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Tim takes a lot of trips, in the aftermath. He tells Jon and Martin, rather than asking, but has to fight back the urge to apologise each time.
“It’s not that I want to leave you,” Tim says, the night before his third trip out of the country in as many months. “That’s the last thing I want.”
“Tim, you don’t have to explain,” Martin says, looking up from the chopping board with a familiar soft smile. “We’ve got time. You should use it...do what makes you happy. We’ll be here when you get back.”
In the other room, there’s the soft sound of voices from the television that Tim suspects Jon isn’t really watching. It takes him a moment to remember that with Jon’s senses fading more and more back to normal each day, and with their conversation softly-spoken and a room away, Jon probably can’t make out what they’re saying. It takes him another moment to realise he wouldn’t mind if he could.
“Alright,” Tim concedes. “Look after eachother.”
“Look after yourself,” Martin replies, and the rhythm of their back and forth is familiar enough to soothe something in Tim’s chest. As much as being away, he thinks he’s falling in love with the rituals of leaving. Leaving, and then coming back, warm and welcomed.
So Tim leaves, again. His old trips had been purposefully filled with friends and activities, sufficient to ensure he’d always be taking his returning flight both thoroughly sore and likely a little hungover. These days, he goes alone and leaves himself long stretches of time just to walk.
He wanders through new places, keeping a steady, gentle pace, half-remembering a version of himself who would have thought about altitude and stamina and pushing himself just a little harder than last time. He walks until he’s seen enough, heard enough, basked in enough rich newness that something will spark, and he’ll have a moment of joy. It isn’t the same; if anything, trying to fit that kind of feeling into the person he is now makes him aware of how impossible it would be to ever go back - that even if he could stand in the place of that old Tim, he is no longer a thing of easy pleasures.
Some days, he pushes himself up slopes he would have found easy in the old days, and now steal half his breath before he’s made it anywhere near the summit. Those days, he finds himself thinking more of Sasha. Of Danny.
Other days, he takes slow, rambling paths, stopping at every other cafe just to sit and drink, one hand on the return ticket in his pocket. Those days he thinks of the people still waiting for him, and missing them is somehow more comforting than those moments of quiet delight surrounded by unfamiliar birdsong. It heals something in him, to know there are people he misses that he will see again soon. To be deprived of something he knows he’s getting back. The gentle burn of homesickness in his chest is a welcome enough pain, confirming again and again that he has a home to return to.
He always texts both Jon and Martin throughout the trip, the odd picture or reminder he’ll be back soon. Where Martin sends him brief but warm replies, Tim has learned that Jon rarely replies to any message that doesn’t contain a direct question. Tim still texts him, and still feels warm every time the small ‘read’ symbol appears by his messages, almost always seconds after they’re sent, regardless of the time of day. He teases Jon for this only once, telling him to go to bed when he reads a message immediately at what Tim knows is 4am back in the UK. Even though he only gets that ‘read’ symbol again, Tim can picture the little caught-out frown on Jon’s face so clearly that he aches from smiling.
He always messages them both the night before he’s coming home, confirming the time his flight will be getting in, even though he knows it will have been carefully labelled on their shared calendar since the day he left. Only for these messages does Jon break his rule, sending some small reply: See you soon.
It’s the morning after he’s back that something changes. Martin has gone to the shops, Tim is waiting for their ancient boiler to heat up enough water for him to shower, and Jon is perched on the end of the bed, carefully rubbing scent-free E45 cream into the burned skin of his hand. It had been Martin who’d suggested looking into aftercare for scar tissue, correctly surmising that neither Jon nor Tim had been in a place to do this kind of thing regularly following the Prentiss incident, but surprisingly it was Jon who’d taken to acting on it most often.
“The evidence for it is limited at best,” he’d said, the first or second time he’d carefully worked his way up the pockmarked corruption scars lining his skin, hunched over like he half-expects someone to snatch the cream away and mock him for the effort. “Especially so long after the original injury. But, well…”
“It’s something,” Tim had replied, trying to sound matter-of-fact so as not to get Jon’s hackles up. In truth, there was a lump in his throat he didn’t know how to explain.
Jon had nodded, and continued to devote all his attention to pressing some ease into marks of violence, a small, determined frown crossing his face.
Jon tending his old wounds had become a familiar sight, and it still gives Tim the same little shock of warmth he gets from seeing Jon contentedly finishing the meals he or Martin put in front of him, or rolling out of bed at 10am with the barest hint of the dark circles under his eyes - either he doesn’t sleep as restfully as it seems from the outside, or those thumbprint bruises under his eyes are just a part of him now, but it’s still good. Still makes something catch in Tim’s throat. It’s a strange and wondrous thing, as it turns out, watching Jonathan Sims take care of himself.
So Tim is content, one arm leaned into the spray, waiting for the water to warm, enjoying the feeling of homecoming underneath the gentle fuzz of jetlag, when he hears gasping, panicked breaths coming from the other room.
He turns the water off and runs. “Jon?”
Tim enters the room to find the lid on the jar of cream rolling towards the doorway, the jar itself abandoned and half-spilled onto the carpet, and Jon bent over and gasping for air.
Tim scans the room for threats, scans Jon himself for some new injury, unable to halt the stream of thoughts about monsters and entities and which of them would take away someone’s breath, even as the larger part of his mind recognises this as an internal collapse.That doesn’t mean it isn’t fucked up, Tim thinks. The Beholding’s fading influence on Jon had thus far seemed to come with relatively few side effects, although he catches Martin eyeing Jon with concern over seemingly mild lapses in memory, but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t start now.
Shit. Jon is still shuddering and Tim is just standing there, lost in his own fear, realising with a drop in his gut that he’s no longer used to being this afraid.
“Jon,” he says again, kneeling down in front of him. “Hey, hey, what is it? What happened?”
Jon’s head snaps up as if he only just noticed Tim entering the room. There are tear-tracks on his face, but Jon seems to be paying them no mind, all his attention clearly focused on the halting rise and fall of his chest, the desperate need for air that makes Tim’s own chest ache in sympathy. Call an ambulance, something in Tim’s head yells, even as he recognises the signs of a panic attack. Call Martin. Call anyone.
Jon collapses back in on himself, head in his hands. “Just-” he manages, then takes another three shaky, wheezing breaths before he can continue, as if giving up that tiny bit of air was more of a loss than he could bear. “Panic,” he finishes at last.
Tim instinctively wants to ask if he’s sure, then reminds himself that’s possibly the worst thing you can say to a person having a panic attack. “Alright,” he says instead. “You’re okay.” Jon whines at this, and Tim doesn’t know if it’s the sheer misery of what’s happening to him, or if Tim offering comfort is somehow making it worse. “Just - hey, if you sit up it’ll be easier to breathe. Come on.”
Tim guides Jon into sitting on the floor, back leaned against the bed, and even then he keeps trying to crumple in on himself despite the lack of space it gives his lungs. Tim wants Jon to breathe more keenly than he could have ever imagined in those long months of hate and burning, but even more than that, he doesn’t want to put his hands on Jon when he’s this fragile and be one more thing causing him harm. So Tim talks softly, and tells Jon to take his time, that he’s alright.
Jon’s self-protective slump sparks a thought in Tim’s mind, and instead of hunching over to meet him, he straightens up slightly, reaches out for the bed on either side of Jon’s heaving shoulders and cautiously brackets him, shielding him from the world. Too late to really do anything, a voice in his head says. As always. But Tim lost enough time to that voice.
“You’re okay,” Tim says, over and over. “I’m not gonna let anything happen. The worst’s over, yeah? Just try and breathe.”
Slowly, Jon’s breathing evens out, though Tim doesn’t know if it’s because of anything he did or just the storm passing on its own. He’s never seen Jon crumple like this before. He’d almost seemed to be doing better than Martin or Tim in the aftermath of everything; quieter, maybe. Taking things more slowly than Tim could have imagined of his frenetic, spiraling boss. But to Tim, for the most part, he’d seemed...happy. He’d thought he was seeing Jon happy.
Jon scrubs one hand across his face and reaches out with the other, trembling only slightly, to land on Tim’s chest. Tim folds his own hand over Jon’s and lets him stay, feeling the worried beat of Tim’s heart, the rise and fall of his chest. Part of him wants to draw Jon in close and let him listen with his head resting on Tim’s chest, but they aren’t there yet. It’s strange, to realise that Tim wishes they were - that the part of him that wants things, wants people nearer, is stuttering back into life.
Eventually Jon takes his hand back, leaning back against the bed with a sigh of exhaustion.
“What do you want to do?” Tim asks softly. “Go back to bed? I could bring you something - tea, food.”
Jon shakes his head, leaning back and tugging his clothes back into place. Every movement is cautious and slow, like he’s only going to get one chance at each of them. Tim shifts his position to ease the numbness in his legs, but sits patiently and waits for Jon to find his words.
“Could we-” he starts, voice rough and unsure. “Is - is it cold outside?”
“Not too bad,” Tim answers. “We’d need jackets, but we could sit out for a bit, if you want?”
Jon nods. “Fresh air,” he murmurs.
“Nothing like it,” Tim agrees, flashing Jon a shadow of his old smile. He gets to his feet and offers Jon a hand to help him up. Jon takes it with the same slow seriousness as before, as though Tim will vanish if he doesn’t hold on just right. His hand is warm, and Tim wonders if it’s his own warmth reflecting back to him, from long moments of Jon’s hand cupped in his palm, resting over his heart.
Their hands stay clasped even once Jon is back on his feet, and Tim squeezes and gives another small smile. He wants to get these small moments right, too. It had been easier, somehow, to address the bigger things: I forgive you. I don’t think you’re a monster. I want us both to survive this. Tim is still figuring out how to express the smaller yet broader warmth he wants to send Jon’s way, in dinners and smiles and pictures of mountains.
“I’ll get the jackets,” Tim says, and hopes it’s something, one more little signal for the thing he doesn’t know how to put into words anymore. If Tim is no longer a thing of easy pleasures, he hopes he can become a creature of effort - of intentional, worked-for warmth.
Jon squeezes in return before taking his hand back, his grip delicate and warm. Tim rifles through a wardrobe for two soft hoodies, paying little mind to who they belonged to - Jon was a known clothing thief who gained power from appropriating Tim and Martin’s jackets.
By the time he’s shrugged one on and headed out into the living room, Jon is standing by the open backdoor, looking out over the heathers and hillside beyond. He looks dazed, more than anything, finding all that space stretching out in front of him, and Tim can’t tell if it’s loss or gratitude holding him there. A surge of tenderness goes through him at the sight, and Tim almost laughs at himself as he pads over to join Jon. You're going soft, Stoker, he thinks. After all that, you're going soft.
Once again, Tim sees an echo of a place they haven't quite reached: sees himself tugging the jacket around Jon's shoulders like a blanket. Instead, he hands it over and leads Jon outside to the rickety chairs. It's not hesitance holding him back exactly, and certainly not a lack of desire. It's more like…care. Care he never would have needed before.
He drags his own chair a little closer to Jon's before he sits down, knowing Jon sees him do it, letting him note and process this intentional drawing closer. Tim used to flirt lightning-fast and joyous, instinctual, safe in the knowledge that he could fall a little in love with half the people he met, so what did rejection or awkwardness matter, really? But Jon takes things slowly these days, and Tim is relearning love as a back and forth, as goodbyes and welcomes. He is luxuriating in having time to wait and see what will come of the two of them. The three of them.
"Martin shouldn't be long," Tim says into the silence.
"It's Saturday," Jon replies, sounding weary but fond. "He always dawdles at the markets."
"I could text him," Tim offers. "Chivy him along a bit."
Jon shakes his head. "You're…it's fine, Tim. I…I need you, too. Both of you." His voice is low and his eyes are fixed on the horizon.
"That works out well then," Tim says. Jon turns to look at him, already more alive in the cold morning air. He stares keenly at Tim as though assessing his sincerity, a softer version of the suspicion that had driven Tim mad before. He knows now that you can look for something even if you expect to find it there. Knows that any gentleness in their lives seems to be rediscovered anew each day, turned over and over in disbelieving hands.
"What happened?" Tim asks.
Jon sighs, a flicker of annoyance crossing his brow that Tim suspects is mostly directed at himself. "It wasn't-" He huffs, looking out over the hills again, with an expression Tim has come to think of as word-finding. “The maddening part is that everything was fine,” Jon says at last, a quiet, helpless anger underlying his words. “I was...you were back, and Martin would be back soon, and it occurred to me that I was....comfortable.” He grimaces slightly, as though the word tastes strange in his mouth.
“I wasn’t starving, or exhausted, or...existentially horrified,” Jon continues. He scrubs a hand over his face again, over his eyes, like he can wipe it all clean and start again. Tim wishes he were still holding that hand to his chest, that he could lend Jon some calm and stillness even if he has little to spare these days. “And that’s what set me off. Being fine.”
“Risky thing,” Tim says, very quiet, “being fine.”
Jon huffs. “I think...there’s only so much terror and misery a person can experience at once. That’s why the entities drag it out, start slow. At a certain point you just...hit capacity.” He breathes in and out, deliberate and angry, a slight shudder on the out-breath. “And I suppose, if I thought about it at all, I assumed that...that all the terror I had no space for, the over-spill, had...dissipated.” He shudders and fixes his gaze on Tim, a helpless terror in his eyes Tim was starting to hope he’d never see again. “Now I think it was just...waiting,” Jon says, almost a whisper. “Until I had room for it. Until I was fine. ”
Tim stares back, lost for words. Jon may no longer be an avatar of a god of terror, but there’s an authority to the way he speaks about fear. It’s as if Tim never really sees the shape of all horror can be, until it’s spelled out in Jon’s voice.
“I think...some things we feel forever,” Tim murmurs. “Some places, once you’ve been there, a part of you never climbs out.” He doesn’t know if Jon can tell what he’s thinking: that a part of Tim will always be standing frozen, legs shaking, while horrors tear apart the thing that used to be his brother. Maybe he wouldn’t need beholding powers to know. Tim had spent so long trying to find something, anything, that could tear that moment out of him, even if there was nothing left of him at the end. Especially if there was nothing left of him at the end.
The breeze picks up, and the way the sensation fluctuates across his marred skin is almost normal now. Strange, the things you can get used to.
“We’re here, too, though,” Tim says, looking from the wavering grass to Jon, small even in those fragile chairs, listening like Tim is his last and most precious lifeline. “I think it matters that we’re here too.” The naked hope in Jon’s eyes makes Tim break, at last, and reach over to take Jon’s hand in his own. “I’m so fucking glad you made it,” he says, meaning every word.
Jon closes his eyes for a moment, holding tight, then leans down and presses a kiss to the back of Tim’s hand where it’s clutched in his own. He offers care so solemnly, as if it’s the last chance he’ll ever get. Tim had wondered what Jon would be like in love, before, as he did with most people he spent time with - tried to picture him on a first date, picture him flustered by some gesture of affection. Seeing the reality of it, so careful yet so open, is a blessing. They get to have blessings now.
Tim leans back in his seat, wondering if there are cushioned covers stored away in the old attic. They should get some before the summer, if not. It lights Tim up inside, realising he wants to still be here in the summer.
“You should come away with me, next time,” Tim says, a lazy smile spreading over his face as he pictures it.
Jon gives him a look he probably intends to be exasperated. Tim knows him too well now for it to seem anything but fond. “I’m not climbing a mountain, Tim.”
“No mountains, promise,” Tim says. “We’ll get you on a beach, drinking cocktails from coconuts.”
Jon scoffs even as a little crooked smile spreads over his face, and he leans his head onto Tim’s shoulder - hiding his smiles, though Tim will let him get away with it this time. He’s got time to wring more out.
The angle is a little awkward even with the chairs pulled close together, and it occurs to Tim that a bench or a swing-seat would do them better than seat covers. It occurs to him that if Jon agrees to come away with him, he can probably engineer matters such that Jon has to wear a tacky Hawaiian shirt at least once. He sits there, holding Jon’s hand, watching the windswept morning, and lets himself anticipate - soon, there’ll be the sound of Martin’s footsteps coming up the drive. Soon, it’ll get too cold and they’ll retreat back inside to while away the day. Soon, more pleasant things, pleasant days, with the people he’s chosen.