Georgie time
Martin left Jon with Georgie while he went to talk to Sasha over what happened. They couldn’t reach Tim.
So Jon sat with ice cream while the Admiral and the Air Chief Marshal claimed his lap. It was bathtime for Marshal according to the Admiral.
“Ice cream helping?”
“Not really.”
“Wanna talk about it? Haven’t seen you like this in a long while.”
“I don’t want to just dump my problems on you. It’s worse enough as it is with how involved you are.”
“Nope. None of that. I know that look.”
“What look?”
“The one were you start throwing a pity party in your head and blocking everyone out. Where you are about to push everyone away. Talk to me.”
“Fine. I messed up. I got overconfident, then I slipped up. It cost someone her life, and now I’m not even sure I’m accomplishing anything, except I’ve looked at the End, so I know when and how I’m going to die, so that’s a thing I get to look forward to.“ Jon’s voice was starting to get shaky.
Georgie scooted closer to him on the couch and leaned into him, resting a hand to comfort him on his shoulder.
“Has anything I’ve done actually changed anything? Would rebecca have read the damn book anyway if I wasn’t there to take it from her? If I didn’t send out my business cards into the world so I could feed, her friend wouldn’t have sent her my way. Was it just the Book of the Dead making sure she just died as intended, and I had no influence on her fate, just how she read it. That her death was set in stone just as the End always is. I just don’t know.
“And I’m angry. Mad at having to see that, at being powerless, at being shown how powerless I am, frustrated while questioning if I can’t avoid the death of a stranger, how can I save Sasha, Tim? Can I even? Or will the End do the same thing. Make it so a Stranger will take Sasha in less than a year from now. Or Tim will...You know I was tempted to have Sasha read the Book of the Dead before I sent it over to storage...I wanted to Know if the date would match. How long have I been this far gone to actually consider it? I know what the book does to its readers, but I still considered it a real option. I had to have Martin drop the books off...I’m scared I’m becoming more a monster than I’ve ever been...Something is making me worse and I don’t know why...”
“That's. Jon you are dealing with trauma and grief. These aren’t monster feelings. These are people feelings.” She pulls him into a lean so his head is on her without disturbing the cats, her voice gentle. “Monster feelings are the opposite of caring. You saw someone die that you tried to save, though you had from the sounds of it. You are hurt and you are angry. And when have you ever cooped with anger well? Hm?”
“Emotions are disgusting. Never had to coop with them before…” Jon pouted.
“Exactly. You deny them, and let them run wild till you are a disaster. I’d say you are closer to humanity that you realize and I’ll cite this as proof: This is like that time in Uni when you were sure that everyone in the band was going to fail their classes cause you convinced them to work on a new song. Then ended up almost going to all their professors and telling them it was you.”
“I was drunk…”
“For that last part, yeah. You got drunk cause you were avoiding that no one blamed you, they slacked off yet you decided it was your fault.”
Jon let out a little chuckle at that part. Uni was a pretty chaotic time. Had he ever known peace?
“You know...I thought lording it over Elias that I knew when I was going to die would make me feel better?”
“Of course you would. Did it?”
“A little, but then it only drove home how similarly my annoyance at not knowing has become. I withheld most of the details from him, and the hunger he had was too similar to my own. I..it feels gross. The missing information isn’t like a blind spot, those are exciting cause they are actively happening but more like I should know it cause it’s already happened, but just don’t.”
“So like looking up summaries of a book you can’t get your hands on but it’s missing a critical chapter versus reading the book?”
“You wanted to use tv references didn’t you?”
“I did. But thought a book would drive it home for the inner nerd whose ice cream is melting.”
“I watch TV, you know.”
“I do know.”
Jon sounded a little better. She was pretty sure he wasn’t sharing these uncertainties with Martin. Or least only gave the watered down version. All week Jon was texting her about how cute Martin was that they were looking for a new flat. Or maybe he just forgot about it till things started to boil over and Georgie knew how to handle Jon’s boiling emotions better than Martin did. She made a mental note to talk to Martin about it.
“So you looked at Death, huh.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You are doing much better than I did.”
“Is this a ‘share the trauma’ session?”
“Doesn’t have to be. But just a reminder. You’re not alone.”
“I will be…”
“Me too…but you aren’t right now.”