hello beef mom! i saw this art the other day abt daisy staying @ jon's apartment post-buried- so as a prompt maybe daisy showing up to jon's place uninvited only to find that he has an awful cold and she reluctantly helps him out a bit as a sort of payment for crashing on his couch :-)
This prompt WATERED my crops, RENOVATED my house, and SUBDUED my city’s volcano for another YEAR thank you so much it was delightfully fluffy and fun to write and I hope you like it!! <3
“Jon, I’ve been wondering,” Daisy surmises aloud as she throws open the door to his flat without knocking–why bother knock on the door of someone who already knows you’re there?–, “do you leave your door unlocked because you’d know if someone were going to break in, or are you just one of those people who never locks up?”
There’s no reply, but that’s not atypical. Jon often plays this game (well, she likes to think of it as a game, something mutual, but really, it’s just “annoy Jon until he can’t ignore you anymore.” It’s common around the archives. The fastest anyone has ever gotten him to snap was actually Melanie, completely by accident, when she walked in playing Outkast from her phone rather than headphones, and he could only pretend he didn’t notice for about eleven seconds) when he’s focusing, and she trusts she can break him from his brooding.
“You know, I had a cousin who thought like that,” she continues as she kicks off her shoes and hangs her coat. “Thought he lived in a nice enough neighborhood he’d never get robbed. I’d tell you what happened, but you already know.”
She’s not sure whether she intends to color that as a lighthearted taunt or a bitter jab–she’ll wait for Jon’s reaction.
“I suppose it’s not as though you’ve got anything here anyone might want to steal. Worst case, you’d be out the cost of a new window. Doubt anyone would steal tape recorders and old books.”
By this point, Daisy has made her way to the living room and is about to flop down in her usual spot on the couch when she realizes, with no small amount of alarm, that someone is UNDER the blankets that she’s left there, as Jon’s couch has been more or less her bed for the past few weeks. Her apartment had evicted her for late payments–a real cherry on top of the whole fucking cake that life had baked for her recently–and when Jon had found her sleeping in her car in the parking lot of the Institute, he’d shocked her by offering not just the spare cot in the Institute, which, gross, but his own home. She’d been so surprised by the offer that he’d thought he’d triggered some kind of post-trauma and had driven her home and put her up on his couch without a word said about it, which was far less embarrassing than having to actually accept the offer.
And then, well. She hadn’t needed a key or anything, so she’d just returned the next day. Jon didn’t act surprised, but he certainly didn’t seem as though he’d been expecting company, considering she’d had to stock his refrigerator with enough food for two (although what was inside was hardly food for one) and had brought inside a few blankets from her car.
He let her use his stove, to cook all the things she’d missed eating so much during her time away, and when she brought him a plate, he always just looked at the clock as if he hadn’t even noticed what time it was and he.
And when she turned his desk light out to go to bed because it was far too late and they had work in the morning, he always waited for her to fall asleep to turn it back on (she often found him sleeping at his desk the next morning) and sometimes, rarely, but sometimes, he wouldn’t turn it back on at all, and he’d actually go to bed and stay there.
She jumps and yelps when she nearly crushes Jon by flopping down on top of him because she has never once in her weeks of staying here seen him on the couch. At first, she’d assumed it was because he was always working, but more recently, she’s been thinking that perhaps it was his way of making sure that she knew she had space to occupy, that she didn’t have to feel as though she needed to make herself small enough to fit back into the world again.
“Hi,” she greets, trying to sound less startled than she feels. From the way he’s squinting up at her against the light of the room, she’s confident that he hadn’t been ignoring her: he’d been sleeping.
In the middle of the way.
“Hi,” he grunts, rubbing his face with one hand and wincing as he sits up. His voice sounds awful, gravelly and nearly gone.
“Finally caught Melanie’s cold, I guess?” she asks, and Jon shrugs, sniffles hard, and presses his thumb to his eye. “Have you taken any medicine for that?”
Jon scowls. “The Eye usually heals everything so quickly; I don’t exactly keep any around.”
“You’re truly dysfunctional,” Daisy says. “Remember when I texted you four hours ago asking if you wanted anything from the bistro for lunch?”
“No, it doesn’t,” she cuts off his predictably stupid rebuttal, “but you might have said, ‘hey, Daisy, while you’re out, mind picking me up some Lemsip?’”
While he doesn’t look like he’s admitting she’s right, he doesn’t argue, and that’s good enough. Daisy turns to the kitchen to put on some hot water for tea–not just for Jon, of course, but, well, she’d like a cup, and it’s not any extra trouble to make two, if she’s already got the water boiling.
“Sorry about the couch,” he mutters, and it stops her.
“Your couch,” he amends, which is ENTIRELY not what she’d expected. “I didn’t mean to–I’m sure you don’t want to sleep here, tonight. I just meant to sit for a moment…”
Begrudgingly, Daisy stands in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room to look at him. He’s more upright than before, but he’s got one hand on the arm of the couch as if to steady him. She’s been out with Melanie enough times now to know what she’s looking at.
“You’re dizzy,” she accuses, and Jon looks a bit humiliated, as if for all his complaining about being terrified of not being human, he’s just as put off by the opposite, by the concrete, annoying, slightly disgusting and certainly embarrassing evidence that he is, in fact, still just a person.
“It’s nothing,” he replies curtly, but he shrinks under her patience. “My ears, uh, tend to–tended to–be a bit of a bother when I’m not… feeling well.” He doesn’t look up at her and his face is flushed.
Daisy rolls her eyes. “God, Jon, is this really so embarrassing for you? People catch colds all the time.”
“It’s just–there’s so much going on. For everyone. I don’t want to add to that.”
This time, she laughs, and it’s not pleasant. The tea kettle is whistling and she turns back to the kitchen to deal with it.
“You know, you might do good to ring someone about things that aren’t life or death,” she calls over her shoulder to him, unsure whether he can really hear her over the gentle bustle in the kitchen and his stopped-up ears. “Maybe we wouldn’t dread it so much when we get any communication from you at all.”
The tea is made, but she leaves her own mug on the counter to cool and brings the second out to Jon.
“It’s hot,” she warns, and he tries his best to look annoyed.
“Hm.” Without another word, Daisy dons her shoes and coat again. “I’m going out. Forgot I need to buy a phone charger. I will be at the store. The one next to the chemist. Would you like anything?”
She revels in just how much it makes him squirm before he finally swallows his pride to squeak out, “cold medicine.”
“You’ve got it,” she smiles, as if it weren’t by some twisted, evil force more nefarious than Beholding that she’s compelled him to admit it. “Get some rest. And don’t worry about the couch. I’ll just change the sheets and take your bed–not like you’ve used it in days.”
“Sleeping, can’t hear you.”
When the door is fully shut behind her, Daisy feels her pocket vibrate with a notification from her fully-charged phone.
She closes it out without replying, but picks him up tissues and cough drops without making him ask.
