sasha raised an eyebrow at the proffered sketches for their latest campaign.
“Well, not like that, for a start.”
Martin eyed the intimidating drawings - which seemed to bore deep into his soul and run an unforgiving finger over the edges for dust - and couldn’t help but agree.
“Hm. Yeah, not my best work. I guess Beholding just doesn’t want me to make it look cuddly.” Tim considered. “Ooh, maybe bunny ears …”
Martin was just formulating polite ways to suggest that this would likely make things so much worse, when he was entirely derailed by Jon getting back from his morning shift.
His initial burst of happy ‘Jon!’ feeling was tempered, as so often these days, by concern for how tired he was looking. Jon was always scrupulously neat and tidy, almost with a desperation to it, but it couldn’t hide the way his eyes were shadowed as if he had decided to give up sleep for Lent, his steps dragged a little, like he was walking through lead and the way his cheekbones were starting to become dangerously prominent.
“Hey, Jon! You’re just in time for lunch! Want to join us?”
Jon glanced at the clock (as if he didn’t know the time exactly) and gave an impatient shrug.
“It’s half an hour until lunchtime, Martin. And besides, I have a lot to do before going out again. I’ll … eat between jobs.”
Jon was almost breathtakingly bad at lying. It was one of those several flaws which only served to set off the rest of him to perfection and made him just … okay, perhaps Martin had better not wax poetic over the man, just now, when he was clearly nearly on the verge of collapse.
“I … look, Jon, I don’t want to be rude, but …”
“You look like you’ll fall down if someone stares at you too hard,” Sasha supplied, helpfully, pulling out a chair and practically shoving Jon into it. She eyed him critically, as if testing this theory. Jon rolled his eyes at her, but he did stay put.
“I am, perhaps, a little tired. But I need to get these cases in the system …”
“Well, lucky for you that we’re having a slow morning.” Tim finished up his bunny-ears adorned eyeball, with a casual pencil flick - and, oh dear god, Martin’s worst fears had been amply realised - then strolled over to Jon and squeezed his shoulder. “Just give us the info-dump and, between us, we can put them all in for you, while you take a quick break. Then you can grab some lunch with us to make up for it.”
Sasha nodded.
“You really do owe us lunch, Jon, it’s been months.”
Jon looked between them all, as if he was entirely baffled by what was going on.
“I … are you sure?” Then he straightened up and slapped on that frustratingly closed-off look. “No. No, I do appreciate it, but I can’t impose. I’m sure you’re all just as busy as I am …”
“Jon, for god’s sake, just let us help you!”
Martin blanched slightly, at the bluntness of this, before realising that it had been him who’d spoken; Jon looking up at him wide-eyed. There was nothing to do but lean into it.
“You’re obviously exhausted, Jon. And we can handle it. Just … let us, okay?”
There was a moment when Martin thought Jon’s stubborn pride would win out; then he ran his hand over his face and let out a sigh of something which left him softer and achingly vulnerable.
“Okay.” He looked round at them all. “Thank you.”
At Sasha’s suggestion, to save time, Jon dumped all the cases on all of them at once (Martin tried not to wince at the rush of information) so they could organise the workload between them. Then he lay down on the couch - to ‘rest his eyes’ a moment - and was asleep in seconds.
Martin firmly stamped on the impulse to ruffle his hair and turned his attention to splitting the cases. It shouldn’t take long, between the three of them.
“Though really,” as Sasha pointed out, “you’d think a eldritch Entity of unfathomable power, ought to be able to work out a way to input these things directly into the system from our brains, without all the typing. Or just skip the paperwork altogether.”
Splitting them out was simple enough; except that Martin quickly discovered something odd.
“I remember all the cases Jon had scheduled for today, but there are a couple of names here I don’t recognise.”
“Really?” Tim raised an eyebrow, concerned. “Jon’s generally pretty meticulous with this stuff.”
Sasha chewed her pencil.
“But you’ve seen how tired he’s been. He’s clearly not sleeping or eating properly, let alone spending any time on just taking a break. Maybe he got confused?”
The idea that Jon might have started scaring random people by mistake (or for worse reasons) was not a happy one. They glanced over at him, all curled up and relaxed, for once, on the couch. He looked about ten years younger and devastatingly sweet, without the pinched expression that he so often wore. Idle thoughts that bunny ears would suit him a whole lot better than they would a giant evil eyeball, flitted treacherously across Martin’s mind. He looked anything but dangerously erratic.
“Maybe.” Martin bit his lip. “I think we should leave those off the system for now, ask him about them at lunch.”
They input the other cases in a sombre mood, getting through them pretty swiftly, so that it was only five minutes later than usual when they were done for lunch.
It was hard to have to wake Jon, but he needed to eat; and they needed to talk.
~~~
Jon had been utterly blindsided by the undeserved kindness of his colleagues. It hadn’t hit him until now, quite how much he regretted losing their company and - he had assumed - their friendship. But it seemed they still had some to offer him.
Even Martin was willing to help him, despite their past differences. It had been almost too much to deal with; so it was probably fortunate that he’d fallen instantly asleep, like a cat in a sunbeam, before he could make a fool of himself.
Or perhaps not; because the atmosphere when Martin had woken him up, with a murmured apology (as if Jon wasn’t the one in the wrong, for sleeping in work time) was decidedly more uncomfortable than before. If Jon hadn’t implicitly promised that he would go to lunch with them, he would have been inclined to beat a strategic retreat and get started on his afternoon scaring, as originally intended.
They sat in the quiet cafe, in an awkward silence for a minute; the others exchanging complicated looks, while Jon stared at his suddenly unappetising sandwich.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let you take on my workload, as well as your own. It won’t happen again.”
“No, Jon, that’s not … we need to talk about something.” Martin took a deep breath. “Jon … did you … did you scare someone you weren’t supposed to?”
“What?” Jon went rigid for a moment, wondering what they knew, how they … and, oh god, of course. In his half-asleep state, he’d just gone ahead and sent them the information of every Fear-Inducement Operation he’d done that morning, without mentally editing out the not so official ones.
This was … not good.
“Jon, we know that you’re under a lot of pressure, but you can see that’s not okay, right? I’m sure it was just a mistake ...”
“It wasn’t a mistake.”
Jon hadn’t known he was going to say that, until he said it; and he stared inwardly at himself, unsure whether he was more relieved or terrified. But it was too late now. It seemed he was going to opt for ‘trusting his colleagues’.
It was a weird feeling; but not wholly a bad one.
Except that now everyone was looking at him, not with that careful concern they had before, but something a little more horrified.
“Oh! No, I don’t mean … I’m not just going around scaring people for fun, good lord.”
They clearly thought that he’d gone all Jude Perry - a scandal which the Desolation was still recovering from and which had affected trust in all the Fear services, to some extent.
It wasn’t surprising, he supposed, that they’d believe that of him, under the circumstances. But it was not … comfortable.
“Sorry, Jon, of course you wouldn’t.” Martin reached out his hand, then caught himself and pulled it back, clearly unsure of what was okay. Jon took a breath and clasped Martin’s hand; possibly more firmly than he’d intended, as Martin gave a sort of squeak and turned an odd colour.
“But what the hell are you doing then?” Tim was still wary and, damn, Jon was really going to have to do this. He checked - rather belatedly - for stray Eyes (Elias didn’t bother to spy on them much, only when it was most personally amusing to him) and coralled his thoughts.
“It’s all perfectly consensual, just not … on the books, as it were.”
Jon explained as best he could, feeling utterly ridiculous about it. After all, he covered so few people, for so much risk. They would probably think him an idiot, at best; a thief, at worst.
At least Martin hadn’t let go of his hand yet. That felt like a positive.
“Okay, that makes a lot of sense. Explains why you’ve been like an extra from the Walking Dead for the past few months.”
“Yes, thank you, Sasha.”
“I mean it’s a good idea, in principle, but … how the hell did you think you were going to manage it on your own?”
“I was managing just fine.” Jon was hit by a wave of sceptical eyebrows and sighed. “Okay, fine is possibly a slight exaggeration. I suppose I do need to explain to Georgie that I have to … cut down a bit. It’s just there are so many people who can’t afford this and all the less popular Fears, the ones who don’t get so many subscribers, they …”
“They take what they need from the poor, I know.” Tim nodded, grimly. “System sucks.”
“System totally sucks,” Sasha agreed. “Hmm. I need that on a badge.”
“Well, apart from agreeing with you, there seems to be little else I can do about it. I’ll talk to Georgie. Next week, maybe.” He checked his watch, the gesture more comforting than acknowledging how he Knew the exact time at any given moment; how soaked in Beholding - in the detested system - he already, and inescapably, was. “And now I really do have to go, or I won’t be able to fit in my afternoon clients. You won’t, er …”
“Of course we’re not going to tell Elias, Jon, what do you take us for?”
Jon apologised and gave them a tentative smile, as he rose and took the sandwich which Martin pointedly thrust at him.
“Of course not. Thank you, all of you.”
He left, hailing a taxi to save time (he wouldn’t bother arguing expenses; that was far too likely to lead to Elias wanting exact breakdowns of his schedule and that was … definitely best avoided).
Nothing had really changed, of course; but he felt a lot easier about the situation. He was almost lighthearted as he made a dozen judgmental eyeballs pop out of a lamppost, for the benefit of one Mrs Smuffins; a loyal subscriber for several years and yet, somehow, still very easy to spook with the simplest of things.
And then it was on to the next … and the next … and the next …
~~~
There had been a long discussion after Jon left - which meant that, when they returned, they immediately received another lecture about extended lunchtimes from Elias; but he always enjoyed these tellings-off so much, that he never actually did more than show off his skill at subtle menacing, while they acted suitably cowed and subdued.
“Okay, proper council of war then, this Saturday, at my place.” Tim grinned with the satisfaction of an opportunity of sticking two fingers up to his bosses. “Does anyone know Georgie Barker’s number?”
Sasha shrugged. “I can find it.”
“Yes, because you’re scarily fine with invasion of privacy.”
Sasha nodded, unbothered. “That and I’m fantastic with a computer.”
“My modest Sasha.”
“You know you love me.”
Martin tuned out the banter for a little, until Tim raised his voice slightly to inform him that it was his job to make sure that Jon showed up to the meeting.
“My job? He doesn’t even like me.”
“Au contraire, Martin, my boy. Don’t think we didn’t notice the handholding.”
“That’s probably a declaration of undying love, with Jon.”
“Try and get a firm time out of him and we’ll schedule it around that.” Sasha shot him a grin. “And don’t forget, if in doubt, use guilt. Works on Jon like a charm.”
“That’s … disconcerting that you know that.”
In the end, though, Martin only had to use a little itty bit of emotional blackmail on Jon, to get him to attend, patiently eliciting an agreement that Jon wasn’t busy for the entirety of Saturday, despite his commitments to Georgie.
He got a firm early evening slot, in the end and relayed it to the others, with relief. Learning just how many people Jon was scaring in a day, with no proper weekend breaks or holidays, had alarmed him considerably. And he had no confidence in Jon actually negotiating a lower workload with Georgie Barker, if left to his own devices, because, Martin rather suspected, he didn’t really want to; subconsciously, at least. This was his way of dealing with the guilt of his job and what he thought he deserved.
Martin had certain personal experience with this sort of thing and it was a lot easier to diagnose and deal with from an outside point of view. Tim and Sasha had helped him see some things and he was a lot better for it. So, Jon was totally getting an intervention.
And, maybe, just maybe … they’d be able to do some good in other ways.
~~~
Jon had been too apprehensive to be as tired as usual, that Saturday; working conscientiously through his unofficial client list, with half his mind stuck on the meeting that evening and what it was likely to entail.
Well, he wasn’t going to agree to stop this altogether, whatever they said. Jon had heard of far too many cases - barely mentioned in the news - where those not covered by a Fear plan were hit by an untrammelled and gleeful attack from the Fears; worked over by the Spiral, the Flesh or Corruption, without mercy. Or the spite of Desolation, possibly the worst of all.
He wasn’t able to do much to prevent this, but he was damn well not giving up the little he was capable of.
Which meant that he entered Tim’s house, that evening, in a self-consciously belligerent mood, which wasn’t helped by almost bumping into Melanie King, the moment he stepped in the house.
“Look where you’re going, Sims. Some of us don’t have the luxury.”
Jon bit back his instinctive sharp riposte. He had never gotten along with Melanie King, whose staggeringly popular YouTube show he found rather tacky and overdone for effect, but he didn’t actually dislike her. In fact, he rather admired how she’d handled herself in the wake of the incidents and the subsequent flood of offers of money for using her as an official part of their campaign, instead of having to heavily hint.
“Melanie. I wasn’t expecting to see you here.”
“Well, must be a treat for you then.”
It was entirely unexpected, when she reached out a hand and gently squeezed his arm; her face showing no indication that she was doing anything affectionate on purpose.
“Come on, we’ve been waiting for you.”
Everyone was sprawled cosily in Tim’s living room, squeezed to overflowing over his couch and armchairs. Georgie gave him a small wave and - though Jon had already deduced her presence, from Melanie’s - his heart sank a little. This was not going to be an easy conversation.
“Hey, Jon, whose lap do you want to perch on?” Tim tipped him a wink. “I think Martin’s looks pretty comfortable.”
“Tim!”
Jon and Martin managed to synchronise their scandalised exclamations and looked at each other, overcome by a sudden urge to laugh at themselves. Against all odds, Jon actually felt a little more comfortable, as he found a spot on the rug to sit on; Martin joining him so he didn’t feel exiled down there.
Tim clapped his hands and looked a little more solemn.
“Okay, so we’ve already had a little chat about things. And, obviously, things can’t go on as they have been.”
“I’m not going to just stop …”
Martin pressed against his side, reassuringly and Georgie shook her head.
“We’re not asking you to stop, Jon. Actually, I think we’re all agreed it’s a pretty good basic idea. We just … didn’t go far enough.”
“Not far enough?”
But Jon wasn’t confused for more than a second, before he realised what Georgie was saying. It wasn’t as if it hadn’t crossed his mind before; it just seemed far too much to ask.
“You want to get people from the other Fears involved.”
They all nodded.
“It was Martin’s idea, actually, but it makes perfect sense, Jon. You can’t possibly cover all the people who need it and I’m really sorry that I’ve let things get so out of control. I got carried away and wasn’t paying attention to exactly how many cases you were taking on.”
“It’s my own fault, not yours. I didn’t explain things properly. And I could have said no.”
“You could have. You should have. But … it’s very hard to say no to someone who badly needs you. And I should never have put you in that position.”
Jon blinked. He wasn’t sure what to do with an apology. Usually he was on the other side of them.
“So, it turns out that Georgie actually knows someone who works for the End. And Sasha has a contact in the Spiral. So we can start there and then try and maybe see if we can’t find people from all the Fears who are willing to help. Or as many as possible.”
“But … look, this is hardly a legal undertaking. Or a safe one. Anyone who gets caught will be fired, at best, even if we can find people willing to volunteer. How can we ask someone to risk that? And how do we know who to trust?”
“Sure, we have to be careful who we approach, sound them out first. But … I think you’ll find a lot of people have friends and family who are affected. Or, hell, who just want to help. You did, Jon. I think there’s plenty more who feel exactly like you do and will be happy to be able to do something constructive about it, given the chance, even with all the risk.”
“And we won’t ask them to cover anything like the amount you’ve been doing.” Sasha tried to wave her arms without elbowing anyone and didn’t quite succeed. “Just a few here and there. But, if every Fear is contributing, that can make a real difference. And it might prevent there being such a Fear deficit that they have to take it out on anyone who we’ve missed. Cut it down, at any rate.”
Melanie frowned a little. “Though someone’s bound to notice. If so many people are doing it.”
Jon considered. “Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Get a good scandal going, expose how many people are suffering. And besides, the Fears themselves don’t care about profits, they’re only concerned with getting enough to eat. And, actually, they prefer when most of the work is done for them. More food, for less effort. So, if their needs are satisfied, then they might exert … pressure, to keep things going in a way which suits them best. And not just in our area, but maybe further afield.”
“Oh great, if the Fears are going to get personally involved, then I’m not sure I’m in any more.”
Jon thought Melanie might be teasing. Probably.
Martin gently brushed his arm, a light, impossibly affectionate reassurance, which tingled through every cell.
“I don’t know, I think the Fears are less obnoxious to deal with, then the people making money off them. At least they’re just hungry. Not shafting people for the sake of a second Porsche.”
There was a general murmur of agreement.
“So … we’re actually going to try this then?”
They looked around at each other.
“I think so.” Tim shrugged. “I mean, I don’t have any other funky capitalist-undermining plots on the go, so …”
And that seemed to be that. Jon didn’t dare believe it would be that easy but … things did feel a lot more more hopeful than they had done.
“So. Now we just have to do something about you, Jon …”
Ah. Clearly he was being over optimistic.
~~~
Martin yawned and stretched; and then stopped short, as he realised that his arms were quite involved with a warm body, breathing softly in his arms. He didn’t remember cuddling Jon before they’d gone to sleep, but his memories of the evening had begun to blur a little, after about eleven o’clock, Tim’s rolling out of his extraordinary board game collection and Martin’s third - or fourth? - glass of Liebfraumilch.
They had been careful not to make Jon feel too harangued. Just a general, casual reminder that Georgie understood what she’d been asking of him now and wasn’t going to make that mistake again; along with a standing invitation to team lunch. They’d have to let him fulfill any obligations he’d already agreed to, but, after that, his extra-curricular activities would be cut back to something far more reasonable.
It was a lot easier to get him to agree with this new goal in mind and the idea that he wasn’t letting people down, because he would be helping to work towards a better, more long-term solution.
Of course, it might still be a struggle to get him to keep that from taking over just as much of his time, but, now that they were working together, Martin felt they had a good chance of keeping him from getting too obsessed. Keeping the rest of them from doing so, for that matter. They all of them worked at Beholding for a reason, after all, and it wasn’t just Jon, by any means, who had hang-ups and bad habits.
All of which train of thought was by way of avoiding thinking about exactly why he was snuggled up with Jon; and also avoiding listening to the boringly sensible part of him which suggested he probably ought to let go, before Jon woke up.
Ah. Too late.
“Mm.” Jon shifted and snuggled into his side, before going completely still. “Ah. Martin?”
“Yes, Jon?”
“Are we … cuddling?”
“Yep. Yes, I would say that’s exactly what we’re doing.”
“Oh.” Jon shifted a little, uncertainly, before settling back more comfortably. “It’s, um. It’s rather pleasant.”
Martin couldn’t help laughing at the tone of puzzled surprise.
“It is, isn’t it?”
Well, that was it. He wasn’t moving from this spot, ever; just lying here, with an armful of sleepy Jon and plans for the future and the gentle snores of his friends, drifting over from the couch.
(Although, Tim’s snores were less gentle and more category four hurricanes. Maybe he should see a doctor about that.)
He wondered what he’d be doing now if he’d been recruited by the Web instead.
Martin was pretty sure it couldn’t be better than than this.