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Arachnophobia is a bitch. The thing about it is that logically, Jon knew most spiders were incapable of hurting him: too small, not interested, not venomous, the list goes on. But spiders were intrinsically terrifying, inducing the most visceral fear. Jon may have a more rational fear than others, almost being eaten by a giant spider when you were eight would do that to you.
But the worst is when Jon is right. He woke up with a throbbing head, trying to piece together how he got there. He remembered noticing a spider on the sidewalk on his way to the tube, and while it freaked him out, he wasn’t going to go out of his way to kill it. It was outside, it wasn’t hurting him. So he continued on his way. He was almost there, but the street had been silent and strangely empty, and he thought he saw a shadow and then…
Nothing. He had nothing. So he turned his mind to where he was, and immediately screamed. Or, at least tried to around the cottony mass covering his mouth, because when he finally managed to open his eyes, he was encased in spiderweb. Head to toe, stretched over his shuddering form. He could barely see out into the room around him through the translucent web, though he could make out that he was suspended quite high above the floor.
Movement. There, in the shadowy corner that he can’t see through the webbing and the panic. He felt his breath catch in his chest as a giant spider moved to the center of the room. His mind flashed back to Carlos Vittery’s statement, his question. Can you be haunted by the ghost of the spider who ruined your childhood? Jon had discarded the statement at the time, deep in his feigned skepticism and real ignorance, but now he understands. Because this was Mr. Spider. It had to be, there was no way this could be anything else. He didn’t look like the illustration from the book, red hat and bleeding doors, but Jon had seen the thick, hairy legs take his screaming bully to his fate. Had seen the shape of the creature that would destroy his youth and haunt his career path, pushing him like dominoes toward the Archives of the Magnus Institute.
Jon distantly felt himself spiral into a panic attack, but his eyes never left the monster. The hyper-vigilant part of his brain kept looking at the threat, because if it moved, if he blinked, he would lose it and it would kill him. And the part of his brain that usually chimed in logically about the likelihood of a spider actually hurting him was silent , because it wasn’t true, it was factually incorrect. It could kill him, probably wanted to, and if Jon couldn’t get away it would tear him apart.
Mr. Spider moved, and Jon’s heart stuttered in his chest. Fight or flight kicked in and he thrashed, trying to escape, uncaring of the attention he was gaining. The eight beady eyes of the monster locked onto him, and it scuttled closer faster than a beast of that size had any right to be, almost faster than Jon could track. Jon shrieked through his gag, eyes blown wide in terror. It was getting closer and closer and Jon was going to die die die die and--
Two gunshots cracked through the space. They echoed and ricocheted inside Jon's head and he instinctively squeezed his eyes shut. He heard voices, but he wrenched his eyes open because if he closed them he would lose it and if he lost it it would kill him. There was movement near him, and he flinched away, frantically looking for the Spider, he had to find the spider .
Someone was pulling the webbing away from his mouth, and he gasped in air greedily. Someone was holding him down, stopping his thrashing. Someone was speaking, words calm and steady. Someone was combing through his hair, pulling spiderwebs. Someone was holding him as he sobbed, trying to see where the spider was.
Finally Jon’s eyes landed on the dead spider. Its long legs were splayed out and the twitching trailed off, a growing puddle of…something pooling beneath it. The fact that the monster was dead, that it couldn’t hurt him, couldn’t kill him started to sink in. He was ok, he wasn’t going to die, at least not from Mr. Spider.
The words broke through. “Jon you’re ok, we’re ok, the Spider is dead, you’re ok, you’re ok-- ” Martin, it was Martin, Martin liked him right? Right? Liked him enough to save him from a terrible fate at least, not like Tim or Daisy or Melanie or… “Jon you need to breathe, you’re ok, the spider is dead, you’re safe, you’re ok, it’s dead, you’re ok.” Jon met his eyes and Martin visibly relaxed.
“There you are, you’re ok, I saw that thing grab you so I got Daisy to help me find you and she shot it. It can’t hurt you, just breathe.” Jon tried to do what he asked, eyes wandering to Daisy, trying to gauge if she was a threat, if he was safe. Because he remembered her knife and digging a grave that could have been his and the sounds of the forest. But Daisy isn’t looking at him, she’s looking at what used to be Mr. Spider, hand still on her gun. And the idea that Daisy cared about the possible threat more than she cared if he was worth keeping alive, it helped Jon relax fully into Martin’s arms.
The exhaustion caught up to Jon, and he felt his eyes flutter shut. Martin’s tone became tenser and the pitch went up an octave, but he knew his consciousness wouldn’t last much longer. Even smaller panic attacks always wiped him out, and this was the worst one in recent memory. Possibly the worst one since he was eight years old. The world faded out, and Jon drifted.