Nightvale's Archivist

First Day Jitters

Deep breath in, and deep breath out, just like his dad taught him. State five things about yourself that you know to be true. "I'm Jonathan Sims-Palmer. I'm about to start my new job at The Magnus Institute. I grew up in a small town...," okay, he could really only come up with three.
Timidly, he begins to climb the staircase to the institute before his anxiety can catch up to him. He opens the door, and is greeted by the head of the institute himself, who shows him around. "You'll be working in research," he explains as he walks a few paces ahead of Jon.
      Jon nods along to his words, taking in every sight, marking every twist and turn in his mind. He's led to his seat with at least one other person, who is supposed to be his partner and possible mentor for as long as he works there.
     Mr.Bouchard, the name of the head of the institute, gave him a firm handshake and promptly left. Jon doesn't do well with people he doesn't know, and that's exactly the situation he's currently in.
     Thankfully, he isn't stuck sitting there awkwardly for long. A (fairly attractive) man came and introduced himself. He hopes he didn't make a fool of himself in front of someone he'd be seeing pretty much every day.
Considering that he's only been offered reassuring glances and warm, welcoming smiles, he'd say he didn't. You can never be too careful though. As far as he's aware he's done nothing but make good impressions, which is what he was aiming for.

He has an hour of work left, maybe a little less. He has an hour of work left, if he could just focus on it. He's in an entirely new surrounding and there's too many unfamiliar sounds, meaning that he can't get anything done. Which means letting the people he just met down, and Mr.Bouchard being disappointed in him. Or worse, firing him.
If that's the case he hopes that he hasn't made too much of an impact on Tim's life. Of course he hasn't! He's just met the man for goodness sakes! He really shouldn't be focusing on who'd be sad if he left, he should be doing work. He has less than an hour left, and if he does the rest of it now he can stop the pile from getting so large so early on in his career.
Since there's about half an hour left of the shift, many people have left. There's no noise. He can focus...except now there's silence. Sometimes silence is louder than noise in all the worst ways. Silence always says things that people can't. Silence has more words than the human race ever will.
There's all kinds of silence, uncomfortable silence, tense silence, peaceful silence, and the worst possible kind, unfamiliar silence. An unfamiliar silence makes it harder to focus than any noise ever will. Jon's learned many things in his lifetime, and that's how to make friends the dark and strange creatures that lurk in the shadows created by a distinct lack of noise.
Unfortunately, this silence doesn't bring any creatures with it. He knows this isn't home, but he can almost always find some semblance of him, tiny reminders of it, no matter where he goes. This institute is far too stuffy, with its lack of creepy-crawlies, or vaguely menacing object. The only menacing thing the institute contains is the people who he's not acquainted with.
That, and the bothersome work that he can't focus on no matter what he does. At this point, he's considering throwing himself into the Dog Park. He would have said the void, but the void isn't all that keen on letting people it's fond of to kill themselves using it. The void is a mean and cruel parent, refusing to let its children erase themselves from existence.
Point is, he can't get anything done. His thoughts are like a scrabble board, except the scrabble board has been flipped over a few times and spelled random words that were probably meant to resemble sentences. It's a miracle he gets anything done when his thought process looks like that.
In the midst of the mess of his mind, he can hear Tim's chair squeak as moves. "You good there, bud," part of Jon wants to tell him he's doing fine, the other half wants to ask for help. The age-old classic of the angel and the devil being on your shoulder. "Just a bit of work left, I'll be fine," he waved his hand dismissively. With a glance at the clock he sees it's time to leave.
He could stay overtime, to finish his work, or he could leave work at a decent time and actually attempt to take care of himself, maybe call his parents for the weekly check-in. "You only have three more statements to go through, you can put them off until tomorrow. How about I treat you to drinks tonight," Tim offers.
Although Jon appreciates the offer, he'll have to turn him down. They do have work the next day. That's not to mention the fact he has to call his parents and he'd rather not be drunk for that.
Actually, now that he thinks about it, he won't get drunk that quickly, and the din of the bar (and Tim) will reassure his parents he's doing just fine, that there's no need to worry. Especially since they don't believe him when he says it.
"I guess it wouldn't hurt...," no sooner than he utters his words of agreement Tim is whisking him away to some unknown pub where he is most certainly likely to embarrass himself. God knows he did when he went out drinking with Georgie.
That was the past. This is the present. First step of looking like he's somewhat put together: keep thoughts of the past in the past, and thoughts of the present, in the present. Easy.