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It might have been a mistake, thinking back on it. Tim didn’t regret sleeping with Sasha, not really. It went well, granted things got a bit awkward afterwards, but as far as a somewhat friends with benefits-esque relationship between coworkers goes, it was about as good as it gets.
He hadn’t expected to spill his guts to her about his brother, he vehemently insisted he’s got better pillowtalk than that after it happened, it just kind of came out. She held him, and even though this level of intimacy was clearly more than either of them had bargained for, they talked for hours about things they had never told another soul.
He didn’t regret it, it’s just that if he hadn’t gotten so attached it wouldn’t have hurt so much losing her. If he hadn’t told her all those things, if she hadn’t comforted him and confided in him in turn, it would have been a lot easier to let her go.
They’d only slept together the one time. It became clear after that that even if it had been an overall positive experience, it probably wasn’t a good idea to do it again. Too much emotional investment for Tim’s tastes, and Sasha didn’t want to be anything more than friends. That was fine, it really was. They made good friends, and whatever ache in their chests that arose when things got a bit too much were easily ignored.
It didn’t stop Tim from calling Sasha late at night when he couldn’t get his thoughts straight, though. It didn’t stop Sasha from going to him to talk again, like they did the first time. Sharing in each other’s company and sitting closer than they probably should. He’d vent to her, on the nights where he was the one who had called, and she’d listen and help him work through it as best she could. On the nights where she was the one who called, he gladly did the same for her. It went on like that for a while, quiet talks in the middle of the night about things they couldn’t tell anyone else.
Things started changing when they got put in the archives. Sasha had been very quiet the first week in their new positions. Subdued. Tim knew something was wrong but didn’t quite know what or how to approach it. That Friday night, Sasha texted him to come pick her up and take her “literally anywhere else”. He obliged and they ended up driving for a while to get to a far off hill as close to the middle of nowhere they could get on short notice. The drive was quiet, save for some music to keep the silence from becoming awkward.
Sasha left the car as soon as Tim parked and started the walk up the hill, leaving him to catch up. She stood up there and for a moment everything was silent, before she just started yelling, screaming about how much she fucking hated this stupid, shitty job that she’s massively overqualified for, and the odd energy Tim had been feeling from her the whole week made a lot more sense. He sat next to her while she got it all out, and they spent the rest of the night taking turns yelling about how Elias Bouchard is a twat and chucking rocks down the hill.
Things could have been worse in the archives, at least at first. Jon wasn’t a bad boss, even if he wasn’t exactly qualified for the position of Head Archivist, and Martin was pleasant company. They managed to drag the both of them out a few times, have some fun outside the office. They became better friends, got a few inside jokes, started to feel comfortable with each other, or at least they did with Martin. Jon was a bit… prickly, but they got a few good moments with him too.
Despite working so closely they started to drift a bit. Sasha often talked about looking for work elsewhere, and Tim didn’t really know what to do about it. He was blandly supportive of her job search, because what else could he be without coming off as a massive prick? He couldn’t very well tell her he wanted her to stay in a job where she’s hit a dead end, that he didn’t want to not see her every day. It was selfish, and he ignored it as best he could, but he found himself talking to her less. He got closer to Martin, who didn’t seem like he’d be leaving any time soon, and slowly he and Sasha stopped having their late night talks. They still chatted idly in the office, but there was something missing behind it, like they had both pulled back from the friendship.
Martin going missing for weeks was what eventually managed to push Tim back towards Sasha. He felt awful about it, like it made her a second choice, and he told her as much when he broke down one night and called her to come over and talk again. After so long without actually talking to each other, it started off a bit rocky. Tim apologized profusely, explaining he’d been trying to hide how he felt about her leaving, and how it kind of came back to bite him in the ass. Sasha listened, and called him a few choice names, before admitting she’d missed him too. That night was the closest they got before everything went wrong.
Eventually Martin stumbled back into the archives, and a couple weeks later Sasha did the same. At least she hadn’t gone missing beforehand. When she came into the archives injured and disheveled, Tim didn’t really know what to do. She was okay, as far as he knew, but the fact that something out there had hurt her, something that wasn’t normal or natural at all, didn’t sit right with him. Worms started showing up everywhere and it was all getting a bit too close to something truly supernatural for comfort.
The day Jane Prentiss attacked the archives was the worst day of Tim’s life since his brother had died. He nearly got eaten alive, then he got quarantined, and when it felt like everything could finally go back to normal, it was all wrong. Jon was cagey and paranoid, Martin was fussing over everyone more than usual, and Sasha… something was even less right with her, and he couldn’t put his finger on it. He didn’t call her anymore after the attack. Looking back it was definitely odd that he didn’t, but at the time he figured he shouldn’t bother her with what he’d gone through when she was surely dealing with her own experiences from that night.
Things only got worse from there. Sasha continued to act strange and distant, apparently she got a boyfriend, but she didn’t get into any details about him and it just felt like she was shutting Tim out. Fine, she could do whatever she wanted, get close to whoever she wanted, stop talking to whoever she wanted, he didn’t care. He sure as hell tried not to, at least. He could do all those things too, and he told himself that whatever ill will had sprouted between them was mutual.
She disappeared at the same time they found that body in Jon’s office, and Jon disappeared as well. Not that Tim was there for it, being stuck in hallways that lasted forever and made no sense with Martin for a few days after whatever happened in the tunnels. They didn’t find her body, and Tim supposed maybe she just finally left like she kept saying she would. Without telling him. Which was fine, they weren’t close anymore, they weren’t going to be, and he reminded himself of that when he was wide awake at night staring at her number on his phone.
He told himself he was handling this well. He wasn’t, but it helped to think he was. It was fine that the person he was closest to just disappeared. It was fine that he was somehow trapped in this nightmare of a job. It was fine that it wasn’t fun to invite people the stay the night anymore, that the only feeling it left him with was a hollow ache in his chest. It was fine, he was fine, and he was handling all of this very well.
He stopped telling himself he was handling it well when he found out what really happened to Sasha. Whatever semblance of stability he had left was destroyed when Jon told him she had been dead for almost a year. He hadn’t even noticed, at least not on a conscious level. It made a lot more sense looking back in it with proper context, but that didn’t ease the pain. He continued spiraling out of control, but he didn’t care anymore. He didn’t try to maintain any illusion of control over his life anymore.
He’d lost the last person he was close to anymore. Taken by something that was apparently like whatever took his brother. That was all he needed, really. His last real connection to other people and a confirmation of what to go after to get revenge for the people it had taken from him.
Jon told him he wouldn’t help fulfill his death wish, but in the end that didn’t matter. He got what he wanted, and he died believing it made a difference.