The Weekend Arrangement

All Hallows

The night was appropriately creepy; a bright, orange tinted full moon and just enough fog to make the streets around the Kensington townhouse look like the setting for a horror film. It's difficult for Jon to fully appreciate the appropriate atmosphere currently though.

Jon gazes peevishly out the window catching a glimpse of himself in the reflection- he's wondering again why he had let Martin and Tim talk him into dressing up for this nonsense.

He's brooding- and he knows he's brooding and he needs to get out of his head- it wasn't going to be fair for anybody if he showed up to this party and brought down the general atmosphere because he was feeling a little sulky.

It's just that the previous week had been hard . The kind of hard that even Martin and his tea couldn't fix.

Monday he and Martin had walked into the Archives to find a humid, oppressive atmosphere waiting for them; there had been a leak over the weekend in the Archives storage room. Thank god none of the files were- as of yet- affected but the carpet in the stacks squelched when they walked on it and the contractors weren't calling him back and things were starting to smell funny.

Elias kept waving off Jon's complaints and claiming he couldn't do more because of 'budgetary concerns'; but Jon couldn't understand what the point of even having an archive was if they couldn't protect the items inside. Everyone in the basement department was starting to get frustrated at needing to run a wet vac in the morning rather than just getting on with their jobs- and it had only been a week. So far nobody was blaming him for the inaction on fixing things- but Jon wasn't quite sure how long that might last.

Then he had gotten a deeply upsetting email. The hotel booked for the honeymoon had an outbreak of bedbugs and they were ' terribly sorry to inform you this close to your reservation ' but they would need to close the property for the next month for fumigation and deep cleaning. Jon had tried to find new accommodations, but with only three weeks to go, everything in the sunny, touristy destination was already full.

Jon had managed to scramble and find a romantic looking cabin still available so near to Christmas on the shortened notice... in the Scottish Highlands. His frustration was alleviated somewhat when Martin had looked at the new booking and excitedly asked 'Do you think there'll be any cows ?'

Hoping to be spending their time away in far less than a jumper, Jon still felt a small pang of disappointment- but at least the cabin had a large stone fireplace and all the photos on the reservation site showed mounds of cosy looking tartan blankets on every conceivable surface; and Martin assured him they would find some way to keep warm.

Their trip seemed to have been salvaged; but it was a heavy dose of stress at the worst possible time.

Then as a final blow in this already distressing week; Tim had let it slip to Martin during a break that Sasha was being courted by The Usher Foundation. They were expanding their research division and had expressed an interest in her coming to head up the new department.

Jon was happy for her- they all were, it was a fantastic opportunity and god knows she wasn't going to have many opportunities to move up if she stayed at the Magnus. It was just all the way in America- and while the old Jon would have been upset about losing a solid, dependable, smart archival assistant; he was sad about the possibility of losing a friend.

The week had been taxing and has left him in a sour mood. Jon huffs a little, blowing a hank of escaped hair out of his face as he tries to shake off his ire; Martin was really looking forward to this party and he needed to get out of his own head enough to enjoy it as well.