This has been rattling around in my brain for a while, so I’m just gonna gently deposit it here amidst the chaos of season five. But yeah, what about Jon with MCAS??
He was already very particular about what he ate, but now he’s EXTRA particular because he has to be.
The first time Martin brings him tea it’s black tea and he all but scowls at it and scowls at Martin because that Will Kill Him. He keeps his own tea in his office for a reason thank you very much.
Martin’s feels really bad when he finds out and trips over himself to apologize. Jon expects him to stop making him tea after that but he doesn’t. Instead Martin buys his own separate stash of herbal tea that Jon can drink to keep in his desk and only ever makes that for him.
Jon doesn’t trust it at first cause he’s had issues before, but one day he gets caught up in a statement and takes a sip and is perfectly fine. He ends up drinking half of it without realizing it and after the brief moment of panic decides he can trust Martin’s tea.
Jon who knows SO MUCH ABOUT FOOD, because it’s fascinating but also because he has to because if he doesn’t it’s epipen time.
Jon eats almost exclusively fresh food because most of his trigger foods are processed and there’s less risk he’ll spontaneously react to fresh stuff.
The aforementioned point means he’s become a very good cook, and very good at managing when and where to buy and keep food.
Georgie ate like a regular college student (bad) until she started dating Jon and he started cooking for the both of them, because no one else is allowed to cook for him, and after she started eating mostly his same exclusively fresh diet it was hard to go back. He taught her a bunch of his recipes and she still makes them to this day.
He buys a used mini-fridge for his office and scrubs the hell out of it so his lunch is safe, because if it gets stolen or contaminated he has to go all the way home to eat. Everyone thinks he’s just being really anal about it, and he doesn’t feel like correcting them.
Traveling around America sucks major balls because he Does Not Trust restaurants and it’s hard to eat fresh when on the move. So he’s limited to the very few packaged foods that don’t set off a reaction.
This means he’s getting regular malnutrition fatigue in addition to statement fatigue b/c he isn’t getting everything he needs on a diet of mostly gluten/nut free vegan energy bars.
Nikola thinks he’s hunger striking for a while when he gets kidnapped until she finally bothers to listen to him telling her the food she’s offering will literally kill him.
He doesn’t wanna give up meat even after reading all of the flesh statements because there are already SO MANY THINGS he can’t eat just let him have his chicken.
Tim and Sasha keep inviting him out to eat during the research days but he keeps turning them down until he eventually gets frustrated and tells them that for him Gluten Free means no wheat can have ever touched the pan or the plate he’s eating off of or there’s a chance he’ll end up in the hospital, and most restaurants aren’t that fastidious with their gf options.
After that Tim and Sasha invite him to an open farmers market where he can bring his own food without the social awkwardness, and they can get something to eat there.
Martin is surprised and thrilled when Jon starts letting him cook for him in the cabin, because even if Jon is a proper avatar by that point and probably wouldn’t be done in by anaphylaxis, it still feels like putting his life in Martin’s hands, and Martin knows this.
He sorta liking being able to get sustenance from statements, because even if it makes him feel less human there’s no chance he’s going to have an allergic reaction to words.
Then he feels really bad about liking that aspect of it, and goes into a tailspin about loosing more of his humanity, because even if his messed up immune system sucked to have it definitely made him very human.
