Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Martin was glad he found Daisy’s gun stash a few days ago. It was dull hope that he wouldn’t need to use it, worn down from years of running and hiding from things that lurk in the dark, waiting for you to let your guard down.

Still. Did these Strangers really have to ruin the precious peace he had in this cottage? It was bad enough that they were wearing the faces of people he knew, but couldn’t they at least ambush him outside of one of the few places he felt safe?

They weren’t even that good at mimicry, to be honest. All of their identities were out of date.

The Strangers hadn’t noticed him yet, hiding behind the bedroom door as they roamed the safe house. He recognized the voices loud and clear- even the voice of someone he had long since forgotten, even his own voice- but the acting was off. He could tell just from the tone. Not Tim was too upbeat, Not Him still had a stutter, Not Jon was just a bad impression all around, and Not-Not Sasha was . . . far too accurate to be passable.

Maybe they weren’t Strangers then? Maybe they were part of the Spiral, making you hallucinate your memories until you go insane. And yet, that also didn’t make sense. Every single suppressed memory of Sasha was fake, so wouldn’t it be more likely to base the hallucination off of those fake memories?

. . . Then again, trying to make sense of the Spiral gets people killed.

Martin grit his teeth and adjusted his grip on the old glock. He didn’t know much about guns, but he had been meeting with Basira to learn how to use one. She didn’t trust Jon with it and, while Martin was no hunter, guns were still plenty effective against all sorts of different monsters.

He was hesitant at first but now, hiding in his own house, he was grateful. These things seemed pretty amateur at scaring people. If any monster could get shot down, it would be these ones. Their steps were heavy with recklessness rather than any imposing weight, and their voices carried more confusion than intimidation.

If only Jon were here, he would know what these things were and how to handle them. Though, Martin was still proud of him going into town to talk to other people on their usual tea run. The last time he left the house was when they went to kill Jonah, and while being attacked by Strangers wasn’t ideal, maybe it was worth it to get Jon a little interpersonal interaction.

Besides, he could handle four mediocre Strangers.

Tim whistled at the cozy little cabin, “This place is nice. Like a little woodland retreat.”

A frown seemed to be permanently etched into Jon’s face. The bossman hadn’t said much since they stumbled through that weird hallway, and it was honestly a little worrying

. . . Well, poking bears was always fun.

“Bets on whether this is real or not?” Tim grinned at his coworkers.

“Absolutely not,” Jon snapped.

“He’s got a point this time,” Sasha pitched in, “Did you see the place we came from? It’s probably trying to trick us. Lead us into a false sense of security with a comfortable scene.”

“Hm. I can see that. Martin?”

The man jumped, fumbling to avoid dropping the book he was holding.

“Martin!” Jon hissed, “Don’t touch anything!”

“S-Sorry, I- ah, sorry . . .”

Tim looked over, “Martin? Thoughts on this place being real?”

“Oh, ah,” Martin carefully set the book down, “I- I mean, it’s a little detailed, isn’t it? There’s all of these b-books and thingies lying around,” Martin gestured towards the coffee table, which was covered in papers and chewed up pens, and at the plant-laden window sill, “Why bother putting this much work into a fake place that’s only here to scare us later?”

“Another good point,” Tim nodded sagely. He wasn’t really interested in whether this place was real or not, but after those stressful hallways everybody needed something to help calm them down. In research, Jon and Sasha always liked talking around their issues, and Martin probably just needed a distraction.

“Well yeah, but none of this is normal,” Sasha pointed out, leaning down towards the papers, “See this? They’re all in different languages. Some switch languages in the middle of the page. Might be some kind of fridge horror?”

“Oh,” Martin deflated a little.

Tim was about to move in to reassure him when Jon shrieked, “T-That- That’s a bone!”

And sure enough, right on the fireplace mantle was a curved bone.

“Cannibals, then?” Tim muttered.

Sasha nudged him, “Not the time,”

Jon’s frown, remarkably, got deeper as he regained his composure, “You have no idea if this is a human bone- or if any of this is even real, we can’t jump to conclusions about cannibalism or-“

“Guys,” Martin groaned, “Can we please not talk about cannibals and bones? I just want to get out of here.”

Even more remarkably, Jon’s mouth snapped shut.

Tim clapped, “Right. I think I saw the front door this way-“

“You aren’t going anywhere,” an even voice spoke out, “Don’t you know it’s rude to break and enter?”

The voice sounded too much like Martin’s. When Tim spun around to face the new person, he found that they also looked too much like Martin. If Martin was older with a patchy beard. And if Martin had a gun pointed right at Tim.

“Here’s how this is going to go down,” Martin Two said again. His (?) voice was laced with apathy in a way that sent shivers down Tim’s spine, “You’re all going to take a seat, and nobody is going anywhere until my boyfriend gets back and lets me know what the hell you are.”

The room was cloaked in shock and silence for a moment until they prodded their gun, “Well? There are plenty seats to choose from.”

Immediately, Jon lunged into the nearby recliner, conveniently angled so that the back of the chair was between Jon and the gun. Martin and Sasha both moved slower, careful not to make any sudden movements.

Tim, however, was glued to the spot.

“I’m not going to shoot you for sitting down,” Martin the Second remarked dryly.

“You . . . Have a gun.” Tim said dumbly.

“Astute observation. You want to stand this whole time or what? I don’t care, but take a step towards me and I will shoot.”

Tim still couldn’t fit the image in his head, “Martin. With a gun.”

He really, really couldn’t help it. He started laughing. Quiet Martin, who works so hard to make himself look so small, was currently looming over him with a gun.

The older Martin didn’t look very impressed, but Tim didn’t have time to get a good look at their deadpan expression before he was being yanked backwards, a hand slapping over his mouth.

“S-sorry about him” Jon whispered, voice shaking around the edges as he settled Tim in the recliner. Jon wasn’t a strong guy by any measure, but really Tim was so off kilter from this whole day that a butterfly could probably push him over.

Martin Duo raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything. Instead, they pulled out a nearby barstool and got settled themselves, never letting the gun drop. Once again the room was filled with a tight, tense silence.

Jon was fidgeting in place, eyes darting between Double Martin, Actual Martin, and the void of space as he tried to look inconspicuous.

Martin the First, meanwhile, was settled behind Sasha, still and confused as he kept his gaze locked on his double.

It was Sasha that broke the silence.

“What are you?” She asked slowly, enunciating each word carefully.

“Rude. I could ask you the same thing.” They replied with a cool indifference.

“. . . So, why don’t you?” Jon visibly tried to compose himself, straightening his back and mindlessly adjusting his clothes, “We- We aren’t going anywhere.”

The doppelgänger actually snorted at that, “You better not be. I don’t do questions, those are my boyfriend’s specialty.”

“B-boyfriend?” Original Martin squeaked before clamping his hands over his mouth. It was kind of cute how that was what he focused on.

“Yup. Now we’re going to sit and wait for him. Talk if you want, but I’ll shoot you if you try anything.”

There was another lull in the conversation, the threat of the gun hanging over the room like an anvil from a cheesy cartoon.

Tim scratched his chin a little bit, “So, definitely real, right?”

“Tim!”

“What?”

“No, it’s not,” Jon hissed, “This is nothing more than a mass hallucination-“

A loud bang cracked through the room, causing everyone to flinch and clutch at their ears.

Gun Martin lowered the barrel from where it was pointing at the ceiling, “Real enough for you?”

“Yeah, hold on,” Tim groaned, trying to will the slight ringing away, “What the fuck.”

“I’m not going to just sit back while you debate the validity of my existence, thank you very much.”

Okay. Time to de-escalate this situation before this guy actually shot one of them.

Sasha took the opportunity to push, “Can we have a proper conversation, then? We just want to know where we are and what’s going on.”

Gun Martin shot a look to the clock on the wall, then back around to the group and huffed, “Fine, I’ll bite. But no mind games. You’re in my safehouse- well, a friend’s safehouse, but she let us have it. We’re in Scotland.”

“Scotland? But- but we were just at the Institute,” Jon muttered, still shaken from the gunshot.

“You said ‘we’,” No-Gun Martin pointed out, “By that you mean, ah, y-you and your boyfriend?”

His voice broke a little around the end of the sentence, and honestly it was kind of cute. Tim was glad that Martin had his priorities in order when meeting his gun clone.

The gun clone hummed in confirmation, but said nothing.

Martin continued, “Do we . . . know who he is?”

“One way or another.”

“So if this is like, time travel or whatever,” Tim jumped in, “Can you tell us who it is?”

Tim himself had been considering asking Martin out, getting to know him outside of work, so he had to admit he was a little curious who Future Martin settled down with. Not to mention, it was nice to see Martin get a confidence glow-up. Even if it came in the form of a gun to the face. Their boyfriend must be a lucky guy.

“Well, it might not be time travel. Could be an alternate universe situation,” Sasha chirped. Jon, pointedly, said nothing.

“Honestly?” Gun Martin sighed, “Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve heard of. Still, it’s a lot more likely you’re a bunch of shapeshifters here to make my day hell.”

This time, Jon did speak, “Why would we be the shapeshifters here? There’s four of us that can verify our reality and only one of you.”

“You’re in my house in my time period, half of you are of people that are dead, and in case you weren’t aware, monsters literally live to eat trauma like, I don't know, seeing your dead friends.” Gun Martin gave Jon a withering look, making the man flinch, “Not to mention it wouldn’t be the first time a shapeshifter wore my friend’s face. So sue me if I’m not eager to believe your time travel theory.”

“But . . . You do believe us, right?” Sasha ventured, picking out words like she was trying to diffuse a bomb, “You haven’t killed us yet.”

Gun Martin actually looked a little flustered at that, “I mean- you’re not exactly threatening me or anything.”

“I feel a little offended at that,” Tim pouted, “What, we aren’t spoooky enough for you?” He waggled his fingers for emphasis.

There! Gun Martin let out a snort, and a small grin made its way onto their face, “Trust me, my boyfriend is spookier than the lot of you combined,” all too soon, their expression sobered up, “I don’t appreciate shapeshifters looking like my dead friends, but I’ve met some monsters that really don’t want to hurt anybody. Since you haven’t tried to kill me yet, I might as well wait and see.”

Ah, back to the ominous ‘half of you die’ statement. Tim could see the gears turning for Sasha and Jon, but right now Tim was not in the mood for hearing grim omens of the future. Instead, he jumped on the lighter topic, “Hang on, spooky means monster, right? And your boyfriend is spooky . . . Did you just admit to being a monsterfucker?”

The effect was immediate, leaving Gun Martin reeling and Classic Martin making a strangled sound. Sasha and Jon seemed to be thoroughly derailed from whatever morbid line of questions they were thinking of. Success.

“No!” Tim had the satisfaction of hearing Cool and Collected Badass Gun Martin make that familiar squeaking noise, “He doesn’t- I mean technically- Look,” their whole face was red, stretching down to their neck and ears, “We’re both asexual, and he’s not really a monster- I mean, he is but it’s not that simple. No monster or fucking here. And that’s that.”

Tim was grinning like a maniac, “Kidding! Just messing with you, Marto two-point-oh. I’d like to think you have more taste than dating a vampire or something.”

“Ugh,” they shuddered, the blush starting to dissipate, “Those things are revolting. Yeah, no- he’s not like that.”

“Vampires are real?”

Gun Martin glanced over them all, looking much less tense than before. Now, they just looked . . . Sad? Fond? Tired? It was hard to pinpoint, but Tim could guess that operation ‘de-escalate the man with the gun’ was a success, “They’re real. . . Imagine if you gave vampires these, like . . . mosquito tongues and shark teeth. They can’t talk and use mind control to eat people. I’m just glad I’ve never seen one in person.”

Normal Martin frowned, “Does that make Twilight vampire propaganda?”

“If vampires can’t talk, then I doubt they can puppet Stephanie Meyers to create a propaganda campaign,” Jon hummed, “It’s more likely an unfortunate coincidence,”

“What’s this?” Tim leaned towards him, “Dare my ears deceive me? Did Bossman just admit to believing in vampires?”

“I said ‘if’,” Jon grumbled, which was honestly a weaker defense than usual.

Gun Martin seemed to pick this up as well, “You guys seem to be taking this relatively well.”

Sasha shrugged, “I mean, we did just come from the hallways of hell. That’s probably the biggest supernatural wake-up call you can get.”

“. . . Hallways, you say?” Their voice regained some of the earlier chill, but they didn’t get the chance to continue.

The handle of the front door began to jiggle and open.

Gun Martin huffed and clicked the safety back on, “You sure took your time for a tea run,”

“Sorry,” came a sheepish reply, “I Saw we had guests and- well, we don’t have enough food for everyone, so I stopped by the market to grab some groceries.”

No way. Gun Martin was dating Jon? Tim leaned around the recliner, hoping to get a better look.

Future Jon looked a little beat up, scars peppered across his skin like brush strokes on a worn canvas, hair long and streaked with silver and gathered into a messy bun. Gone were the glasses and formal attire, now he bore a baggy woolen sweater that threatened to consume his tiny form. The sweater was stuffed into an even larger trench coat, decorated with various pins and chains, and beneath it all was Jon, swimming in countless grocery bags.

“Mind helping me put these away?” He requested, holding out some of the bags.

“Okay, but- they’re real? All of them?”

Sweater Jon looked over at the group, and Tim was pinned by those endless green eyes. Weren’t Jon’s eyes supposed to be brown?

The gaze was lifted with a nod, “The Distortion isn’t limited by anything- not space, time, or reality. I suppose Helen felt like stirring the pot a little.”

“Christ,” Gun Martin groaned, grabbing some of the bags, “When were you going to tell me that Helen can time travel?”

“To be fair, I only just found out myself,” Sweater Jon began making his way towards the kitchen, Gun Martin not far behind.

Tim looked back at his coworkers, almost relieved to find that, no, none of them were able to make any sense out of that conversation either. Still, there was a massive elephant in the room because Jon and Martin end up dating.

Classic Martin was . . . certainly having a time. He had curled up on himself and was caught in between trying to disappear and trying to reboot his brain. Sasha was giving him a few reassuring pats. It was probably a real shock, finding out you were destined to date your asshole boss had to be a lot to take in. Though, Sweater Jon did seem to have mellowed a lot. In fact, the comfort clothes seemed to suit him much better than stiff suits and button ups ever did.

Seeing them together, out of their shells, Tim felt happy for them. It was shocking, but evidently a little time and growth went a long way.

A small, intrusive voice in the back of his head was all too eager to remind him of the process of elimination when it came to half of the Archive crew dying now that they know who survived. Tim hadn’t expected to live very long anyways. His goal in life was to avenge his brother and he had no other plans than that, not really. It wasn’t exactly surprising that he’d die in the process, but Sasha? Intelligent, ambitious Sasha, who would fight the system one fake smile at a time, who survived Artifact Storage and would gladly take the Archives by storm just . . . died?

He shouldn’t be mourning; Sasha was right across from him, face coated in patience as she comforts Martin. She wouldn’t die this time. Tim would make sure of it.

That was enough morbid thoughts for one evening. Tim looked over at Bossman to see how he was handling this situation. Unfortunately, he must have missed the initial reaction because Bossman’s face was stony and composed- the kind he wore before a meeting with Elias where he’s especially careful not to show any human emotion. It was almost sad seeing him so closed off despite how happy this little cottage in his future looked.

For as long as he’d known the man, Tim thought that ‘prickly asshole’ was just Jon’s default personality. Sure, he would make the occasional sarcastic remark or go on cute little rants about random things he found interesting, but Tim had just accepted that he was always going to be standoffish.

It looked like Tim had some new goals now. First priority was still Danny, of course. Next came keeping Sasha alive. Then, when he has the chance, he’ll find a way to get Bossman to soften up. Actually, retiring to a cottage in the countryside didn’t sound like such a bad idea, either.

“See, this is why you take your phone with you,” Martin scolded, “You could have let me know ‘Hey! Don’t shoot the people that look like us, they really are us!’ and I wouldn’t have nearly shot our past selves!”

Jon hummed as he stashed away the milk and eggs, “You’re a little hung up over that. You wouldn’t have shot anybody, and it all worked out.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I could shoot someone!”

Jon smirked. Prick.

Martin gave him a gentle swat, “Point still stands; You need to tell me these things, okay? I get that Knowing things is background noise, but I’d like to know if there are a bunch of Not-Them in my house.”

“Right. Sorry.” Jon cringed a little, mouth twisting.

“It’s alright,” Martin wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, planting a kiss in his hair, “You’re doing your best, okay? You’re doing your best and I’m so proud of you.”

“Mph. . .”

Martin smiled before continuing, “Right now our biggest problem is getting Helen to open a door for everyone to get home.”

Jon squirmed a little, burying himself deeper into the embrace, “You know, we can probably wait a little while before seeking Helen out.”

“Oh?”

“I mean, we aren’t on a time limit or anything, are we?” He tilted his head up to look at Martin, a gleam to his eye, “We could tell them about the future. Things to look out for, people to avoid, how to survive and stay human. Martin, for them Tim and Sasha are alive and we can make sure that they stay like that. We could tell them about the Entities and Elias and they can live.”

“Oh. Holy shit-”

Suddenly, Jon wiggled his way out of the hug, “First thing’s first- Tea. And sleeping arrangements, we only have the one guest bedroom and the loveseat.”

They made their way back to the living room, where their guests hadn’t moved and- oh my god, young Jon was so impossibly stiff it reminded Martin of a cat puffing their fur up to look bigger. How he ever found that intimidating was beyond him.

Jon- Martin’s Jon- cleared his throat, “It’s rather late in the day, and I’m sure you’re all rather eager to get some sleep after your- um, trip? We can answer questions in the morning, but if you have anything you need answered right now, let us know.”

Tim’s hand shot up remarkably fast considering how listless he was mere seconds ago, “Just to clarify, pronouns are still the same and all, right?”

“Yeah, I’m he/him,” Martin nodded.

Jon blinked, “Um, he/him or they/them work for me?”

“Right. Cool,” Tim nodded, satisfied, before once again slumping against the recliner.

“Right,” Jon echoed, “Anything else? . . . Anybody want some tea?”

There was a brief pause before Young Martin began to slowly raise his hand.

Martin glanced at his past self for a moment before volunteering, “I’ll go make it, you all can settle sleeping arrangements and such.”

It was tempting to give his boyfriend a little peck on the cheek before he left, but Martin wasn’t blind to the awkward tension in the room. He certainly didn’t want to make things uncomfortable for them. Even if his boyfriend was extremely kissable.

Martin let out a small sigh as he went to make tea. This might be harder than he thought.

Chapter Text

In the end, they were able to find an extra sleeping bag amongst Daisy’s storage. Tim and Sasha took the guest bed, Past Martin took the couch and Past Jon was pretending to be asleep in the sleeping bag. Fortunately, Past Jon wasn’t actually planning to sneak out or something- he was pretending to sleep out of paranoia. Present Jon had always struggled falling asleep in strange places, and walking through Helen’s hallways before being held at gunpoint would do nothing to inspire a feeling of safety.

It probably didn’t help that Past Jon was still attempting to convince himself that this is all a nightmare and, therefore, he wouldn’t need sleep as he is already sleeping.

Hm. They would have to figure out names, wouldn’t they? ‘Past’ wasn’t strictly accurate, as they were currently in the present, and ‘present’ was a relative term anyways. ‘Old’ and ‘Young’ would be condescending, not to mention it was just tiring to need an extra adjective to communicate with someone.

One more thing to add to the growing list of things to discuss in the morning.

Jon had been writing down everything they could think of that would be necessary. The entities were at the top of the list, followed by the fallibility of rituals, the true nature of the institute, the situation with Elias being Jonah Magnus, a rough account of events to happen and what to avoid, how to survive the supernatural in general, the people they would meet, and perhaps some ways to help the statement givers that come by?

Should he mention Gerry? If they aren’t about to hunt down rituals, then there was no need to go to America, and sending them to the Hunters would be incredibly risky. Still, it wasn’t fair to him that he was stuck in the skin book’s limbo state.

And Tim is still going to want to destroy the Circus. For him, it had nothing to do with saving the world and everything to do with revenge. Part of Jon really wanted to believe that it was the downward spiral that led Tim to his suicidal quest, but they Knew that wasn’t true. Tim was fixated on his brother’s killers long before he even reached the Institute, though he kept it well hidden under his jokes and charm. Back when he cared about keeping his grief and pain hidden.

It was . . . surreal, seeing Tim relaxed and quipping his heart away. Jon didn’t need to be the avatar of an omniscient eldritch knowledge god to know that he genuinely cared about cheering everybody up, easing the tension and keeping everyone from turning on each other.

Jon would begrudgingly admit that he stumbled over himself when Tim made the monsterfucker joke. It was so unabashedly Tim that he had to stop himself from cackling out loud in the middle of the market. Gone was the venom Jon had braced himself for- though, perhaps it was more accurate to say that it was never there in the first place. Not yet, anyways. Wouldn’t ever be there, if Jon had anything to say about it. That venom corroded Tim as much as it hurt others, and Jon refused to let it steal his smile again.

And then there was Sasha, who literally had her smile stolen. Had her life stolen. Jon still hadn’t been able to look her right in the eye. By all accounts, she was a complete stranger, and yet something in the back of his head purred in content at the familiarity of her face, of being able to replace the rancid lies in his memories with Her. That same ‘something’ was eager to Look, to Know her and reach out to find the True memories of her, untainted by masks and strangers.

It was suppressed with a practiced shove. Jon wanted to know her the human way, to build their own memories instead of taking what was lost. Maybe it was selfish to keep their past friends any longer than need be, but they wanted nothing more than to spend a day with her, doing . . . Whatever it was that she liked doing. What were her hobbies, her favorite movies? How did she take her tea? What was her thesis about?

It was all small talk, mindless questions and trivia that anyone would have learned from a few dull break room conversations. Jon wanted nothing more than to learn all of these useless little things, the smallest pieces of what makes her who she is.

Though, surviving an extended period of time with his past self would be . . . difficult, to say the least. Jon had known he was insufferable to others, but Eye above was he really this infuriating? Even the tangential knowledge of his past self’s thoughts and actions was exhausting to witness. The knowledge that killing him would solve several problems was still there, taunting him whenever his past self cast a disdainful look in Past Martin’s direction.

It wouldn’t be hard, either- it had taken a long time for Jon to get any sort of self preservation instinct outside of indiscriminate suspicion. Of course, killing himself was unlikely to garner any trust from the assistants, and it was really Elias at the heart of their issues so his own death would only delay the inevitable. Still, it was far too tempting.

A hand on his shoulder startled him out of his thoughts.

“Honey, how long have you been writing for? It’s getting late,” Martin murmured, his face gently curved with worry.

“Oh, I’ve, ah-” Jon blinked. He very much didn’t want to admit that he has been writing down ideas and contingency plans for a solid 97 minutes since everyone else had gotten settled for the night, “Um- a while.”

Martin snorted, “I’m heading to bed, you better wrap it up. Explaining all of this while sleep deprived can’t be a good idea.”

“. . . Right. I’ll be there soon,” Jon conceded. They couldn’t simply hand the Archival staff their notes- they had long since given up on trying to write consistently in a single language- and discussing their past trauma, which would be the group’s future trauma, was bound to get . . . uncomfortable.

“Right.” Jon repeated, capping his pens and making a mediocre attempt at shuffling the assorted papers together before going through his evening routine.

There was no telling that they could even explain everything in a single day. Or that everyone would be able to process it in that time. Well, they could figure that out as they go. Jon hummed in thought as they pulled a comb through their hair, wrestling with a few knots. Right now, they could look forward to a cozy night wrapped up with their boyfriend and their morning statement.

It took Sasha a few moments to remember the events of the previous day when she woke up, and a few more moments for it to sink in that she was currently in the future. In her defense, it was kind of hard to fully acknowledge the ramifications of time travel when there’s a gun pointed at you.

How many years had they skipped ahead? Surely it was at least a few years, though it was probably a while given all of the grey in Sims’ hair. What technological advancements happened? Maybe she could look up lottery numbers before she goes back. Did Sims and Blackwood have a computer she could borrow?

She may need to borrow some clothes, too. Running through that endless hallway in her business-casual work clothes left sweat clinging to her blouse, and frankly she wouldn’t mind a change of clothes. And a shower, too.

Sasha carefully untangled herself from Tim and the sheets and made her way to the door. She could hear a faint humming noise, accompanied with sizzling.

Creeping around the door frame, Sasha spotted Sims in the kitchen, humming a pleasant tune as he leaned over a pan of frying eggs. When she first saw him the other time, she didn’t recognize him as Jon. Sasha wasn’t good on remembering faces- names and associations were easy, but she always remembered people by their behaviorisms. If there was a mug of tea on her desk, she knew it was Martin that put it there, but if he got a new haircut it might take her a second to realize that yes, his appearance has changed.

Sure, she could look at Sims and Jon side by side and point out how objectively they have the exact same features, but it was really the movements that threw her off. Sims walked slowly with a slight limp, seemed to favor his left hand for gestures, and rather than self-consciously adjusting his clothes they seemed more prone to messing it up; tugging on a hem or ruffling their hair and disrupting the sloppy bun. This wasn’t even mentioning the verbal tics he had, and already he felt like a complete stranger.

“Morning,” She eventually greeted.

Sims jumped, flinging bits of partially cooked egg across the counter before quickly turning towards her, “Oh! Sasha, good- good morning.”

“Anyone else up?” She asked, though the silence of the house already gave her the answer.

“No, not yet,” He confirmed, “I, ah, got into the habit of waking up early.”

Sasha nodded, turning her attention across the kitchen. It was meticulously clean, and clearly loved for. Notes and recipes were pinned to the fridge, various cow-shaped decorations scattered across the counter top and window sills, and a vibrant little herb garden basked in the sunlight of the windowsill.

“Martin said this place belongs to a friend of yours,” She mused.

Sims smiled wistfully, “Yes, that would be Daisy. She had an . . . incident not long ago, and we were on the run for a while, so her partner gave us the keys. She’s doing better now, and Martin and I don’t need to hide anymore, but she says we might as well keep the place.”

Daisy sounded like the name of someone who would own a cute little cottage with a garden out in the Scottish countryside. Maybe feed ducks at a nearby pond.

“She still hasn’t done the paperwork,” Sims was rubbing his throat a little, “But she hasn’t kicked us out yet, so I think we’ll be fine.”

Sasha spared another glance at the scrambled eggs, bits of bell peppers and bacon and cheese mixed in. The smell alone was making her mouth water, “We won’t have to wait long for everyone else, will we?”

“No, they should be waking up shortly. Martin’s already on his way back from the post office.”

“Post office?” She inquired.

Sims blinked, “Oh- Yes, post office. He went down this morning to send a letter to Daisy and Basira about the- Um.” He made a gesture in her direction, “Situation.”

“Huh. And we aren’t under house arrest or anything, right?”

“What? Oh, no- You can move around outside, I think,” They frowned, “Perhaps it would be better to keep-” They started twirling the spatula, looking for the word, “The other Jon and Martin in the cottage. The town is already familiar with our faces, it would be best not to have any doubles walking around.”

Sasha sighed a little, “Yeah, guess they’ll have nothing to do but sit and pine.”

A loud guffaw came from Sims before they smothered it into a chuckle, “S-Sorry, it’s just- this is all so bizarre. You’re talking about me, but not me. It feels like I’m having a flashback and an out of body experience at the same time.”

“Ha, I bet,” Sasha snorted, “I wonder how Jon’s taking this.”

“He’s not. Unfortunately, while some have a fight, flight, or freeze instinct when afraid, I happen to have a ‘deny’ instinct,” Sims quipped dryly.

She laughed at that- it was good to know that somewhere in Jon’s bitter little heart he had room for a sense of humor.

The mirth in Sims’ face gradually grew somber, “I’m not- you know how I act at work isn’t the entirety of who I am, right?”

Changing behaviors to fit an environment was something Sasha was intimately familiar with. You didn’t survive in Academia if you didn’t know how to wear pleasantries on your sleeve where your heart should be. It just so happened that every time she saw Jon, he never gave any indication that there was much more to him than ‘well-meaning asshole’.

“I’m sorry,” He hastily added, “I wasn’t- I’m not- Communication was . . . never a strong suit of mine. Not that it should excuse my deplorable behavior.”

That was two ‘sorrys’ in the span of a minute or two. Sasha frowned, “Don’t be so harsh on yourself, you aren’t that bad. At least you aren’t a creepy asshole.”

The last statement was said with good humor, but Sims’ bitter grin was rather concerning, “It gets worse before it gets better.”

“Geez, spoiler alert much?”

“If you’re worried about ‘spoilers’, maybe don’t talk to the person from the future.”

The eggs were looking rather well-done, “Well, these eggs will spoil if nobody’s coming to eat them.”

“Oh!” Sims switched off the gas, “Tim’s hunting down some clothes to borrow, Martin- ah, your Martin- is stirring right now, and Jon’s been awake for a while.”

“I was going to ask about that. We’re allowed to borrow your clothes?” She filed away the telepathic baby monitor trick for later. Blackwood did say he was spooky.

Sims smiled, “Of course! I can’t guarantee anything will git, but go ahead. Help yourself to anything you might need. I even picked up some crisps and snacks if you want any.”

As they began to set the table Sasha thought back to what they said about Jon- about themself. Jon was never really an approachable person. She enjoyed her time with him, but now that she really thought about it, he always backed out before getting close, before getting comfortable. Hell, the first time she saw him smile was after literally time travelling and meeting his scarred future self. If that prickly exterior was hiding such a sweetheart, she might just have to break through to it. Maybe she could recruit Martin and Tim to help.

. . . Actually, knowing Tim, he probably had several plans ready. And Martin had been trying to get Jon to open up, hadn’t he? Maybe it was time he got a little back up.

Speaking of the devil, Tim drifted into the room with a yawn and a stretch, donned in some band t-shirt. He mumbled something that might have been a greeting before blearily looking at the table before him.

“Wass’is?” Tim garbled.

Apparently, Sims was able to understand that, “It’s breakfast. Sasha, would you mind getting the other two?”

She offered a mock salute, “On it.”

On the way over to the living room, she nearly crashed into Martin.

“Are you okay?” He held his hands up, “Sorry, I heard people talking and moving around? You didn’t wake me up or anything.”

“Just surprised me is all, is Jon up too?”

Martin rubbed his neck, “Er, I think he’s still asleep. I didn’t want to be the one to wake him.”

Time to put the spooky telepathic baby monitor to the test, then.

Sasha gave Martin a pat and a smile, “Don’t worry, I got the grouch covered. Breakfast is ready when you are.”

She continued on her way, spotting the sleeping bag in the corner of the living room. The sleeping bag that was suspiciously still. It was a mummy sleeping bag, so she couldn’t even spot his face.

“Jon?” She called out. The sleeping bag still did not move.

This calls for drastic measures, then. Sasha approached the prone lump and gave it a good poke. A yelp came from the folds of fabric and it bagan to wiggle. From one end, the fabric was pulled away to reveal her disgruntled boss.

“Sasha.” He glared- or, Sasha guessed it was supposed to be a glare. With his hair ruffled and poking out at all sorts of angles and the fact that he was still ninety-five percent cocooned, he looked more like one of those upset bread cats.

She managed not to snicker, but even she did not have the strength not to smirk, “I am she. How did you sleep?”

“Fine,” He snapped, though the bags under his eyes would say otherwise, “And that’s none of your business anyways.”

“Just asking,” She shrugged as he squirmed his way out of the sleeping bag. Guess she shouldn’t doubt the baby monitor, “If you need a change of clothes, the future guys say you can just grab them.”

Jon scowled, “I’m not about to wear a stranger’s clothes.”

The word ‘stranger’ was pointed like a weapon, despite talking about himself. Sasha wasn’t about to tackle that until she had a cup of coffee in her and he had some time to loosen up.

“Alright, well I hope you don’t mind that a ‘stranger’ made you breakfast. See you there,” She turned on her heel before he could get anything edgewise.

He was a piece of work, that was for sure. Hopefully, she could see him smile before whatever terrible, spooky fate they had in store for them reared its ugly head.

‘It gets worse before it gets better’

Well, second time’s the charm.

At the dining table, it seemed that Blackwood returned and Tim had woken himself up, as he was currently refereeing a rock-paper-scissors match between the two Martins. Based on the groan, it seemed that the younger one lost.

Tim gave a dramatic sigh, “Sorry Marto, two out of three wins. Rules are rules.”

“But- We’re basically two different people!” Martin pouted.

“We’re the same person,” Blackwood grinned smugly, “And seniority wins.”

Sasha slid into the seat next to Sims, who was lazily watching the scene, “What did I miss?”

“Oh, not much,” He mused, “We started talking about spiders and started taking a vote for whether spiders are inherently evil.”

“They’re not!” Martin cried.

Blackwood held a hand up, “Not all spiders commit evil deeds, but they as a species are evil-aligned. This doesn’t change that they’re important to our ecosystem-” He cast a dirty look towards Sims, “-or that they can be cute, but objectively spiders were created for evil.”

Martin looked utterly heartbroken. Guess you really shouldn’t meet your heroes.

“This led to the discussion of whether they were theoretically two people, and thus would each get a vote, or they were ultimately one person and therefore seniority would receive the vote,” Sims continued, “You just witnessed the conclusion. I, for one, am quite satisfied with this outcome.”

“That’s because you’re biased!” Martin huffed.

Tim took his seat across from Sasha, “As a neutral party, I was the humble mediator.”

Martin looked very betrayed at the moment. Sasha laughed, “To be fair, it’s probably best to trust age and experience.”

“You don’t have a future double here! I’m being targeted!”

“For what it’s worth,” She smiled, “I vote in favor of spiders.”

Blackwood frowned, “Hey, what happened to trusting ‘age’ and ‘experience’?”

“Nothing, I just don’t believe anything can be born evil,” She shrugged.

The room grew oddly silent.

Sims coughed, “Um, breakfast? Would- would you like to sit down?”

For a moment Sasha was confused, since she was already sitting down, but there was a shuffle and she caught sight of Jon lurking in the shadowed hallway behind her. She didn’t even hear him approach.

Jon himself fidgeted for a moment, looking across everyone at the table, before conceding and taking the last open seat next to Tim. Which put him across from his double, whom he was very pointedly avoiding eye contact with. Sasha just barely caught the soft, disappointed sigh that came from Sims.

“Anyways,” Tim drawled as he began to put the loaded scrambled eggs onto his plate, “I also voted for spiders, so that makes us tied.”

Sasha smirked, “Then by group vote, you cannot definitively say that spiders are created evil.”

Sims frowned, a surprisingly serious expression given the situation.

“They’ll figure it out,” Blackwood tutted ominously before going for a bite to eat.

Martin looked marginally cheered up anyways, and at the first taste of the food he lit up even more, “These eggs are delicious!”

“Thank you,” Sims nodded sincerely, “It’s Grandmother’s recipe.”

Jon gave Sims an odd look, “If it’s so good, why aren’t you eating any?”

True to word, Sims was the only one without a plate in front of them. Just a glass of water.

“Oh, I- ah, already ate.” Sims said lamely. They were tugging on the hem of their shirt.

Blackwood stopped chewing.

Sasha did not see Sims eating earlier, but it also didn’t escape her notice how much thinner they were from Jon. A lot can happen over a few years, and this was probably a delicate topic. She shot a glance over to Jon to tell him to back off, but he was oblivious to her attempt.

“Why plan a group meal if you aren’t going to eat it yourself?” He was now eyeing the eggs as if someone spit on his plate.

. . . Hang on.

Did Jon really think the eggs were poisoned? Was that his honest-to-god best explanation for why someone wouldn’t eat? Sasha desperately hoped not, but the scene in front of her said otherwise. This time, she decided to exchange glances with Tim.

He was already ahead of her, raising his eyebrows, Is this guy serious?

Unfortunately, Sasha quirked her mouth before flicking her eyes to Jon and back, You handle Jon, I save the conversation?

Tim nodded, and that was all Sasha needed before she turned to Sims, “You said this was your grandmother’s recipe?”

Sims blinked at her before the panic on his face settled, recognizing the exit, “Y-Yes, she basically raised me, so whenever I need comfort food, I always go for one of her recipes . . .”

Conversation saved. Whatever Tim had said to Jon in the meantime must have worked, as he was now taking tentative bites of the eggs. Teamwork 1, paranoid coworkers 0.

As the topic drifted lazily throughout the meal, Martin asked, “What exactly are we supposed to call you guys? I haven’t been able to think of any good nicknames.”

“First name for younger and last name for older is a pretty effective system,” Sasha offered.

Sims frowned, “Too formal. Besides, I’m fairly sure both of us would respond to ‘Sims’.”

Sasha was too attached to give it up, but they didn’t need to know that. Her face must have given it away, though, as Sims covered a chuckle with a cough.

“Hey, why are we the ones that need to change our names?” Blackwood raised an eyebrow.

“Since you so kindly asked,” Tim grinned, ignoring Blackwood, “I’ve been using Sweater Jon and Gun Martin.”

Blackwood’s face visibly flattened, “Gun Martin? Seriously?! I hardly even use that thing!”

“Your fault for introducing yourself with a gun,”

“Actually, we could work with this,” Sasha tilted her head, “Just need to shorten it,”

“Guntin? Gartin?” Tim thought aloud, “Maybe smash it with the last name. Gunwood?”

“Please stop,” Gunwood groaned.

Martin chipped in, “Maybe instead of combine, just stick with ‘gun’. Like Gunner?”

“Gunner it is,” Tim declared.

Gunner glared at Martin, who had an innocent smile on his face. Sasha made a mental note not to invoke Martin’s revenge.

“For the record, I will not respond to ‘swan’,” Sims took a sip from his water, not quite hiding his Cheshire grin.

“You’re no fun,” Tim huffed, “Sweater doesn’t give us many options here,”

Sims pursed his lips, “How about ‘Nathan’? Drop the ‘Jon’ and it’s an entirely different name.”

Sasha nodded, “That sounds good to me.”

“Hang on, this isn’t fair,” Gunner complained, “How come he gets to choose his name?”

“What would you pick, then? Would you prefer ‘Tin-tin’?” Nathan raised an eyebrow.

Gunner opened his mouth and paused before snapping it shut again. He narrowed his eyes, “I hate you.”

Nathan’s lips curled mischievously as they sang “I love you~”

Jon sat silently for the rest of breakfast.

Chapter Text

Martin liked to think he was handling this ‘time travel’ schtick pretty well. Sure, he may have gotten a little faint when he found out he had a future settling down in a cozy cottage with his crush, but you can’t blame him for that!

Cottages were too romanticized anyways. A small, warm little home full of plants and sweet words with the gentle creak of wood in each step . . . Too cliche. Nope, Martin was doing a great job at not fawning over this house and not thinking about how he could picture the long winter nights, huddled by the fire and his partner for warmth-

Martin was absolutely handling this well because he was not thinking about any of that.

. . . Okay, maybe he was thinking about it a little, but that’s it!

Mostly, he was occupied with how odd his future self was. It was easy to distract himself. People change over time, everyone knew that, but he never really considered how he himself would change. For one, calling spiders evil was a crime. For another, the whole thing with a gun. Martin was pretty sure if someone broke into his flat, his knee-jerk instinct would be to apologize. That wasn’t to say he didn’t want to be the gun wielding badass, the knight in shining armor, it was that Martin simply . . . wasn’t.

Maybe it should have been inspiring, but after the initial fear of having a gun pointed at you wore off, Martin felt oddly detached from the whole situation. Looking at your own future should have felt like looking in a mirror, one that made you older and wiser, but instead it felt more like meeting a long-lost twin. Two completely different people with eerily similar faces and voices.

If only he could talk to Jon about it. Tim and Sasha were great, but right now Martin just wanted someone who knew how this felt. How awkward and confusing it was to look at your own face and suddenly you know nothing about yourself. Of course, the whole ‘you two end up dating’ part made time alone with Jon . . . Tense, to say the least.

He couldn’t have fallen for someone that was easy to talk to, no, he had to fall for the grumpy, clueless boss with a mean streak and a cute frown. Martin really needed to stop investing himself in people that wouldn’t care about him.

The image of Nathan and Gunner, happily living in a cute cottage, rose to his mind and intruded his thoughts before he could shoo it away. The idea that maybe Jon would care about him . . . Well. It wasn’t like this was the only future that could happen. For all Martin knew, this could be one slim, slim possibility amongst countless others where he ends up alone.

Just a little glimmer of a happy ending.

Martin shook his head- he would be going back to the past eventually, there was no point getting too attached to this future. Right now all he needed to focus on was cleaning the dishes. One little task at a time.

“Alright, team,” Gunner clapped, “Everything’s just about cleaned up, meeting in the living room when you’re done,”

Tim saluted, “Yessir!”

At least it was nice to have a name for his double. Martin had kept blanking every time the thought came up, spiraling between referring to Gunner as himself and trying to remove any and all connections between the two of them. At least now he could pretend that the person with his face was not him.

Martin set the last plate in the dishwasher and trotted over to the living room. For how comforting this whole place was, the bone on the mantle still freaked Martin out. There were several other things too, macabre looking jars that were too faded to see the insides. One was even tinted, as if to purposely stop anything from seeing whatever it held. He didn’t want to know what they were, or why his future self thought it an appropriate decoration.

Nathan was already sitting cross-legged in a rocking chair in the corner, giving Martin a warm smile as he came into the room.

It took physical effort for Martin not to trip over himself and face plant into the couch. That was such a tender, fragile smile and seeing it on Jon’s face was like whiplash. He had been really, really hoping to get over his crush on Jon, but every second he spent in the future was wearing that idea down into a distant hope.

Which didn’t bode well for him, since his Jon was currently sitting straight up in the recliner with narrowed eyes and puckered lips that were very much the opposite of Nathan’s gentle expression. God, this trip was going to be the death of him.

Nathan beamed once everyone had taken a seat. They were jiggling their knee with anticipation, “Alright! So, ah, welcome to the future!”

“Sorry that your first welcome involved a gun,” Gunner added unapologetically, leaning on the wall next to the mantle. It wasn’t fair how cool he looked.

“We have a lot to go over, regarding- well, um, the Future, but if you have anything to ask, please go ahead.”

Jon leaned forwards, “How exactly are we going to get home?”

“Oh, well,” Nathan winced, “We’ll get there eventually, there’s a lot we need to explain before we get to planning the trip back.”

“The ‘trip back’ should be top priority,” Jon was using his ‘boss voice’, face twisting into a scowl.

Gunner snorted, “Good luck trying to do that without knowing how it even works. Who knows, you might even end up in the nineteenth century with nobody else to help you.”

Jon’s eyes widened and he straightened up once more with a nod. It was almost comic how quickly he snapped his mouth shut.

“You know how the hallways work?” Sasha asked.

“We know how most every supernatural thing functions,” Nathan nodded.

“You know how every supernatural thing works,” Gunner corrected.

Sasha glanced between them, hands clasped, “Alright. We’re listening.”

There was a pause as Nathan waited for anyone else to offer up a question. Martin looked over at Tim, who simply shrugged.

Nathan pushed a lock of hair out of his face, letting out a breath, “Alright, this might be a bit confusing, so let me know if you need any clarification,” Their eyes flicked back up to Gunner, who gave a reassuring smile, “Ahem- In this world, there is a wide variety of supernatural monsters and places. You may have recognized some of these things from statements, such as Hilltop road-”

“Doesn’t ring a bell,” Tim interjected.

They blinked, “What?”

“Our team was only properly implemented into the archives a few weeks ago,” Jon clarified, “We’ve barely started working through statements.”

“Oh,” Nathan’s brow furrowed, “. . . Alright, examples that you all can recognize may be . . . difficult, but bear with me here. All of these monsters have complex interactions with each other. They’re all connected. If you look at enough statements, certain trends start to emerge and you can start to categorize the supernatural based on common traits and abilities.”

“Like Pokémon types,” Sasha nodded seriously.

“Like . . . what?”

Tim jerked forwards, “You don’t know wha-”

Gunner coughed, “You can introduce Jon- Nathan to Pokémon later. Spooky stuff first?”

Sasha had that glint in her eye that said that she would not forget this.

To the side, Jon adjusted his collar, “Don’t you have any more technical terms than ‘Spooky’? This is a serious investigation topic, it should be treated as such.”

“I personally like using ‘spooky’,” Nathan mused, “There are much nastier words out there that I best not associate myself with. Besides, it’s cute.”

My boyfriend is spookier than the lot of you combined, echoed in Martin’s head. What happened to Jon to make him into . . . soft and spooky Nathan?

Jon looked as if he’d bitten a lemon, but Nathan continued on anyways, “Every spooky thing that exists can be sorted by what sort of fear it inspires. Fear of the dark, fear of heights, and so forth. Technically speaking there are infinite fears, but you can group them together in these . . . Domains, if you will.”

Nathan paused for a moment, thinking, “These domains are part of something much larger. There are about fourteen or fifteen entities, beyond the scope of human comprehension. Entities that feed on the fear of humans, and use monsters as their harvesters.”

They paused again and Martin tried to wrap his head around the idea, “You’re talking Gods, right? Spooky fear gods.”

“That’s one word for them, yes.”

“Gods that eat people,” Tim let out a dry laugh, “Guess we are dealing with cannibals.”

“W-Well, they eat fear, not literal- I mean, yes, someti-”

Jon huffed, “You really expect us to believe this nonsense? We need to know about time travel, not sit through a religious conversion.”

“I’m getting there- it’s not- I’m n-not-”

Gunner sighed, “Look, I get that this is a hard, bitter pill to swallow but trust me when I say that this is the tip of the iceberg and if you don’t listen then things are going to be a lot worse for you, got it? Not a threat, just a fact. How the Entities work is crucial to knowing how to get yourselves home, so shut it.”

He then spared a glance at Nathan, who waved him off, “T-There are fourteen or fifteen of these entities- it can get a little complicated. The Hunt is one of the most primal ones, it represents the fear of being hunted, of something waiting for your guard to drop before it strikes. It’s a fear shared by animals, monsters, and humans alike. Similar to it is The Flesh, the fear of being eaten or being imperfect, and The Slaughter, the fear of war and senseless violence.”

“Hold on,” Sasha put a hand up, “Do you have anything I can take notes on? I’m going to forget these if I don’t.”

“Of course!” Nathan shuffled through the papers on the coffee counter, eventually pulling out a writing pad and a mildly chewed pen to offer to her.

“Thanks- I assume a fear of time or something is one of these entities?”

“Well, time is sort of a . . . grey area,” Nathan rubbed their neck, “Theoretically, it could be several entities, but what brought you here is a part of The Spiral, the fear of insanity, of the world lying to you.”

The thought of those churning hallways made Martin shiver, “That . . . checks out.”

“There’s also The Corruption, the fear of . . .” Nathan froze for a moment, eyes far away, before his face twisted into a snarl, “Pests.”

Suddenly Nathan was standing, making great angry strides out of the room.

“The lecture’s going outside, I guess,” Gunner had a knowing smirk on his face as he gestured for everyone to follow.

The front door flung open as Nathan stormed out and Martin scrambled to follow, puzzled and a little intimidated by the sudden change of tone.

“I see you!” Nathan’s voice carried across the open space.

Martin jogged outside and turned to see Nathan maneuvering through meticulously arranged plants, eyes sharp as they scanned the garden. Then, faster than Martin thought possible, they lunged and yanked up a small, furry animal from the garden bed.

“Wretched thing,” Nathan hissed at the rabbit in his grasp, held tight by the scruff of its neck and looking right at Nathan with its black eyes, “Did you think I wasn’t watching? That I wouldn’t Know your crimes?"

Gunner was cackling, speaking between breaths, “That- that’s the third time this week! Cocoa’s getting ballsy!”

Nathan turned their scathing eyes on his direction with a grunt, “Don’t name this vile creature. It deserves none.”

“With how many times she’s broken in here? I think she’s earned it!”

The trembling bunny was shoved into Gunner’s arms and Nathan spun back around to the garden, grumbling and he knelt to observe the damage, “Wretched thing, destroying my garden . . .”

Gunner chuckled before shoving the rabbit at Martin, “Here, hold onto her a sec, would you?”

Martin stumbled at the sudden weight in his arms, staggering into Tim. Why the hell was a rabbit this big?

“It’s a fat, greedy menace that gorges itself on helpless plants,” Nathan grit out, almost as if he was answering Martin.

Cocoa was quivering in Martin’s grasp, sending a tremor through his arms. He really hoped she wouldn’t pee on him or something.

Tim reached over and started scratching under the rabbit’s ear, “Aren’t you being a little harsh, Nate? Look at her innocent face, she doesn’t know it was wrong!”

Nathan gave Tim a glare but did not dignify the rabbit’s defense with a response.

“This is cute and all,” Sasha was tapping her pen on the writing pad, “But we were kind of in the middle of deconstructing our perception of the world. You said The Corruption was the fear of pests?”

“One moment,” Nathan trotted back towards the cottage, casting a nasty look at Cocoa when he passed, “I need to tend to the havoc this beast caused.”

“The garden can wait-” Jon started.

“No, it cannot,” Nathan ducked inside for a moment, returning with a few tarnished gardening tools.

Cocoa had begun to calm down thanks to Tim’s petting and was now melting into Martin like melting chocolate. He struggled to keep a grip on her.

“The Corruption is the fear of infestation,” Nathan spoke as he worked, cleaning up half eaten tomatoes and pulling weeds, “Bugs, rot, disease, and toxic relations- how did that damn thing get past the fence?!”

Nathan spent a moment seething over ‘useless repellents’ and ‘flimsy wires’ before he continued, “The Buried is claustrophobia, the fear of being suffocated and of debt, The Dark speaks for itself . . .”

It was then that Gunner returned, holding a polaroid camera, “Found it! How many times has she broken in here, again?”

“Exactly twenty,” Nathan scowled.

“The big two-oh! I think this calls for a celebration!” Gunner chirped in spite of Nathan’s offended squawk.

Gunner began to herd everyone together for a photo, “Get in here, Nathan~!”

Nathan seemed perfectly content to stay hunkered down next to his plants.

At the center of the group stood Martin, Cocoa draped over his arms, with Tim and Sasha flanking his sides and Jon hovering awkwardly at the edge.

“Suit yourself,” Gunner held up the camera, “Say ‘Carrot!’”

After taking a few photos, Gunner set the camera to the side while Nathan refused to turn towards him.

“The next entity,” They seethed, “Is The Desolation, the destruction of what is loved and cherished. The fear of fire and pain and loss.”

“She’s a rabbit, Jon.”

Nathan yanked up another weed, seething, “Rabbits are servants of The Desolation. They overpopulate and destroy all that is good in the world until all that is left is rabbits.”

“That would be Extinction, wouldn’t it?”

Cocoa was currently trying to maneuver herself onto Martin’s shoulder, head tilted upwards and sniffing. After a moment, she started bumping her head into Martin’s. She didn’t seem like some fear-harvesting monster to him.

Jon gripped his arms, “You mentioned earlier how spiders were inherently evil? Is there . . .”

“Yes, yes,” Nathan muttered distractedly, “The Web, the fear of spiders and of losing control- these were going to be the last tomatoes of the season! Gluttonous wrench.”

Tim gasped, “Excuse you, she is a lady!”

“Actually, she’s a rabbit,” Sasha pointed out.

A sudden pain made Martin yelp- Cocoa was currently attempting to eat his hair, “Guys-! Help!”

“You see?!” Nathan waved a finger at the scene, “The only thing rabbits do is create pain and destruction! You trust a rabbit and it will betray you!”

“Okay, hang on-” Gunner took hold of the rabbit and was gently tugging her away from Martin’s hair.

“Ow, ow-”

There was a click and Tim’s grinning face emerged from behind the polaroid camera, “That one’s a keeper.”

Sasha poked him, “Hang on, take another one for me.”

“Ask and you shall receive!”

Martin felt heat rise to his cheeks as the rabbit refused to let go-

“This is our best chance home,” Jon said softly, with a mix of bewilderment and frustration.

A ripple of relief passed through Martin as the rabbit finally released his hair.

Gunner chuckled, “She likes pushing boundaries.”

“Y-Yeah, clearly!” Martin rubbed his irritated scalp.

“Next is the Vast, the fear of heights, wide open spaces, and your own insignificance in the massive universe,” Nathan continued as if nothing happened, though Martin noticed the lighter tone and the grin on his face, “Not to be confused with the Lonely, the fear of- well, being alone. The Vast tends to cover most of the sky and wind while the Lonely manifests as fog.”

“It’s like supernatural depression,” Gunner added, carrying Cocoa under his arm.

Jon blinked, “How can depression possibly be supernatural? Psychologists have been studying it for years, they would have noticed . . . anomalies.”

Gunner rolled his eyes, “Plenty of people have noticed the supernatural. Thing is, most people either ignore it, rationalize it, or try to forget it. Or do what the police do and shove it to the side to rot. Not to mention, not all victims of supernatural encounters live to tell the tale. Some get forgotten entirely.”

“. . . Forgotten?”

“The Stranger,” Nathan said softly, pausing in their gardening, “Is the fear of losing your identity, of people forgetting you. Of forgetting yourself, and of things that look human despite something dangerously wrong about them that you just can’t place.”

Gunner nodded somberly, “The fear of clowns.”

“Clowns,” Jon repeated, incredulous, “There’s a fear god for clowns.”

“Spiders get one, why not clowns?” Tim said, though his usual humor fell flat in his voice.

Nathan looked down at their plants, “If people are afraid of something, there is an entity that will feed on that fear. One of the ‘newer’ entities is The Extinction, the fear of the end of the world and of humanity destroying itself. Of whatever comes after us.”

“That’s weird number fifteen,” Gunner crossed his arms, “It’s debatable whether it’s independent from other entities or just a convenient intersection of multiple. We’re pretty sure it exists, but that's also debatable.”

Sasha nodded along, scribbling more notes into her notepad.

“The oldest fear is probably The End, the fear of death and impermanence,” Nathan stood, stretching and satisfied with their work in the garden, “It’s also the least active. People feed it simply by existing.”

Gunner lifted Cocoa out in front of him, “Alright, I’m gonna take the lady out by the pond. Honestly, I think she just likes you.”

“She likes my produce,” Nathan sniffed.

Sasha was scanning over her notes, counting under her breath, when she frowned, “There’s one more.”

“Ah, yes- The Eye,” Nathan fidgeted in place, “That’s scopophobia, the fear of being seen and of people Knowing your deepest secrets. Of someone witnessing your pain and doing nothing about it, for you are not important enough for the Watcher to act.”

“Geez, that sounds kind of petty,” Tim snarked, “‘I’m gonna stare at you and make you uncomfortable but not actually do anything’, what is that, the god of stalkers?”

“. . . Uh, y-yes?”

Sasha snorted, “That’s the incel of the fear gods I bet.”

“I dunno, I think celebrities and rich people would be pretty afraid of blackmail, or being insignificant or something,” Martin added.

Tim laughed, “Bureaucrats beware, the Eye knows you’re cheating on your wife!”

Jon paled for a moment, “Y-you said . . . Being watched?”

“Among other things, yes,” Nathan sighed, “Once you get back, The Eye is going to be your most pressing concern.”

Jon sucked in a breath, “There’s a monster. In the Institute.”

“What?” Martin blinked, trying to trace how Jon came to that conclusion.

“When I read those statements into that blasted tape recorder,” Jon explained, giving Nathan a hard look, “It . . . felt like I was being watched. I was being watched.”

Nathan nodded slowly, “There is a monster in the Institute, but that’s not what you feel with the statements. When you read them, The Eye itself is watching.”

“What the hell,” Tim turned towards Jon, concerned, “You’ve had a fear god hanging over you and you didn’t say anything?”

“I-I didn’t . . . I thought . . .” Jon took an unsteady step back.

Gunner, who had been hanging around the edge of the fence and about to leave, shot Nathan a look. Nathan pinched the bridge of their nose, “Yes, look- The best thing to do at this point is to quit the institute if you’re still capable. The Magnus Institute serves as a Temple to The Eye, and by taking statements of fear and trauma you are feeding it.”

Sasha frowned, “You said there was a monster in the Institute?

“That would be Elias,” Gunner grunted.

Martin sucked in a breath and Nathan continued, “It really shouldn’t be that surprising. He was always a scumbag, and who else to run a temple of The Eye than an avatar of The Eye?”

“But . . . Elias?” Jon blinked rapidly, almost as if this would go away if he kept blinking.

“Technically speaking, Elias Bouchard is long dead,” Nathan closed their eyes, “The man you’ve known is really Jonah Magnus, the founder of the Magnus Institute. He’s stayed alive through stealing the bodies of the people promoted to be the Head of the Institute."

“That explains the dress code,” Tim mumbled, rubbing his chin.

Jon was shaking, “This- This is crazy! You really expect us to believe this conspiracy theory?”

“You already believe it,” Nathan pushed, “You Know it’s true.”

It was . . . A lot, Martin had to admit. This was feeling more and more like a drug-induced journey into Wonderland and it was getting harder to fit the pieces together. Still, his mind managed to latch onto something, “You . . . You’re spooky, right? You work with the- The Eye as well, don’t you?”

Nathan nodded, face grim, “Becoming the Archivist means becoming a servant of The Eye. And . . . the rest of you are connected to it as well, albeit not as strongly. It may not be too late for you, but there are certain supernatural bindings holding the Institute together. You will be physically incapable of quitting, and the only ways to escape will be to either gouge your eyes out . . . or kill the Archivist."

For a moment, nobody could say anything to that. What could you say to that? Martin really wanted to go back to daydreaming about domestic cottage life right about now.

“Well,” Gunner spoke up, giving Nathan one last unreadable look, “That’s probably enough for now. I’ll go drop Cocoa off, you guys go inside and get a tea break. Remember- tip of the iceberg. Take five, but if you want to survive more than a year or two after getting back, there’s a lot more shit to trudge through. Be back soon!”

Chapter Text

Tasseography was the use of tea leaves to predict the future. Jon wondered- if he looked into those leaves would he see his future from this point in time, or a future that currently rested in the past?

Jon didn’t want any tea, and said as much. Nathan had set a cup in front of him anyways, giving Jon a smile and a nod as if it were some courtesy. There the cup sat, lukewarm and untouched.

It was insulting. Did they think he was stupid? They declared their intent to kill him not moments before, and then pushed a cup of unidentified liquid towards him and expected him to drink it.

“It’s not poison,” Nathan said with nonchalant ease, “That would ruin the tea.”

Didn’t they say that they were associated with a god of knowing secrets? That would imply some measure of telepathy, wouldn’t it?

“Did you just read my mind?” Jon accused.

Nathan took a sip of their own tea, “I don’t need to. In case you’ve forgotten, I’m you.”

. . . Well, if they were still sticking to the time travel story, then it would make sense that they wouldn’t attempt to kill him, as that would cause a paradox, thus removing themself from existence. Of course, Jon was still not sold on that theory. It was likely just a ruse to manipulate them into completing whatever plot they had in store. Besides, Jon wasn’t in the habit of making wayward assumptions.

“Actually, you’ve already made several inaccurate assumptions,” Nathan supplied.

“You are reading my mind!” Jon snapped, “Get out of my head!”

How could he possibly safeguard his thoughts? That thing could jump into his mind whenever the hell it felt like it and any plans Jon had made would be revealed in an instant. He couldn’t hide and he couldn’t trick it.

“Stop thinking so loud, then,” They snapped back.

Thoughts had volume? Maybe if he tried screaming in his thoughts, that would serve as a deterrent?

Nathan rubbed a hand down their face, “Please don’t. I can’t really turn it off and I don’t want a headache right now. Now, are you going to join the rest of us in the living room or are you going to sit in here and sulk?”

Admittedly, it did seem childish to put distance between him and his double. Without being present, he would have no idea what sort of lies they were telling his assistants, or if they were in danger. No, it was better to keep an eye on them.

Though, perhaps being alone with them would be a good opportunity for information. Jon didn’t trust a word they said, but all of the best lies were threaded with truths. The feeling of being watched while reading statements . . . Jon knew that was true. The feeling of hundreds of eyes pressing on his back, watching as words dripped from his mouth- it was too visceral.

Jon gathered his resolve and asked, “What exactly did I assume wrong?”

“Outside of the poisoned tea?” Nathan pondered dryly, “You assume that I actually care enough about my own existence to want to preserve it, and you assume that time travel follows the rules of logic your mind tries to impose on it.”

That was . . . not the answer Jon was expecting.

“What do you mean it doesn’t follow logic? Ev-”

“Before you say ‘everything follows logic’, I would like to remind you that your current line of work involves reading ghost stories about everything from man eating books to bodysnatchers and being watched by an unseen entity while you do so. Logic and spooky don’t mix,” Nathan took another sip of their tea.

And that was true, wasn’t it? He was face to face with a thing that wore his identity and having a cup of tea. Still, paradoxes were rather simple- if x leads to y, then you can’t have y without x.

“To be frank, it would be best to avoid thinking too hard about it,” Nathan continued, “The hallways you passed through were part of The Spiral. You know, the fear of lies, of the world around you not making sense. Sound familiar? I wouldn’t be surprised if it left a mark. Just try not to feed Helen, she’s like a goose. She’ll keep coming back and poking you until you feed her some more.”

Jon blinked, “Wh- who’s Helen?”

“The doors you went through? That was her. I’m surprised she didn’t introduce herself.”

He didn’t like how cyclical this conversation was starting to feel, “Why would a bunch of doors be called ‘Helen’? Or have a gender, for that matter.”

“Well, technically she doesn’t, but she still uses pronouns,” Nathan hummed a little, “She can manifest as a person, too. Used to be human. I wouldn’t think about it much, she’s probably already hanging out nearby to feed off of your paranoia and trust issues.”

“Already- wait, what?” Jon’s head was starting to spin as questions kept stacking up. How could a human become a hallway monster? What did they mean by ‘left a mark’? None of this explained why paradoxes wouldn’t apply and- she was feeding off of him?!

Jon swallowed hard and tried to focus on a single question to ask, “If she’s how we got here, is she going to be our way back? If she’s nearby, why not just leave now?”

Nathan looked him up and down with a furrowed brow and stressed, “Stop thinking about it. Seriously, Helen works by her own rules and they change constantly. You aren’t supposed to get it. The entities exist outside of time and space, so it’s honestly not that hard for them to interfere with the flow of time. Hell, even the Web can do it, but I doubt you want to deal with them,” They blinked, “Um, you should probably take deeper breaths.”

Was Jon hyperventilating? That didn’t matter, he wasn’t about to listen to Nathan.

They sighed, gritting their teeth, “Look, if Helen wants to help us, she’ll help. If not, then we have options. There’s a lot more you need to know about before going back, but we have time. Relax. Go spend time with the others. No use frying your brain before you go back.”

Jon let himself be herded back into the living room. The lukewarm cup of tea sat undisturbed.

Nathan supposed that perhaps it was a bad thing that he was able to think of himself as ‘Nathan’ so quickly. Ever since waking up from his coma, he felt a sort of disconnect with his own name. He didn’t want to change it, but it just felt . . . Slippery. Like it didn’t matter what his name was, it only mattered that he was the Archivist.

It wasn’t the best frame of mind to have, especially in the days following his coma. They worked out of it, eventually- the new fluid quality to their identity wasn’t bad, it simply was. It took time to see it as just another part of themself, equally if not more important than their title. Still, stepping into a new name like one would a new pair of jeans was too reminiscent of the Stranger for them to be completely at ease.

Perhaps that was how that particular mark manifested, then. It was infuriating that he couldn’t simply Know or See some of his own marks.

Looking at their past self, however, the marks of the Spiral and Web were clear. They saw the silvery cobwebs stuck on his hand every time he reached for a pack of cigarettes that weren’t there, the curling fractal patterns threading his thoughts and sending them spiraling at every chance.

Nathan wondered how he himself would look to another Beholder, what with his sloppy mess of marks, traced and retraced by countless encounters. It took a long time and a couple favors to mask the more monstrous parts of his appearance, but he knew marks were something that could shine through even a Stranger’s mask.

Should he explain marks now? As the assistants quietly engaged in a tea break- nobody had been particularly keen on sustaining a joking attitude after the previous conversation- and his past self was still brooding and spiralling, he sorted through the notes he had been taking to see if he had missed anything.

He was hoping to have covered rituals and avatars earlier, but considering that they got all the way to Elias being a monster and them being trapped at the institute, he supposed that was a fair trade for progress. Digesting it in pieces was healthier anyways- being told about apocalyptic fear gods and psychotic bodysnatcher bosses wasn’t your typical Monday morning smalltalk, and they hadn’t even discussed the events to happen yet. No, this would take time to process.

Sasha was talking things surprisingly well, all things considered. She still had no idea of her fate, but she was always one to appreciate categories and was mentally scrolling through a catalogue of artifacts she had dealt with, sorting them into entities. She always felt safe as long as she could See and Know something.

Tim was burning, ever so quietly. He was closer to avenging his brother than he had been in all of his years in research, and he was itching to finally make that last jump to solve it. He was tired of waiting for information on the circus to fall in his lap, but wasn’t quite at the breaking point. He would just have to hole out a little longer.

Martin’s thoughts were quiet, almost as if they were shying away from Nathan. Eye above, he hadn’t even been trapped by Prentiss yet, had he? His biggest concern was being discovered for lying, followed by vague concerns about his mother and his situation. This was a Martin that hadn’t yet seen the worst of Jon, hadn’t outsmarted Elias as his co-workers were dying around him. A Martin that had never been lost in the lonely.

Funnily enough, none of the assistants had even considered killing the Archivist to even an option. They were mostly worried about whether they could find a way to escape without having to blind themselves- though, Tim briefly considered if a simple laser pointer would do the trick with minimum pain. None of them were too eager to quit just yet.

They were all so heartbreakingly innocent, so happy and ignorant of the horrors festering just beneath their feet. It was almost enough to make Nathan feel guilty for telling them of the future. Almost.

He was doing his best to distance himself from Jon, who was currently in the corner and eying the books in a way that said he wanted to read them but was too stubborn to do so.

It was driving Nathan a little insane, to be honest. They weren’t an avatar of the slaughter, but they found themselves able to sympathize with Melanie a little more. The droning buzz of distant screams coming from his own bloody past self's head was certainly making it much harder to care if they ‘accidentally’ dropped a knife right into his shoulder.

Not that they were actually going to do it, they had plenty of self control. Still, they could dream.

The screams weren’t even that accurate. It was like listening to one of Georgie’s hammy audio clips on loop. It took all of their effort to suppress a twitch every time the loop replayed.

Could they compel him into shutting up? Was that a thing compulsions could do? They couldn’t do any intricate mind control, that was the Web’s job, but they recalled simple commands being able to work just fine . . .

“I’m back,” Gunner called from the doorway, “Jo- uh, Nathan? Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Nathan took a moment to blink before rising and, with a small nod to the assistants, left to join his boyfriend.

Gunner smiled, “Cocoa’s safely off of the premises.”

“She’ll be back,” Nathan huffed.

“Well,” Gunner drawled, tilting his head a little bit, “We could always adopt her. You know, keep your enemies close and all that.”

“And let that vermin into our house? Absolutely not. We’ve been over this.”

Gunner gave an exaggerated pout, “But she’s all alone out there! Please?”

“No. Not until you can give me a better reason,” Nathan answered as he had the last several times this topic came up, “But I assume this isn’t about the bunny, is it?”

Gunner’s face softened, “. . . How are you . . . holding up?”

“Fine,” Nathan shrugged.

“Jon.”

“Really, it’s fine!” Nathan reassured him, “Time travel still isn’t as bizarre as a clown apocalypse.”

“Still . . . I know it’s uncomfortable seeing your past self. Believe me, I’m feeling it too,” Gunner reaches out to hold his hand.

Nathan took it, soaking in the warmth of his touch, “It’s . . . It’s okay. Honest, you’d think I would have cried seeing Sasha and Tim, right? I don’t think I really have it in me anymore.”

“Yeah . . . Even after you said they were real, I didn’t feel a thing. I was worried the Lonely had come back.”

“Martin,” Nathan murmured, reaching up to cup his cheek and pull their foreheads together, “I won’t let it get you, alright? I won’t let anything get you.”

Martin hummed, “I know, I know . . . How about you, then? Get any time to talk to your double?”

“Ugh, I wish I hadn’t. How did you know?”

“Only past you would abandon a perfectly good cuppa like that,” he gestured to the solitary cup of tea left on the table.

Nathan chuckled, “He thinks it’s all poison, which, honestly I feel a little offended. I’m no Martin Blackwood, but I’d like to think my tea making skills have improved over the years.”

Martin gave him a little shove, “Oh, hush! You at least told him we don’t want to kill him, right?”

“I told him we weren’t going to kill him,” Nathan nodded, hoping he didn’t catch the word change.

“'Going to'?” Martin’s eyes narrowed. Damn it, “Jon.”

“ . . . I mean,” Nathan grasped at words, but none came to his assistance, “We aren’t?”

“And you don’t want to kill him either, right?”

Cornered. Internally, Nathan sweared, “Well- you know I’m a bad liar-“

“Jon!”

“I’m not going to kill him,” Nathan huffed, “That’s the important part,”

Martin sighed, “You can’t just- Jon, wanting to kill yourself is bad.”

“You’re making it sound like I’m suicidal! I’m not, I just want to kill . . . my past self,” Nathan amended.

“Jon.”

“Which, to be clear, I have no intention of doing-“

“Jon.”

“This is entirely homicidal, thank you-“

“Jon, please,” Martin said in such a soft tone that Jon’s mouth snapped shut, “Please, I’m glad that you aren’t actually going to act on this, but it’s not healthy. At all.”

Jon deflated, “I- I mean, wouldn’t you? Just- just look at him! A high and mighty prick, pushing everyone around, not caring who he hurts-“ He bit off the snarl rising in the back of his throat.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Martin held his arms, holding him steady. It was hard not to collapse into his stable embrace, “And you want to know why? Because that Jon is still you, and even if he needs to re-learn a little compassion, he still deserves to live because he’s a good person beneath all of those thorns.”

Did he, though? Jon spent ages agonizing over how he treated his assistants, his only friends. What he could have done differently if he had been less stupid, less self-centered. Who would have lived if he died. Martin knew this, of course. Martin saw what he really meant when Jon started stuttering out more apologies than a spilled cup of tea deserved.

Jon looked away from him, “It’s not like it would be unwarranted if he got a little hurt.”

“Don’t say that. You never, never deserved to get hurt. Not once. Nobody has the right to hurt you, not even yourself.”

Despite serving an eldritch god of watching, Jon had never felt quite as seen as he did right in this moment.

. . . He really felt like his attitude towards himself was doing better lately, that his graveyard of scars were finally healing, and then suddenly he got one big ugly reminder of the worst parts of himself shoved in his face. It almost wasn’t fair.

“That Jon is just as worthy of love and compassion as you are,” Martin smiled and gave him a quick peck on the cheek, “He just needs a couple reality checks is all. Get a couple anchors to ground him.”

“ . . . Okay,” Jon muttered weakly, their cheek buzzing from the contact. They didn’t think they could forgive their past self, and the ache of loathing they felt seeing their own unscarred face wasn’t going away anytime soon.

But . . . They could at least try.

“Okay?” Martin gave him a little nudge.

Jon nodded, “I’ll try.”

Of course, it might be fun to irritate his past self a bit. He really was too wound up back then.

“That’s all I can ask for,” Martin kissed his forehead, “Now, this calls for some heavy-duty stuff. I think we still have that fancy loose leaf ginseng hanging around?”

“Yes, please,” they smiled, “With a little honey?”

“Of course.”

The two of them fell into a comfortable silence in the kitchen, Martin preparing the tea and Jon tucking his head into his arms on the counter.

Hm. They had something on the schedule today, didn’t they? “Hey, you have a meeting with Mrs. Morison around lunchtime, don’t you?”

“Oh, yeah,” Martin swirled the tea leaves around, “I can cancel-“

“No, I mean- I’d like to come with?”

Martin blinked, “Really? Why? You said it wouldn’t be hard for me to handle.”

“I know, but-“ Jon sighed, “I don’t have the energy to regurgitate my trauma to them- I mean, look at them, they’re just . . .” Jon struggled to find the word, so he simply gave Martin a glance.

“Untouched by the atrocities of the world?”

Jon shuddered, “ . . . Yeah. That. I don’t think I could stand another session of being grilled just to watch them get upset.”

“Like explaining a slaughterhouse to a lamb,” Martin agreed, “I mean, I’d love to have you with me, but you realize this also means leaving them alone in the house, right?”

“It’ll be fine. What’s the worst that could happen?”

Martin’s face dropped, “If you wanted to convince me, that’s the worst way to do it.”

“Joking!” Jon laughed, “I mean, all of the dangerous stuff is already under the toughest bindings we got, and try as they might, those won’t break on accident. The only thing I’m worried about is the attic, and a padlock should work just fine.”

“. . . Alright,” Martin conceded, “But you better not jinx it. I’ll pull out what we need in a few minutes, you enjoy your tea.”

Jon let the steam coming from the tea soften their face, their lips drifting into a smile. They truly were lucky to have Martin Blackwood as a boyfriend.

“What do you mean you can’t take us with?”

Martin flinched at Jon’s tone, the man attempting- and failing- to level Gunner with a glare.

“We hadn’t planned on Tim and Sasha wanting to come along, but at least they won’t be recognized in town. We can’t walk around with our clones, can we?” Gunner explained.

Apparently, Gunner was supposed to be meeting with one of the townsfolk and Nathan was going to join him, leaving the rest of them alone in the house for the afternoon. At the mention of the meeting regarding something supernatural, Tim and Sasha jumped at the chance to go, synchronized in their attempts at persuasion and coercing the doubles to letting them come. Martin too would have liked to go and see something supernatural in person, but . . . Well. Here they were.

Martin glanced between the two of them, biting back his anxiety, “I mean, it’s a little unfair-“

“I see your point,” Jon interrupted suddenly, “Apologies for arguing. Anything we need to know before you leave? . . . Food for lunch, things to avoid?”

Nathan smiled, “There’s fixings for sandwiches in the refrigerator. You can read some of the books we have available, there are knitting supplies and origami paper lying around if you find yourself bored. I would appreciate it if you left the garden alone, though other than that it’s just the attic, but that’s locked.”

“Right,” Jon returned the smile tightly, “Thank you.”

Gunner raised an eyebrow at Nathan, who waved him off, “We’ll be back before dinner, make yourselves at home!”

The two left to join Sasha and Tim outside, not locking the door behind them.

“Okay then,” Martin said lamely, trying to fill the silence of the room, “I still feel a little upset that Tim and Sasha just left like that, I mean did they really have to go on the fun trip with the-“

“Listen to me very carefully, Martin,” Jon cut him off, pinching the bridge of his nose, “Right now, we have a big opportunity and I’m not sure if we’ll get it again.”

Martin blinked, unsure where this was going, “Al-right. Opportunity to . . . What?”

Jon opened his mouth just as the door squeaked open again.

Nathan popped his head in, grinning, “Sorry! Forgot my walking stick.”

They meandered through the house, ducking into a side room.

“Opportunity to-“ Martin tried again, but was promptly shushed by a frantic Jon.

“Found it!”

Jon froze as Nathan made his way back out, carrying something that was decidedly not a walking stick- it was more of a pole, perfectly cylindrical and at least as tall as Nathan himself was. Jon squinted at him as he took his time getting back out the door.

“You two have fun!” They called, beaming one last smile before they left.

Martin opened his mouth to speak again, but Jon held up a hand and slowly brought it to his lips. Alright, then.

For a few horrible moments, they simply stood like that, Jon stiff as a board and occasionally twitching as he eyed the door like it just killed his cat or something. Martin stood still too, even if he wasn’t sure why.

Slowly, Jon seemed to settle, “I think they’re far enough away now.”

“Okay, are you going to explain what that was about, or-“

“The opportunity,” Jon grit, “Is that this may be one of the few times that our doubles aren’t in the house.”

“. . . Okay?”

Jon groaned, “Christ, Martin- we need to find out as much as we can before they come back.”

Martin frowned, “What, like snooping? That’s kind of rude, Jon.”

“They said to make ourselves at home,” Jon huffed, “Well I, for one, would feel much more at home knowing where that other monster is. Nathan implied earlier there was one nearby that might be our ticket to the past- if we can find it, we can secure ourselves a way home when Tim and Sasha come back.”

“Oh, okay. Why were you all weird when Nathan came in?” Martin asked.

Jon cringed, “They can read minds. Hopefully, intense concentration on unpleasant noises like screams was enough to ward them off.”

God, why did he fall for such an idiot? Why was it so endearing to hear him admit that his only solution to telepathy was internal screaming?

. . . You know what? This might as well be happening. Martin nodded slowly, “Okay. Monster hunt. Where do we start?”

“Uh,” Jon spun around, taking in the cluttered space around the two of them, “. . . The attic?”

Chapter Text

Nathan was still rubbing their temple several minutes into the walk.

“You okay?” Sasha asked. Maybe they could go back for an ibuprofen or something.

Nathan sighed, “Just fine. Nothing to worry about, the headache should fade in another few minutes yet.”

Sasha hummed a little, though this didn’t ease her concerns. Every now and then, something Nathan did or said would sound slightly . . . off. Not in the spooky way, though. Sometimes he just had this shadowed grin on his face, like he was laughing at an inside joke that wasn’t particularly funny. And then Gunner, who knew what the joke was, would shoot him a look that said ‘this isn’t funny’ and the smile would shrink.

It was pretty obvious there were some red flags going on for Nathan's state of mind, but the problem was that she didn’t really know Nathan. Hell, she was still working on getting to know Jon without all of the spooky. Despite her limited interactions with him, it was clear that whatever lies in their future would hurt him bad.

She doubted she’d get the chance to approach them about it. As much as she wanted to help, this sort of thing wasn’t the sort of thing strangers- or even acquaintances- talked about. Hopefully, they still at least thought of her as an old friend.

“So, what’s this whole spooky meeting about, then?” Tim chirped, “Sinister happenings in a sleepy town?”

Gunner snorted, “Small, rural towns are massive hotspots for the supernatural. We figured, still need money for food and bills and stuff, so why not do a little supernatural pest control while we’re here?”

“We’re private investigators,” Nathan clarified, “Most townsfolk visit our cabin to request various kinds of investigative work, mostly seeing whether their spouse is cheating or something trivial, though for the supernatural cases we usually waive the fee if they offer a statement.”

“Hang on- you’re private Eyes?” Tim smirked.

“Ugh, no- not you too-” Gunner groaned.

Nathan quirked an eyebrow, “Look, he has a point. With the work we see to, Eye don’t Know a better title.”

“No, I am not going to listen to this.”

Sasha tuned out of the conversation, instead taking in the quaint little trail around them. The path was paved, but it clearly hadn’t been maintained for some years. Didn’t Nathan mention earlier that he and Gunner came here when they were on the run? If so, this would be a great place to hide out.

Time to add ‘Scotland’ to the list of places to go if she was ever chased by the law. Not that she would be, but . . . Well, supernatural investigation had a tendency to be a little less than legal and it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Still, it was a lovely place. There was so much green everywhere that it was hard to take in all at once. Fences lined the road, defining pasture from open land from forest, and in the distance she could spot a few shaggy cows.

What season was it? From her comprehensive knowledge of sci-fi movies, time travel had a tendency to mess with that sort of thing. She would have checked a computer for the date and whatever future information she could find, but there were none in the cottage.

“Hey,” Sasha interrupted wherever bickering they were having, “Is there a place we can stop that has a computer? I’d like to do a little research while I’m here.”

First priority- record and memorize lotto numbers. There was no certainty that anything from the future would survive the trip back, but Sasha had a good enough memory anyways. Next- research future events. She was sure there was a market out there for betting on celebrity deaths. Third- finding out when Hozier’s next album drops. She recently got into his music, so sue her if she takes advantage of time travel to hear more of it.

“Hm. I dunno if we can stop without being late, but we can hit the library on the way back, they have computers,” Gunner mused.

Nathan huffed, putting more pressure on their absurdly tall walking stick, “Only if the other two don’t break anything first. If they uproot my garden, there will be no computer breaks and there will be casualties.”

Sasha deflated. She loved Jon and Martin, but she did not want to stake her chance to web surf the future on them behaving.

“I mean, it’s not like you would even know before we got back,” Tim commented.

“Oh, I forgot to mention,” Sasha answered, “Nathan’s a psychic baby monitor. He just Knows what people are doing.”

Immediately, Nathan sputtered and leaned on his walking stick, “Baby monitor?!”

“Yeah, it’s one of their spooky things,” Gunner grinned, “That’s honestly a pretty accurate way to describe it.”

“No, it’s not!” If Sasha hadn’t known better, she would have said Nathan puffed up like a cat.

Now that she got over most of the obvious differences, it was easier to spot the similarities between Nathan and Jon. They both were impossibly fussy when they wanted to be.

Tim nodded along, “I mean, is it just you knowing where we are, what we do, that kinda thing?”

“Well, technically Knowing things is just- that,” Nathan scratched the back of his head idly, “Knowing. The Eye beams information into my head twenty-four-seven. If I’m thinking or talking about something, I get all of the information on whatever it is, regardless of if I want it,” they frowned, “But I miss some things. Like how apparently you came to the conclusion that it was a psychic baby monitor.”

“You’re omniscient? That’s amazing!” Sasha had always thought that was one of the cooler superpowers.

Tim whistled, “Guess that makes your job a walk in the park. Just hand out the gossip, no investigation needed. What other spooky powers you got?”

Nathan stuttered out incoherent sounds that might have been words before taking a breath and looking at Gunner, who seemingly had no intent on answering the question.

“I, ah,” they tried again, “A- a lot? The Eye . . . Likes me, I guess. Powers usually manifest from your own intent. At the institute I wanted to Know what was going on and have people answer my questions honestly, so . . . That’s those two.”

“Like a truth detector? That’s kind of a lame power if you ask me,” Tim teased.

Gunner glanced over, “You don’t want to be on the other side of it.”

“I think it can be useful, especially with investigation,” Sasha added, “Anything else?”

Nathan frowned, “I don’t get why you think this is something ‘fun’ or ‘good’. These powers come from eldritch fear gods and are designed to be evil tools for harvesting fear.”

“I mean, the first time I noticed you Know something, it was to find out when everyone would wake up,” Sasha smiled, “If that’s the epitome of evil, then I think we’ll be fine,”

Gunner laughed, but Nathan’s grimace just got deeper.

Tim looked between the two, “Hey, what are our Jon and Martin up to, anyways? You can Know that, right?”

“Hm? Oh,” Nathan blinked, eyes defocusing for a moment, “Right now, they’re trying to break into the attic.”

“I thought you said a padlock would keep them out?” Gunner crossed his arms.

“It should,” Nathan supplied, “But they needed something to occupy themselves. Enrichment. Worst that can happen is they break in, but there’s nothing they can hurt themselves with in there.”

Gunner’s expression shifted into something alarmed and a little guilty.

Nathan froze in response, “Oh. That’s where you moved all of them. Did- do you think we should go back?”

“No, we’re already too close to town. Besides, those two aren’t in yet and I don’t think they’re stupid enough to actually hurt themselves.”

Tim started, “Hang on, go back- did we miss something? What’s in the attic?”

“Well,” Gunner smiled sheepishly, “Where do you think I keep the guns?”

“What do you mean you don’t know how to pick a lock?” Jon hissed as the two of them leaned over the padlock to the attic.

Martin frowned, “Why would I know how to pick locks?”

“Sasha knows how to pick locks.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not Sasha,” Martin straightened his back a little. If his future self could talk back to Jon, so could he, “Be- besides, why don’t you know how to pick locks? You’re the leader here.”

Martin immediately regretted this, as Jon actually flinched and shied away.

“S-Sorry!” Martin rushed to amend that, “I just meant-“

“Just shut up, Martin,” Jon grit out, glaring at the lock as if staring at it could create lasers to obliterate the offensive chunk of metal.

They sat like that for a moment, neither quite sure what to do here. It was even more awkward as Martin’s heart did a little flutter every time Jon’s nose scrunched up in concentration. He absolutely looked like a little bunny and it was not helping.

Eventually, Martin drawled, “So . . . How do we know this is where the monster’s hiding?”

“They told us not to look in the attic,” Jon said confidently.

“Okay, yeah,” Martin wasn’t really comfortable with this whole ‘trust no one’ attitude Jon picked up, but he couldn’t manage to think of a way to tell him to knock it off, “But why would they be hiding the monster? Wouldn’t it make more sense for it to be hiding itself?”

Jon frowned, “Fine. Let’s say the monster is hiding itself. The Attic is still the most likely place given its security and privacy.”

That . . . didn’t sound very convincing, but Martin wasn’t about to argue.

“A-Alright, but isn’t there a better way in than picking the locks? Do they have a key somewhere?”

Nathan grimaced, “Maybe I should have thought to hide fake keys around.”

Knowing themself, even a single key would certainly take all of their attention for a solid few hours. Unfortunately, they had neither the time nor the resources to get any fake keys. The only keys they even owned were always on their person, just in case.

“What?” Sasha probed, “Why?”

“I hoped it would keep them satisfied enough that they won’t go poking around the jars.”

Gunner groaned, “Is that what they’re doing? Please tell me it’s at least the Prentiss jar they’re messing with and not the other one.”

“They haven’t yet,” Nathan muttered. Would it be unrealistic to hope their past self would leave well enough alone?

“Is that, like, your morbid remains shelf or whatever?” Tim raised an eyebrow, “Trophies of monster hunts?”

“We don’t hunt monsters, we’re contracted to get rid of them,” Gunner corrected.

“. . . That’s the same thing?”

Nathan shook their head, “Not quite. One you do for yourself, the other you do for someone else.”

Sash’s head snapped up in realization, “It goes back to intent, then . . . Hm. I wouldn’t mind hearing the stories for some of those knick-knacks. How’d you get the bone?”

“Ah, that’s actually a rather short story, but . . . It's part of a larger story, and I’d rather wait so that I can tell everyone,” Nathan looked away, aware that they were just about to cross into town.

They had hoped to avoid questions entirely on the trip- after all, the whole point was to get away from all of that for an afternoon. Though, at least they could avoid looking themself in the face while doing it. Small mercies.

While Martin was busy fawning over the . . . admittedly impressive tea collection in the cabinet, Jon was getting actual work done.

The doormats and potted plants were all barren of any keys, as was the top of the door frame. Jon wasn’t suicidal enough to explore the garden for possible hiding spots, and it would be impractical to keep an attic key outside anyways.

Jon cursed Tim and Sasha for leaving the house- more eyes meant they would have found the key by now. Or Sasha would have picked the lock. Or Tim would have busted in there. Instead, he was stuck with Martin.

He had nothing against the man, honestly. Martin was simply . . . average. Mediocre work with a placid attitude. He was a large man for sure, but he always curled in on himself and meekly went room to room, exchanging niceties and the like. Jon always felt the heat of what must be irritation every time Martin disrupted his work for a mere cup of tea- such a small, mundane thing and yet Martin persisted in the gesture.

In fact, Jon was fairly certain drinks should not have been allowed in the Archives at all, with the possibility of accidents and such. Still, it was good for morale and everyone else in the Archives seemed to enjoy the little ritual so Jon let it slide.

Still, it baffled Jon why his double would think the possibility of him and Martin being . . . romantically involved would make their little performance more believable.

Martin was, objectively, an attractive man. However, Jon was never one to rely on such shallow perceptions to guide his relationship choices. It had taken years before he became so intimate with Georgie, and even then she considered him ‘distant’.

The way Nathan and Gunner interacted with each other . . . Incredibly unrealistic. Jon was hardly the open type- such open displays of affection were beyond him. Though, perhaps it could be argued that it was a result of Martin’s influence more than anything. While he bumbled and shrunk in on himself, he always wore his heart on his sleeve. Gunner even more so, not needing the guise of detached politeness that coworkers usually interact with.

If the way he cradled teacups was any indication, Martin was incredibly gentle. Perhaps it wasn’t too unthinkable for Jon to imagine himself being held in such a way, in hands determined not to break him.

Jon’s skin prickled at the thought, but he rubbed it away. It was far too drafty in this cabin.

Martin was all soft edges, letting himself be pushed around like dough. It was a little concerning how easily he folded to others, honestly. After first meeting him, Jon was convinced he wouldn’t last a day in the harsh field of academia. Jon did his best to help, of course, pointing out analytical flaws and citation errors in his paperwork before being sent for peer review. It would be disheartening to see Martin fired for his poor work quality, even if he wasn’t particularly suited for this job.

Gunner . . . Well, Jon wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. Coddling stray rabbits aside- Jon still had a visceral memory of the dog incident- he was nothing like Martin. He was brash and confident, and yet always seemed to keep his distance from everyone else, staying on the sidelines of conversations and only occasionally adding his two cents.

He was intimidating, to be honest, and that had nothing to do with the gun. If the only difference between the two was ‘gun’ then that would be fine. The thing was, Gunner would have readily shot any one of them and wouldn’t have cared. The image of gentle, endearing Martin becoming so callous and apathetic made something cold creep into Jon’s chest. It was as if someone had snuffed the warm little candle tucked behind Martin’s smile. The mere idea that someone would do such a thing . . .

. . . Clearly, these two doubles were horrible actors. Perhaps they were trying to reinforce their story of an unforgiving future, but if that were the case then the setting was all wrong. A sleepy little woodland cottage was hardly worthy of all the supposed horrors they spoke about.

What was their end game here? They clearly wanted the archival team to do something for them under the guise of ‘bettering the future’ but it was impossible to tell the specifics, especially since they haven’t actually requested anything yet.

The sooner Jon could predict their movements, the sooner he could counteract them-

“Uh, Jon?” Martin waved a hand in front of his face, “You’ve been staring at the wall for, like, ten minutes? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Jon bit out. He hadn’t intended to zone out, he would have to be careful about doing that around the doubles.

Martin withdrew his hand, “Well, ah, I’m gonna check the toolbox Nathan had out earlier. You have fun?”

‘Fun’. Was that what he thought this was? A cute little scavenger hunt? Fine. If he didn’t want to take this seriously, so be it.

Jon scanned the living room for potential hiding spots- boxes, discrete cupboards, hell, he even checked for fake bottoms in the drawers- and found no keys.

Finally, Jon’s eyes landed on the macabre collection on the mantle. It would be a bit unorthodox to put a key in a jar, but perhaps that was the point. The rib was certainly a suitable deterrent, no one would even think to look there.

The first jar was tarnished and filled with some sort of dust or ash, costing the transparent interior. Tilting the jar around did serve to sift the granules around, though there was no hidden key in the substance. However, it did serve to make Jon feel grimy. He would have to wash his hands in a moment.

The next jar was tinted very dark, so Jon couldn’t see the contents very well. Perhaps some fluid? It certainly held the weight of something filled with liquid. Jon unscrewed the lid and peered inside the jar. It was dark, though some light was able to shine through the clear fluid inside.

“Hey, Jon! I found a-“

Something in the jar swiveled and looked back at him. Jon let out a shriek as the jar slipped from his hands and shattered on the ground.

Staring up at him was a pair of vibrant blue eyes, their gaze equally captivating and piercing.

“What the fuck!” Martin screamed and leapt back as a single eyeball pivoted to look at him.

“T-They . . . have eyeballs. In a jar,” Jon almost wanted to laugh at how cliché it was, but he might just get sick first. He couldn’t look away from the bits of gangrene gore clinging to the back of the eyes.

Martin dropped whatever he had been carrying and jumped for a nearby blanket, tossing it over the eyes and wrapping them up.

He made a disgusted noise, “Ew, ew- jeez, I can feel them moving. I hate this-“

Jon blinked out of his daze, “Shouldn’t we put them in- in another jar? So that nothing looks out of place?”

“. . . Yeah, I just- I just want them to stop staring at me.”

Once the eyeballs were wrapped up tightly in the blanket, cleanup was a quiet affair. Mopping up the eyeball brine, sweeping glass shards, and replacing the jar was all something Jon hoped to erase from his memory along with everything else about the pickled eyeballs.

They couldn’t find an exact replica of the previous jar, but they found one close enough. Submerging the eyeballs again was . . . Unpleasant, but surprisingly uneventful.

“I- is that,” Martin muttered, his own eyes still locked on the jar, “-the monster we’re looking for?”

“No, we’re looking for the one with the yellow door. The one that brought us here.”

“Oh,” all of the energy Martin had earlier was entirely dissipated, the adrenaline from discovering the eyeballs draining from his form.

Jon cleared his throat, “You mentioned earlier that you found something in the toolbox?”

“Not a key,” Martin said faintly, “Bolt cutters. I found bolt cutters for the padlock.”

Nathan groaned, “They broke the jar. Damn it.”

“You could have said ‘don’t touch the jars’ and call it a day,” Sasha commented.

“Then they would have broken it sooner.”

Tim snorted, “What, is it like Pandora’s jar or something and the world’s doomed now?”

“Nah,” Gunner shrugged, “Just means we have to explain the eyeballs when we get back.”

“Eyeballs?”

Nathan rolled his eyes, “You were the one that called it ‘the remains shelf’. Don’t be surprised when it has- ta da! Remains!”

They fell into an odd silence. The group moved on, meandering through the quaint town streets and townhouses.

This was easily the most populated part of town- it was lucky that Mrs. Morison was so easy to locate. Some of the people looking for investigative assistance came from farms located far out into the countryside. Towns here were small and far apart, and with how Nathan’s leg was aching they weren’t up to any sort of long distance trips.

Nathan acknowledged a few passerbys and received the usual lukewarm response. He was relatively well known as the town spook, and had a rather mixed reception because of it. At least nobody was charging at his cabin with pitchforks.

It was strange how integrated they were into the town, though they rarely ever entered. That was usually what Martin did, more out of habit than anything. A remnant of when Nathan couldn’t bring themselves to go to town. Sometimes they entertained the thought that they were seen as a sort of local legend, the cottage witch you can pay with your nightmares to get rid of ghosts for you. They could live with that legacy.

Sometimes he would Look and find that there were superstitions forming around him. There was the basic ‘he cannot enter your house without an invitation’ and ‘do not look into his eyes’, which was honestly more a matter of manners than anything. Breaking and entering was rude, and he avoided eye contact to make other people more comfortable. Clearly it worked if they were spreading stories about looking away from him.

There were also more fantastical stories of him floating around. Stories that led the desperate to his door- lost children and people that couldn’t afford to see a doctor. Nobody had any misconceptions about how dangerous he was, Nathan made that very clear, but he was widely considered the greater of many evils in the world. If you couldn’t find help elsewhere, if you were desperate enough, you would always find a deal with the Storyteller.

It was oddly endearing, if dramatic. Nathan rarely ate human food anymore, so they were happy to give out their extra produce to those that needed it more. If someone was sick, it would only take a quick peak to Know what was wrong, and they had more than their fair share of experience with treating wounds.

Then, of course, there were the supernatural threats that drove people to him. Sure, he technically ran a Private Investigations firm, but Nathan couldn’t bring himself to charge anyone that gave him a statement. Their fear was payment enough.

Though, it was interesting to realize that accepting your own monstrosity was much easier when locals treated you more like some sort of otherworldly fae than an eldritch abomination.

Finally, the group reached Mrs. Morison’s townhouse. It was about time, too- Nathan was starving.

Chapter Text

Tim liked being the happy guy. The guy that lightened the tension and made people laugh. In fact, for most people that only knew Tim in passing, it was shocking to see him actually mad.

When Mrs. Morison opened the door, shallow faced and skittish, Tim was already gearing up to punch whatever ghoul she was being haunted by.

“M-Mister Sims?” She whispered. Or maybe she was simply unable to speak any louder.

Nathan nodded, giving her a reassuring smile, “Mrs. Morison, these are my assistants. And you know Mr. Blackwood, yes?”

She tried to return the smile, “Y. . . Yes . . .” Then, she blinked as if making a realization, “Oh- please, come in, sorry-“

The group was ushered into the tiny house and before long they were squished in a tiny parlor with Nathan and Mrs. Morison across from each other.

“I- I’ll be back with the tea,” she murmured, leaving the room for a moment.

It was a cute home, if a little bland. Not a single decoration on the walls or shelves. There were only enough chairs at the table for Morison and Nathan, who rested his weird walking stick against the wall nearby. The rest of them took to the tiny couch, wedged up against a window and between the sparse bookcases.

Morison returned, several cups of tea in hand.

Gunner rose, taking a few mugs off of her hands, “Here, let me help you with that.”

“T-Thank you,” She placed a cow-shaped mug in front of Nathan, “I hope you like it, I don’t- we don’t have any sugar, just honey . . . not- not my favorite.”

“It’s perfect,” Nathan gave her a smile as he took a sip, “Now, there are a few things we need to discuss-”

They started talking about contracts and payments- an excruciating Terms of Service that was probably important. Tim mostly tuned that out- he had a masters in Anthropology, not legalese. Though, from what he could tell, it was some kind of consent form for giving a statement.

Which . . . that’s important, right? Statements were reviewed by who knows how many people in research, picked apart and usually ended with the conclusion of ‘this person was probably crazy’ and ignored. Tim himself had gone through plenty of uncomfortable follow-up calls, hearing the person at the other end plead to believe him. It was a nerve wracking experience,- Tim would certainly never give his own statement. The institute had no criteria or forms to fill out, just shuffled people into a room with a pen and paper. Maybe Tim should mention consent forms to Jon. Though, Jon wouldn’t be thrilled to find that the idea came from his double.

. . . What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him.

Tim could understand being upset about a future version of yourself that apparently turned into a monster somewhere along the line. Hell, if Tim saw anyone wearing his face he’d probably try to throttle them, monster or no. The thing is, Jon kept getting worked up over all the wrong things. Instead of worrying about the countless scars littered across Nathan, or again with the fact that apparently he’s destined to become a monster, Jon was somehow convinced Nathan was plotting to manipulate and kill him.

It was always better to be cautious, but . . . Well.

Doppelgängers were probably one of Tim’s biggest fears, right next to clowns, and yet being around Nathan and Gunner was surprisingly relaxing. They were just too similar to Jon and Martin to be any sort of evil clone. There was none of that uncanny Stranger nonsense- at least, not that Tim with his single experience could tell. Nathan definitely has this otherworldly aura around him, but it wasn’t wrong, just . . . A part of him, Tim guessed.

In the off chance that Tim was completely wrong on this, it was still unlikely that Nathan was actively trying to manipulate them. He was just as oblivious as Jon and twice as awful at lying- neither of which made for a good manipulator. Maybe Gunner could pull it off, but he mostly left the talking to Nathan. Tim would eat his shoe if they weren’t being genuine about this.

They were still sketchy as hell sometimes, but Tim wasn’t about to pry. Not yet, anyways.

Gunner nudged him back to reality, “They’re gonna start with the statement soon, we should give them some privacy.”

With how Mrs. Morison was trembling, Tim already felt like he was intruding. He gave her a reassuring smile before ducking out of the house, catching a muttered ‘Statement of-‘ before the door closed behind them.

It was weird, though- Tim didn’t see a tape recorder or any other recording equipment for the statement, despite the intro. Still, that wasn’t Tim’s business.

“So, what’s the plan, Gun-man?” Tim grinned, “What kinda monster are we dealing with here?”

Gunner raised an eyebrow, “From our first meeting, we figured out that Mrs. Morison is living with a Hive, so the game plan is to get her out of here and clear out the infestation.”

“. . . Hive like . . . Bees?” Sasha blinked.

“What? No, I mean the capital ‘h’ kind of Hive,” Gunner snorted, “We’re actually dealing with wasps this time, but spooky hives can be made of all sorts of nasty things. You’ve seen at least one Prentiss related statement, right? She’s a Worm Hive. But they’re more like maggots?” He frowned and scratched his chin, “It can be hard to define eldritch stuff, since monsters are literally embodiments of fear. When people are afraid of worms, the worms change to reflect that. If someone scared of worms is worried that they eat people, then monster worms end up doing just that.”

Tim nodded along, “Absolutely disgusting. Sash, weren’t you the one that did follow up on the Hodge statement?”

“Yeah, that was a weird one,” She mused, “Hope that guy didn’t get worm STDs or something.”

“He did,” Gunner said simply.

“I repeat- absolutely disgusting.” Tim was absolutely not going to ask how Gunner ended up finding that lovely little gem out.

Sasha crossed her arms, “This is the . . . Corruption, right? Pests and all that?”

“Yup,” Gunner confirmed, “Don’t listen to Nathan, though- the Corruption is usually bugs and disease, not rabbits.”

Tim snorted at that, but Sasha frowned, “Hey, speaking of Nathan, they are a monster, right? They seem so human to me. If monsters change to reflect fear, I can’t imagine anyone being scared of Jon in a sweater.”

Gunner matched her contemplative expression, “That’s . . . kind of a tricky question? And kinda philosophical, like ‘what does it truly mean to be human?’ or something . . .” he sighed, “The way I see it, Nathan walks a thin line between being human and being a monster. Technically, they’re more monster than person, but they still haven’t . . . lost themselves, you know? It’s not a pretty situation, and it’s really something they should tell you themself.”

“What’s the whole deal with the Archivist thing, anyways?” Tim added, “Like, did he just not read the fine print that says ‘employment comes with free monster transition’ or something?”

“I doubt Elias would even bother. There’s always some kind of not-choice involved with Becoming, and it starts once you start recording statements. Especially the live ones.”

“Nathan said that, didn’t he?” Sasha’s hand twitched, as if she were looking for a pen, “Statements feed the Eye, and the Archivist is the one to do it.”

Tim didn’t like the sound of this, “We read statements, too. We’re not gonna turn into eyeball monsters as well, right?”

“Do I look like an eyeball monster to you?” Gunner retorted, “Wait, don’t answer that. No, it’s just the Archivist. Assistants are sort of . . . supplemental. Weaker ties and all that.”

Sasha hummed and the world fell into silence.

Today was all a hell of a deconstruction of Tim’s perspective of the world. His brother couldn’t have just been skinned alive by lunatic clowns, no, he was skinned alive by lunatic clowns to feed an ancient god of being afraid of clowns. His workplace couldn’t be a regular research building, no, it had to be a temple designed to collect fear for yet another eldritch god. And his boss’ humanity was on a deadline.

That last one was what worried Tim the most. He wasn’t that close with Jon, at least not yet, but the idea of his fussy, stuffy little boss getting hurt and changed like Nathan did made him ache a little. Jon didn’t deserve that kind of pain.

It was then that Nathan stepped out of the house, an arm holding Mrs. Morison steady, “She’s going to spend the night at her sister’s place, that should give us time to clear the Hive out.”

They helped usher the weak lady into her car, and as soon as she was off Tim swiveled back to the future doubles, “Okay, but you still haven’t told us the plan. How’re we gonna get rid of this thing?”

“The plan is that you and Sasha stay out here until we finish the job,” Nathan chirped.

What? Tim came here to learn how to kill monsters, not hide away from them.

Sasha seemed to feel the same way, “We want to be there to help, even if it’s from the sidelines. Besides, do you really expect us to stay put?”

Nathan’s pleasant expression faltered, “You are helping by staying here-”

“You know what?” Gunner spoke up, “Let’s split up- You take Tim, I’ll take Sasha?”

A moment passed where Nathan and Gunner communicated solely through eye contact, and Tim realized he had no way of telling if there was some literal mind reading at play here or if they just knew each other that well. Or both.

“Fine-” Nathan sighed, and that was all the confirmation Tim needed to sling his arm around Nathan’s boney shoulders.

“Great!” Tim cheered, “Now, we do have a plan . . . right?”

The padlock fell to the ground with a sharp ‘Snap!’ as the bolt cutters closed their jaws around the metal loop. It was almost anticlimactic. Martin had been half expecting to trigger some big curse or booby-trap, but there was nothing.

For a moment, Martin and Jon stood in the silence, watching the attic door drift lazily open.

“Ahem,” Jon finally spoke, “After you,”

Martin spared a glance at Jon, wondering how he let himself get roped into this, before trekking into the attic.

Clutter lined the floor, though it looks as if someone tried to tame it into some kind of organization. There were storage boxes on shelves resting against the walls, and stacks of papers sitting haphazardly along the floor. There were various chests and containers, though most interesting was the desk sitting at the far end of the attic.

Jon seemed to notice it too, because he stilled, “That’s my desk,”

“Huh?”

“That’s the exact same desk in my office at the Archives.”

Martin blinked, “I mean, yeah. He’s you isn’t he?”

It was moments like these that Martin wished he could read Jon better. The man usually wore a steely frown, and it was easy to tell the difference between the ‘I have been mildly inconvenienced’ frown and the ‘I am contemplating firing you’ frown, but for anything besides frowns Martin was at a loss of what it could mean.

The odd expression passed as Jon straightened himself up, “Right. Let’s look around, shall we?”

There was an eerie familiarity to the whole place, like someone did a transplant of the Institute’s archives and placed them here. Which, considering the whole Archivist thing, made sense.

On closer inspection, the stacks of papers seemed to be statements. A brief glance told Martin that the few statements on top, and presumably the rest of the stack, were the average old statements- superstitions and drugs convincing someone of a supernatural incident. Martin wasn’t a skeptic or anything, certainly not like Jon, but sometimes he could just tell when a statement was real. There would be a chill and a weight to the paper, something off about it in a way that Martin couldn’t describe.

Thumbing through the papers, though, Martin found that some of these weren’t quite statements. There were mundane situations, most of which completely unrelated to the supernatural- a lot of suspicious people ranting about their partner or neighbor or cousin. Actually, from the brief glances Martin gave them, there seemed to be a running theme of cheating for some of these. Like a collection of people's problems.

Martin tried not to look too hard. It all felt extremely personal. Jon, on the other hand, had none of the same discretion.

“This is worse than Gertrude’s mess of an organization system!” He gestured to the sad pile of statements in front of him.

Martin shrugged, “I mean, these are all the fake ones, right? Maybe they just don’t care.”

Of course, that wasn’t true. The whole attic was in a state of organized chaos- even from a quick glance, Martin could tell that each pile was distinct and thematic, and now that he was looking he could see that there were distinctions made between the fake supernatural statements, hallucinations and delusions, and the unrelated statements, with the papers staggered in different directions to differentiate the two.

Given Jon’s sour face, Martin wasn’t keen on pointing this out. Instead, he meandered over to the shelves. They were filled with the same containers that were used for document storage, each box meticulously labeled in an unreadable scrawl. If Martin squinted, he could pick out names, places, dates, and on one box he was able to make out ‘Spiral’.

Martin jiggled open one of the boxes. Inside was a very familiar layout- files each containing a written statement, files containing the follow-up reports, and a tape recorder for the audio copy. Reaching into the box felt like plunging his hand into a tub of pure static. Martin paused for a moment before pulling back and placing the lid back on. Some spooky things were not worth it.

Jon was still meticulously combing through the stacks of statements, muttering to himself about how unprofessional it was. Martin wasn’t about to comment how Jon’s own organization was far from better, or how taking charge of follow-up instead of sending it back to Research could also be seen as unprofessional. He may not have a degree, but Martin’s time in the library taught him a thing or two about the dewey decimal system.

At least Nathan actually used archive groups- each shelf was dedicated to one of the gods Nathan had mentioned, with some boxes containing multiple statements that Martin guessed were circled around the same monster or supernatural event. Some containers even had multiple tape recorders- the numbers of which were in chronological order. It was remarkably meticulous compared to the mess Martin remembered from document storage. In fact, the loose statements scattered in piles across the room were probably the ones that failed the appraisal process, given that they were all fake. Why Nathan didn’t just shred them was a mystery.

It was kind of ironic that a little cabin in the middle of nowhere had a more comprehensive Archive than the Magnus Institute. Though, it was a front for a fear god cult so maybe that checked out. The Magnus archives weren’t designed for people to access or research, they were just a pit of spooky recordings that nobody bothered to do anything about.

Martin made his way out of the maze of papers and went to explore other areas of the room. He wasn’t sure what Jon was hoping to find in here, but he suspected that organizational advice wasn’t it.

There were various chests at the other end of the attic. Martin gingerly pulled one open, watching the dust roll off of it. Inside were countless polaroid photos of all sorts of different people. It was a little creepy, but that was probably because Martin didn’t recognize them. Given how Nathan or Gunner would show up in some of them, they were probably photos of friends or acquaintances. Some of the polaroids had what appeared to be an ink smudge in the photo.

Along with the photos was some more . . . interesting things. Like a coil of rope and a startlingly large first aid kit. And various woodworking tools. Was that a fire extinguisher?

He shook his head- it wasn’t that weird. They were probably just prepared, it would probably take a fire truck far too long to get out here. Or it was part of their supplies for dealing with whatever supernatural nonsense they got themselves involved in. Either way, Martin moved along to another chest. A small tug revealed that this one was, in fact, locked.

“Hey, Jon,” Martin called out, “Another one of these is locked, got any ideas for busting it?”

Jon snapped his head up from where he was invested in the statements as he echoed, “Locked?”

It wasn’t long before Jon was there at his side, eying the lock. Of course, the fastest way to get Jon’s attention was to point out something he was definitely not supposed to be messing with.

“Is there anything we can use to break it? A hammer, perhaps?” Jon contemplated.

Martin saw a hammer in the other chest, but he hesitated, “Jon, why are we doing this?”

He hated that look Jon gave him. The pretentious frown that all but screamed ‘did you miss what I said or are you just that stupid.’ Jon opened his mouth, but Martin cut him off.

“Don’t tell me this is still about finding that monster,” Martin clarified, “That’s not what this is about. A door monster isn’t going to be sitting inside of a locked chest when it can probably teleport. What is this about, Jon?”

That actually seemed to get to him, as he floundered a bit, “I- I don’t know . . . what you mean.”

Martin summoned his best ‘Disappointed Gunner’ look, and it seemed to be effective because Jon started growing red.

“I just- I want to understand,” Jon flustered, “None of this makes sense. None of the explanations our doubles are giving make sense!”

There was a brief moment of silence before Jon quietly continued, “Maybe if I understand it, it won’t be so . . .”

“Spooky?” Martin supplied.

“Scary,” a half-hearted scowl flickered across his face for a moment before fading away, “I . . . I’m scared, Martin. I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what’s supposed to happen to me- did you see the scar across his throat? Someone tried to slit his throat- my throat- I just . . .”

Never had Jon looked this vulnerable, dark skin a few shades lighter and trembling. For all he tried, Martin wasn’t good with people- if a cup of tea and plate of biscuits didn’t make someone feel better, then he was at a loss. Poetry helped put emotions onto paper, but he never knew the right words to say to people. It was just easier to fall back into taking care of someone, to use actions to speak for him.

Instead of trying to throw around bland sympathies to try and help calm his fear, Martin gave him a reassuring smile, “W-well, I saw a hammer in the chest. Let’s bust this bad boy open and get us some answers!”

Martin wished he could take a photo of Jon’s face so that he could tuck it away somewhere safe. His eyes were blown wide, face soft and slack. It was almost sad- he looked surprised and relieved and confused and so utterly hopeful that something in Martin’s chest began to burn at the sight.

Please don’t be afraid, he nearly choked trying to hold the words down, I love you.

“Right,” Jon mumbled, and Martin felt his heart sink as those horrid walls were once again set into place, hiding away the endearing man he just caught a glimpse of.

Breaking this lock took more effort than the padlock, but a good few whacks knocked the whole thing off.

“Moment of truth,” Martin gave him another smile, fruitlessly trying to evoke that same reaction.

Instead, Jon grumbled, “Get on with it,”

Still. It was a cute grumble.

. . . God, Martin really had it bad, didn’t he? With a shake of his head to clear out the stray thoughts, he opened the lid of the trunk.

Inside was not, in fact, answers. It was guns. Lots and lots of guns. Different sizes, too- some were long and lethal looking, while others were stocky and . . . lethal looking.

“Gunner,” Jon muttered.

“. . . Gunner,” Martin agreed.

“Well this is a lovely little plot twist,” a voice echoed throughout the attic, “But I think I can do you one better!”

Martin whipped his head around to see a figure in the room with them. ‘Figure’ was the best way to describe it, since each time Martin tried to look at the face or other distinguishing features his eyes drifted away, leaving fuzzy spots and colors in its wake.

Jon immediately clung to Martin’s arm, “W-Who are you?”

The monster grinned at them with far too many teeth, “Oh! Where are my manners? You can call me Helen!” She paused and gave what could only be a wink, “And congratulations on finding your monster!”

If Tim wasn’t here, Nathan would gladly be banging his head against the wall.

Dully, he recited all of the idiotic decisions that led to this moment. Deciding to leave the cabin and their visitors alone, deciding to bring Tim and Sasha along, deciding to let them go into the house with a very active Hive inside-

And now Helen Richardson was taking advantage of his situation to stir up the pot even more. He couldn’t just leave the house, not when they were so close to getting rid of this blasted thing, and Helen knew that. She was guaranteed enough time to cause even more chaos. With Nathan's luck, he probably left the stove on, too.

Tim seemed to notice their irritation, as he began to put distance between himself and Nathan. It hurt to see- did he think they would lash out? Were they really that bad in the past? . . Well, it wouldn’t be surprising.

On a certain level, Nathan understood that the Tim next to him was not the Tim they remembered, that this one had no memory of the stalking or deaths that were to happen and was probably just giving them space. Or getting distracted by the various nick knacks in the house and wandering to look at the collection.

Of course, this didn’t stop the feeling that Tim was trying to get away from them. That’s what Nathan remembered most, and they couldn’t help but feel guilty that their strongest memories of Tim were of him at his worst. It wasn’t fair to him- to his memory or the incarnation of it walking next to them.

“You really didn’t want me and Sasha in here, huh?” Tim mused.

“Huh?” Nathan wondered if they had somehow missed a conversation.

“I mean- you’ve been moping since we got in here,” Tim gave a small, sympathetic laugh, “It’s kinda sad to watch, actually.”

He wasn’t moping. He was pondering his failures in life, there’s a difference.

Nathan sighed, “I’m just watching the house. Things will be . . . interesting once we get back.”

Tim’s smile dropped for a moment, “Interesting how? Jon and Martin aren’t going to get themselves killed, are they?”

Nathan really wanted to say ‘no’, but with Helen involved there were far too many ways this could go wrong. If she decided to pull them away to an entirely different time period, there was nothing Nathan could do about it.

“Curiosity killed the cat,” He quoted instead, “But satisfaction brought it back,”

It was certainly true in his case, anyhow.

There was a brief pause before Tim asked, “Why are you still carrying that stick around? I get using it on a hike and all, just kinda weird to be going around inside with it,”

“Oh, I- ah, hurt my leg some time ago and this helps me walk around when it flares up. Besides, it’s useful for self defense.”

“ . . . A stick is your idea of self defense?” Tim balked, “No offense, but Gunner has guns. I think one of these is more effective than the other.”

Nathan chuckled a little bit, “Honestly? I don’t enjoy hurting people. If whacking someone with a stick is all it takes, I’m not going to go any farther,” They tilted their head a bit, “Besides, once you get a little momentum going, you’d be surprised how hard it hits.”

“. . . So it’s a staff? You do realize how between that and the billowy trenchcoat you literally look like a spooky wizard, right?”

Nathan stayed silent as a grin spread across Tim’s face, “Oh my god. You beat up monsters with a stick so you can look like Gandalf.”

“To be fair,” Nathan coughed, “Warlock is more accurate, eldritch patron and all.”

Though, the town mostly considered them some kind of witch and Nathan wasn’t about to argue.

When Tim started to open his mouth, they cut him off, “Anyways! The Hive is still asleep, so we have time to block the exits. I think there’s some duct tape in that drawer- we can’t let a single wasp escape.”

Tim was going to tease him about this later. He didn’t need to peek into his mind to find that out.

Gunner tossed Sasha a pair of gardening gloves, “I would still try to stay to the side, getting stung might as well be a death sentence with these things. Or at least a pain to remove.”

“Thanks, Gunner,” She smiled.

Ugh. Gunner still found his new name obnoxious. It was like they thought his entire personality was ‘gun’ or something. They weren’t even his guns! If anything, Daisy’s the ‘Gunner’ here.

As Sasha slipped the gloves on, Gunner pulled the fire extinguisher out of his bag. They always kept a few lying around for situations like this, though there was only enough bag space for a single one. He crept close to the bedroom and twisted the knob open, a sickly sweet smell drifting from the room along with the faint sound of buzzing. On the bed, there was the lumpy figure of what was once a man, sleeping peacefully under the sheets oblivious of the sticky grime along the walls.

“Gunner,” Sasha whispered, “Where’s- is that the Hive? That’s a person. You're planning to kill a person.”

Gunner resisted the urge to turn to her; he couldn’t afford to take his eyes off of the Hive, “That’s what Hives are. People that became living colonies of whatever bug they let consume them.”

Don’t think about worms and canned peaches and fourteen days of solitude.

If he had to guess by the waiver of her voice, Sasha was shaking, “Shouldn’t we be helping, then? Our first resort shouldn’t be murder-”

“Shh,” Gunner held a hand up as her voice started raising. The Hive shifted a little, but remained entranced in whatever dream he was having.

He remembered when he, too, would have said the same thing.

“Look,” he muttered, hoping she could hear it under his breath, “We’ve been following this case for about a month now. I don’t have time to explain it all, but Mr. Morison isn’t a good man. Not before becoming a Hive and not after. Mrs. Morison requested this. He’s been hurting her, and now that he’s a Hive this isn’t something a divorce can fix. He'll just find another victim.”

Gunner had been doing most of the contact work with Mrs. Morrison once she worked up the courage to reach out to them. Her situation wasn’t pretty- hearing her break down about how she obsessively searched for stings on her body was bad enough, Gunner could only imagine all of the horrific things she would have included in her statement.

Sasha frowned, but Gunner continued, “Mr. Morison doesn’t want to let go of the Hive, doesn’t want to stop hurting people. Maybe if we found out about the situation a little earlier we could have helped him too, but Nathan can’t See everything. I get it- this isn’t some perfect solution where two people can live happily ever after, no wasps included. The supernatural doesn’t have happy endings. You can still wait outside.”

At that, Sasha stiffened.

“I’m staying. I need to see this,” she asserted.

. . . She always had been prone to Beholding, hadn’t she? Gunner should have insisted that she leave, but the Hive once again began to stir. They were out of time.

“. . . Honey?” his raspy voice buzzed, dripping like a sweet poison, “Is that you?”

Gunner whipped up the fire extinguisher and began to spray. The insects were useless without their Hive, so killing Morison was first priority. The wasps began to scream, and Morison writhed in bed. Gunner kept spraying until the buzzing fell quiet and the form stilled. He kept spraying until the fire extinguisher sputtered out.

“There. Hives are easy to take care of as long as they don’t build up-”

He shouldn’t have said anything. He should have kept his damn mouth shut. He should have asked Nathan to double check for sure that this would have worked. The foamy figure began to rise up, and Gunner could feel the walls vibrating from whatever six-legged storm lied within.

“Fuck,” Gunner said, reaching for his holster, “Time for Plan B.”

Chapter Text

Tim was feeling antsy. He and Nathan had just finished up the exits, and now they sat in silence, the only thing to focus on being the restlessness in his limbs.

Nathan seemed content to sit on the plush chair in the living room, eyes having that glossy sheen that Tim learned to associate with them watching the cottage. He didn’t get why they were sitting in here when there was a monster upstair that they could be helping with-

“Gunner has it covered,” Nathan muttered, eyes still distant, “Hives are usually fairly easy to take care of, and sadly common out here in the countryside. A fire extinguisher can do the trick.”

Tim frowned, “Okay, but why are we down here? Just give everyone an extinguisher and call it a day.”

It had been a long time since he last picked a fight, he would be lying if he wasn't itching to get a good swing in.

“In the off chance Plan A fails, we need to make sure the Hive and its wasps don’t escape. Hence the duct tape. A Hive on the loose puts the rest of the community in danger. Also, fire extinguishers are expensive,” They rolled their staff in their hands. They were just as anxious as Tim to get this over with, even if they hid it well.

“Okay, what’s Plan B?” Tim asked.

“Shoot until it dies.”

“ . . . And if that doesn’t work?” If all supernatural things could be solved with a gun, then they might as well move to the US.

Nathan shrugged, “Then I’ll pull out the Spooky Eyeball powers and we call it a day.”

Tim let out a dry laugh, “These are horrible plans,”

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” they recited.

The sound of gunshots made Tim flinch. Was it just him, or were the walls buzzing?

“Ah,” Nathan stood up, “That would be Plan B,”

Martin felt Jon clinging to his arm, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away from the monster in front of him. Helen. The reason they were in the future in the first place. Looking at her made Martin’s brain ache, so he resolved to look around her, look at how the air rippled around her like heat waves.

It occurred to Martin that she just introduced herself, and maybe Martin should do the same, “I-I’m. I’m Martin Blackwood. Nice to- to meet you?”

If the changes in the ripples were any indication, she must have moved.

“Oh! I already know you, Martin!” She chirped, “You don’t know me yet, and to you I might not exist as I am, but you’re one of my favorite humans!” There was another shift, and she seemed- closer? Maybe she leaned forward, “And Jon! As Helen, I’ve never seen you as a baby Archivist! You’re so human, it’s adorable!”

“T-Thanks?” Jon said weakly. Martin waited for him to start asking questions, but he seemed just as transfixed on this impossible person as Martin was.

“Honestly, things were so dull around here, I really appreciate you helping to liven it up!”

Martin inched a few steps back, closer to the chest behind him, “Is- is that why you brought us here? Entertainment?”

She huffed out a dramatic sigh, “You make it sound so trivial. It was absolutely delightful watching the lovebirds hunt down dear old Jonah, but it’s been years now and I think I might just die of boredom. Those two need to fight more often, they’re just too sweet and domestic, ugh.”

“That- that is trivial?” Jon frowned.

Martin swallowed, hoping Jon didn’t just offend the twisting creature and sign his death warrant.

Helen laughed instead- a nauseating sound that rattled around Martin’s skull, “Well, I don’t know why you’re complaining. This is a win-win! You get to know the future, I get some quality drama!”

Jon was still staring intently at her. Martin could only imagine how much that must hurt.

“Does-Does that mean you’re going to take us back?” Jon ventured.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Helen mused, “Am I?”

Jon blinked, “What?”

“You need to work on that confidence, dear, nobody’s going to give you anything if you ask nicely,” She had another shrill laugh, like there was some inside joke there.

Martin felt his foot brush up against the wooden chest. Her attention still seemed to be on Jon, who had let go of him at this point, so he began slowly lowering himself down.

“What?” Jon repeated, “I- uh- I mean-” he took in a shaky breath and tried again, “Will you take us back to the past?”

Helen hummed, “No, that wasn’t quite it. Still lacks the oomph,” suddenly, she perked up, “Oh, you can’t do it yet, can you? Haha, my bad!”

“Do- do what?”

“I don’t have to tell you!” she giggled, “Oo, this is so much more fun than I thought!”

Jon quivered, “I don’t- I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t! You don’t know anything, do you?”

Martin spared a glance back up at her and found that he could make out a smile- that is, if a smile could stretch beyond the constraints of a face.

“I can say anything I want to, can’t I?” The words dripped from her mouth, “I could tell you all about what happened to poor, defenseless Sasha, how nobody even noticed her gone. How everyone is destined to hate you!”

“You-you’re lying-”

“Actually, I haven’t tried that yet, but you make a very good point! I can lie to you now!”

Martin carefully reached behind him.

Helen couldn’t have been more than a few steps away, “Poor little Jon, with no way to hurt others and no way to protect himself! Perhaps I should take back what I said earlier- you aren’t really an Archivist yet, are you? Not even a baby one. Just a frail man that knows nothing.”

Jon flinched away from her, “I know not to trust a word you say-”

“Please. You don’t trust a word anyone says. Not even yourself!”

Martin’s hand slid over cool metal.

“I know you better than you know yourself,” Helen cooed, “Once, I used to think you were a kind man. I think that was the one lie you ever got me to believe.”

“S-Stop it-”

She cackled, “Or what? What can you do to stop me?” She began reaching towards Jon, hand unnaturally long and far too sharp, “I would very much like to see you try~!”

Martin whipped the gun up and squeezed the trigger.

There was a click. Nothing happened.

. . . Were guns supposed to do that? Vaguely, Martin remembered something about guns having a safety lock. And needing ammunition.

“Oh, Martin, I’m so proud!” Helen cooed before lowering her voice, “But that was very stupid.”

Nathan struggled to keep up with all of the images in their brain. Eldritch chronicle of fear or no, they could only watch so many flashing images at a time with only two eyes open.

Gunner pulling Sasha away from the Hive as he lashes out-

Jon and Martin getting cornered by Helen-

Mrs. Morison, feeling guilty and debating on returning home-

The Hive, lurching backwards as bullets tear through its flesh-

Tim, swatting at the wasps emerging from the walls and shouting something incomprehensible over the massive droning buzz-

Oh. That was right in front of them, wasn’t it? They should probably pay attention to that.

“Tim! Get away from the wasps!” Nathan called, “Don’t bother killing them, getting stung is worse!”

They would be able to remove the stinger like they had the worms, but any mark of the corruption was nasty. Sometimes Nathan’s worm scars still itch and fester. Better safe than reckless, anyways.

Tim stumbled away, wielding his flyswatter like a sword, “Kinda hard to hit a wasp midai- hang on, they aren’t going after you! That’s not fair!”

That made sense. The purpose of a hive’s vectors was to spread and infect- a fully fledged avatar would be quite unappetizing to them.

Several more bangs filled the air- a quick look showed that the Hive was staggering, but managed to stumble away from Gunner, who was too busy shielding Sasha from the monster to get a good shot on the head. It was trudging down the stairs.

Nathan turned to Tim, “It’s coming to us. There’s a leaf blower in the garage- second door on the left- I’ll lead it into the kitchen, you suck up all the wasps.”

“Roger that!” Tim ducked away, slapping wasps as he went.

Nathan turned and approached the stairwell, watching the Hive stumble out, several bullet wounds marring it’s chest. The hallways were cramped, and there would be little space to swing the staff, so they would have to be on the defensive for now.

“Archivist,” the Hive hissed and took a step forward, bees tumbling out of his mouth.

Nathan took a step back and greeted, “Hive.”

It snarled and lunged towards them. They skittered back, still facing the monster as they took measured steps backwards towards the kitchen. Nathan was really hoping not to rely on Beholding to get rid of this thing- the statement of Mrs. Morison was filling, but it would last longer if they didn’t over-exert themselves. There could be weeks or months in between statement volunteers, so they tried to minimize their Beholding as much as they could. Seeing and Knowing several different locations at once was already pushing it.

The Hive seemed to believe the steps back as a show of fear and began lumbering after like the brute he was. It was ironic, really, that such a newly become flesh hive would think that the Archivist themself was afraid of him. Then again, Nathan did try their best to present as human as possible and Hives weren’t known for their observation skills.

Still, it seemed to be keeping its distance for now. Nathan took a second to check in on Martin and Jon- they were currently hiding amongst the shelves, Helen jeering after them as she played into the little game of cat and mouse. She had no intention of actually harming them, simply toying with them. It had been a long time since she had last made Nathan afraid of her, and she was relishing in the moment. There was no telling if she would shove them into her doorways again, but for now she seemed to be sticking to more psychological methods.

Even so, she had no right to be in Nathan’s Archive. It may not have been as impressive as the collection in the Institute, but it was theirs. Feeling her false, distorted form drift between the shelves of statements made them grit their teeth. She was well aware of this, too- occasionally she would brush a twisting finger along the seam of a box with a grin and Nathan couldn’t help but flinch at the feeling of such deceit touching that which has been Seen.

Nathan came back to himself with a shudder as he stepped into the kitchen, Hive trailing after. He could deal with Helen later- as frustratingly incomprehensible as she was, she wasn’t about to kill anyone, and she wouldn’t dare damage his Archive, so right now what was important was the Hive in front of him and how the kitchen finally had enough space for him to work with.

The Hive tried another attempt at attacking them, but was met with the staff slamming into his face and knocking him to his knees. It wasn’t the most lethal weapon, but building enough momentum packed a hell of a punch.

Speaking of lethal- right now, Gunner was busy checking himself and Sasha for stings. A good move, but not exactly one they had time for. Still, Nathan could hold out until the cavalry arrived.

The Hive rose up, spitting out some lingering foam. And wasn’t that interesting? The fire extinguisher hadn’t worked. The Corruption had seemingly grown attached to this particular Hive and chose to protect it from the End. This wasn’t unheard of- the End was a rather passive entity and usually let the others interrupt. After all, what is a longer life but more time to fear death? The interesting part was in the choice itself. This Hive was a fairly weak one, not really worth the effort to keep alive-

Oh, Nathan had zoned out again. The Hive had gotten his hands on a kitchen knife and was now charging towards them. They really needed to stop trying to Know things at the wrong time.

They ducked to the side, though the knife still managed to graze their arm before they gave the staff another twirl and hit the Hive’s head again. And again. And one more time, just for luck- Eye knows Nathan needed it. He stayed down, though Nathan doubted he was dead. Gunner could handle that in a minute. It was unlikely the Hive could withstand two deaths.

With the Hive laying prone, they decided to make their way towards the sounds of a whirring motor and yelling. As expected, Tim was just about done clearing the wasps out of the living room with the leaf blower. What wasn’t expected was how Tim’s face dropped the moment he glanced at Nathan.

Nathan awkwardly waved, “Hi,”

“Fuck,” Tim muttered putting the leafblower down after one last glance to make sure the wasps were gone, “Okay, shit- Gunner had a bag, there’s a first aid kit in there, right?”

“. . . Yes?” They weren’t quite sure where this was going.

Tim immediately swept them up into a carry, smile forced, “Alright! You’re gonna be fine.”

Nathan barely managed a squeak of protest before Tim began to hike up the stairs two steps at a time. He knew he was going to be fine, why wouldn’t he be? He took a peek into Tim’s mind and-

That explained a few things. Nathan nearly forgot about how the knife managed to graze their arm. And how blood was supposed to be red instead of the inky black currently seeping into their clothes. Tim was currently under the impression that the discoloration was caused by the Hive, or some other supernatural disease. They supposed it was of supernatural origin, but they should probably start explaining to avoid misconceptions.

“Wait, Tim-” Nathan tried.

“Gunner!” Tim shouted, a subtle edge of panic on the edges of his voice, “First aid!”

“Tim, it’s fine-”

Gunner was kneeled in front of Sasha, meticulously checking for stingers. Sasha looked up first, “Tim, wha- Oh.”

Nathan was honestly a little offended. It was just a little graze- they didn’t look that bad.

“What’d they do this time?” Gunner raised his eyebrow.

Tim set Nathan down quickly next to Sasha, though he was surprisingly gentle about it, “Bee Guy got a hit on Nathan. Got anything to clean this out?”

Nathan rolled his eyes, “It’s really not as bad as you think-”

“As if I’m taking your word for it,” Gunner scoffed, “Roll up that sleeve, let’s see the damage.”

They begrudgingly pushed up the sleeve and . . . Alright, maybe it was a little deeper of a cut than they thought. And it probably wouldn’t heal on its own, as the skin appeared to have split outwards like tearing a balloon, shrinking like rubber no longer pulled taut. Maybe they should work on their dodging skills, Nathan was never terribly agile. Still, Tim and Sasha looked ghastly at the moment and they should really explain that yes, that color of blood and flesh is perfectly healthy for a being such as Nathan. Sasha was currently digging through the little carry-on first aid kit. It still wasn't much of a problem-

“Angela’s gonna be pissed,” Gunner muttered as he observed the wound.

Okay, that was going to be a problem, “Do I really need to see Angela? It’s not that-”

Gunner gave a soft glare, “Finish that sentence and you’re cleaning this up on your own.”

Nathan bit back an exasperated sigh. Gunner was right- if the container was starting to peel back, then it was only a matter of time until the whole thing came apart. It’s been a while since his last appointment, too, it was a miracle this container lasted so long.

“Found the disinfectant!” Sasha called, “Do I want to know why there are so many corkscrews?”

“Worms.”

“Worms.”

Sasha blinked and chuckled, “Yeah, that sounds about right with everything else around here. Here- Hydrogen Peroxide, it should clean it out,” She paused for a moment, “Can regular things clean out supernatural infections?”

“It’s not infec- ow!” Nathan hissed as Gunner pressed a damp cloth on the area, biting back the static on his tongue,“Careful, careful-”

Gunner rolled his eyes, “Don’t get hurt next time. And- maybe? If you get it fast enough. There’s always a point where human medicine doesn’t apply, but I don’t think we have to worry unless the Hive licked the knife or something.”

“That’s what I’ve been say-”

“Hold up, are we just going to ignore the black blood?” Tim frowned.

Gunner seemed to come to the same conclusion Nathan did ten minutes ago, “What? Oh, yeah, don’t worry about that, it’s one of Nathan’s spooky things.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you!” Nathan groaned, “Sure, I might need to call Angela to stitch it up, but I assure you that my blood has no correlation to the Hive.”

“Oh,” Tim said.

Sasha looked equally relieved, though her brow quickly furrowed, “Who’s this ‘Angela’? Is she your doctor?”

“Of . . . sorts,” Nathan didn’t feel like explaining their deal with the Tailor any time soon. It was honestly a little embarrassing. They didn’t like relying on other people just to feel like themself.

Gunner gave them a look that promised ‘If you keep bottling up everything then I will gladly tell them myself’. They pointedly looked away.

It wasn’t that they didn’t want to share information about managing their less human features. Really, it was inevitable the others would learn the details one way or another. It was just so much easier to keep playing human, to keep acting as if they weren’t just as physically changed as mentally. Maybe they wanted to hold onto that a little longer. Even if it was exhausting. Even if Tim and Sasha deserved to know.

Unfortunately, Gunner was a man of his word, “The knife didn’t hit one of your eyes, did it?”

“Eyes? On their arm?”

Nathan scowled at Gunner’s conniving little face before sighing, “I-um, a- a while ago I began to stop . . . looking human? F-For me to be, ah, human passing, I needed to make a deal with Angela, an Organ Tailor, to help cover it up. Push all of the monstrous bits under the skin and out of sight. You- you haven’t read the Piecemeal statement yet, have you?”

Tim and Sasha exchanged a look before unanimously shaking their heads. Nathan sighed, “Okay, look- servants of the Flesh work a lot with deals, especially of the ‘changing yourself’ variety, though they can be flexible. I actually took a little inspiration from them for more ethical methods of collecting statements- anyways, Angela’s the reason I have human-ish skin. It’s called a container, a body to house something supernatural. But, it doesn’t exactly heal, so in order to stop . . . leaking . . . I need to go back and have Angela piece it together again.”

Nathan always had mixed feelings over going to Angela. On one hand, they wanted to be human more than anything and with her help they could finally feel like themselves again. On the other, the Knowledge of how fabricated their own skin was would never go away, nor the constant gnawing irritation that came from so thoroughly covering their eyes. It was almost maddening some days, how little they could See. They would never truly be comfortable in this container made of flesh. Not to mention how awful it felt to explain all of this to Angela- though, they supposed feeling good about the ordeal would ruin the point. Angela still fed off of fear, after all.

Sasha was nodding along with that same detached academic attitude she carried with her in Artifact Storage, a mask of indifference wielded like a shield. That was fine. Nathan was more worried about how Tim would react. They could already see his thoughts dancing around the Circus, of monstrous things wearing human skin and walking amongst you. Of his brother's skin.

“If- if it helps, the Flesh can’t really interfere with your identity. It can make you look more yourself but it can’t make you look like somebody else,” they winced, hoping they explained it well enough.

“. . . Huh,” Tim muttered, “So, I guess you’re covered in eyes or something?”

“Y-Yes?”

Tim tilted his head a little, “Then are you just . . . constantly looking at your bones?”

Nathan blinked, “Huh? Oh, no, they’re closed. Hang on-”

They focused around the area beneath the wound, feeling around the void of their flesh until the inky mass under their skin began to ripple as vibrant green eyes surfaced, still tucked inside the wound and poking out just from underneath the skin as if it were a shell. In some ways, it was.

Nathan’s vision warped and distorted before images of Tim and Sasha staring down at him melded into his field of sight. It was unnervingly comforting to be able to See with these eyes again, though their perception was blurred and hazy from the constant blindfold of flesh that had been surrounding them. They blinked lazily, slowly absorbing information around them.

Sasha breathed, “Woah,”

“That’s pretty neat,” Tim said neutrally. Nathan was startled by how calm he was, both in his mind and his words. Shock, perhaps? “What do you look like normally? I mean, without the skin- wait, that sounds bad . . .”

Gunner laughed, “I think we have some photos in storage somewhere? In the meantime, ‘amorphous shadowy eyeball guy’ should be accurate enough.”

They had photos in the attic, didn’t they?

Wait. That’s right. Helen in the Attic.

Nathan lurched upwards, “No time- we need to kill the Hive and get back home.”

“Slow down, that still needs wrapped,” Gunner frowned.

“No time,” Nathan repeated, “No time to stop by the library, either- Helen’s there. I mean- in the Attic. With- with Jon and Martin.”

Gunner took a moment to blink before he stood, pulling out his gun once more, “Has she hurt them?”

“No, not yet,” Nathan clarified, “Just antagonizing. For now.”

He nodded and began making his way towards the steps, “Pack up the first aid kit, I’ll get the Hive and we can clean up for Mrs. Morison later.”

Tim still insisted on bandaging Nathan’s arm. It was surprisingly well done- they suspected this wasn’t the first time he’s had to do first aid, what with his high adventure hobbies. Sasha packed up the tiny first aid kit, carefully sliding everything back into its original place.

Downstairs, a single gunshot echoed through the house.

Jon clamped a hand over his mouth to silence his breathing.

He didn’t know where Martin was. They went in separate directions after the door monster lunged. Jon had ducked underneath the desk and Martin went . . . somewhere else? Jon wished he had seen, wished that he had something to keep telling him it’s okay, Martin will be okay.

At least Martin still had the gun on him. A gun he didn't know how to use . . . Still, better than how Jon was doing right now.

“It's cute how you think this is a maze people can hide in,” Helen made another one of those mind-numbing laughs, “The Archive is made for things to be seen. Would you like to know what a proper maze looks like?”

Jon kept still. There were no footsteps to indicate where the monster was walking, just a taunting, disembodied voice drifting in the space around him. She could be leaning on the desk for all Jon could tell.

On the other side of the room, there was a faint scratching sound. Like nails on a chalkboard.

And now there was a rhythmic tapping, “Hm, I do wonder where Martin went . . . He wasted no time leaving, didn’t he? Not even a glance behind.”

Martin left the attic? That was . . . Good, that was good. That would be the smart thing to do- get as much distance from here as possible. That meant Martin was safe.

“I wonder if he knows you’re still in here?” She continued, almost conversational, “If he kept running anyways . . .”

That was fine. Martin was safe.

There was a creak in the wood, closer now, “Honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised. Nothing good ever happens to the people you drag down with you.”

He didn’t know what she was talking about. Martin was fine.

“I never got to meet Sasha, you know. She was already replaced by the time I got here. Dead and gone and nobody noticed. What does she look like, Jon?”

Sasha. Tall, dark curly hair, glasses. Sasha with her quick wit and cunning attitude, but cheerful demeanor. Sasha who always noticed when he worked too long and showed him how to access the police records without getting caught.

“She was shorter than you if I recall, truly an amazing feat,” Helen mused, “But that wasn’t Sasha, was it? That was the thing that ate her, living amongst you seamlessly. Nobody even noticed.”

Sasha was fine. She left the house earlier-

Was this desk always so small? Jon no longer needed his hand to stifle his breathing, it already felt like the air was being sucked from his lungs.

“Tim really stole the show with how he died. I was actually there to witness that one! Dramatic and grisly, only the best to stop the circus!”

Circus? No, Tim was fine. Banter and grins and sly jokes, Tim always had some kind of mutual understanding of Jon, always knowing the right thing to say-

“Do you want to know what his last words were? They were for you, actually. ‘I don’t forgive you’. Right before he blew himself up, too- it was almost poetic.”

. . . Forgive him? What did Jon do? What will Jon do?

“And Martin! Poor, poor Martin . . .” There was a scraping noise on the wood right above his head, “Would you like to know what happened to him?”

Jon shut his eyes, but was only met with the image of Gunner’s emotionless stare.

. . . was that Jon’s fault, too?

Suddenly, there was a crackle in the air. It was as if the Archive had suddenly come alive, like waking a slumbering beast.

“It seems that the Archivist is back,” Helen said bitterly, and now Jon could tell that she was, in fact, right above where he was hiding.

Finally, her voice had a location he could pinpoint, “Always ruining my fun . . . Ah, well. See you around, Jon!”

Footsteps. She had footsteps now, trailing away from him. There was a creak of a door, and then silence filled the space. Jon didn’t move. Despite the lack of noise, this place was far from empty.

It was . . . Hard to think, at the moment. He tried to process what Helen said, but the words swirled around in the useless slush that was his brain. It took all of his mental power to remember to breathe.

“Jon?!”

He jumped at the sound of his name, head hitting the desk.

It took moments for Tim to enter his field of vision, sleeves rolled up and face twisted with concern, “Jon! Guys, I found him!”

Tim was fine.

There was more noise and words, most of which was lost on Jon’s ears, and suddenly Sasha sat down next to him, a relieved smile on her lips- were they moving? Was she talking to him? Jon tried to listen, to sharpen his mind back into focus, but only succeeded in catching discordant pieces overshadowed by the fact that Sasha is fine.

“. . . Said there was a monster-”

“Safe now . . .”

“Saw Martin along the way . . . Attic . . .”

“Is . . . okay?”

“Jon!”

And there was Martin. Scuffed and disheveled but alive. He was babbling on about something and what Jon could catch of his voice was fretful, but Jon didn’t care. Martin was fine. They were all fine, maddening hallway monsters be damned.

Jon . . . Jon was fine. Safe.

Though he had no idea who spoke, the first coherent sentence he could hear was, “Oh my god is he crying?”

The relief bubbling up in his chest almost made him want to laugh. Or maybe he was already laughing, given the looks the others were giving him. Now that his focal awareness was returning, he distantly noticed that he was no longer underneath the desk. Or in the attic, for that matter. He didn’t remember leaving, but he was too exhausted to be concerned about that.

At the other end of the room (the living room? Yes, that sounded right) Jon spotted the two doubles watching the scene with a neutral gaze, occasionally leaning over and muttering some comment or other.

“I think,” Jon had to pause a moment, his voice croaking and scratchy, “I think I’ll have that cup of tea now.”

Chapter Text

There was a silent agreement that any discussion on spooky things or the future was put on hold. Frankly, Gunner agreed. He saw how Nathan practically collapsed with relief on hearing that, and they all could use a break.

Nathan wasn’t as subtle as they thought. They were still fighting their self deprecating and isolationist tendencies, and this entire day was a constant effort to be open with everyone. No matter how good it was in the long term to practice opening up, Nathan was pretty obviously exhausted from the whole ordeal and was starting to shut down.

Gunner supposed he was grateful that the rest of the day passed in such a blur, meals subdued and passive. Jon in particular had abandoned his earlier attitude in favor of a tentative silence. It was . . . worrying, no matter how much Nathan said it was alright. Actually, his reassurances only made Gunner even more worried, knowing Jon.

He almost wished they would ask questions. Talking about ripping Jonah Magnus’ eyes from Elias’ skull would be a lot easier than trying to sort through whatever mental and emotional issues they were going through.

The most exciting part of the evening was after dinner where Tim and Sasha had silently decided to give Jon and Martin the guest bed for the night and were currently trying to corral them into the guest room. Which was going poorly.

Sasha and Tim argued that, with the whole ‘Helen’ thing, Jon and Martin should take the bed. However, Jon and Martin pointed out how Sasha and Tim had to deal with the Hive. Jon also made it abundantly clear how he was, in fact, perfectly fine taking the sleeping bag and staying on the floor. Which, of course, nobody believed. None of them wanted another to give up the comfort of the bed.

Nathan wasted a solid few minutes trying to help sort things out, but inevitably stepped back with Gunner.

“They didn’t argue like this last night,” Nathan huffed.

“Well, last night they had less trauma.”

They frowned, “I mean, it wasn’t that traumatizing.”

Gunner gave him a deadpan look.

“What?” Nathan crossed their arms, “It was just a single encounter, that’s pretty standard. I bet Artifact Storage has worse.”

Gunner rolled his eyes, “Trauma is trauma, and don’t underestimate Helen. She could scramble your brain with time for a manicure afterwards. Just because she doesn’t seem that scary to you, Mx. ‘I eat trauma for breakfast and could obliterate Helen if I needed to,’ doesn’t mean that she can’t still hurt people.”

“ . . . Yeah, yeah alright,” Nathan conceded, picking at the bandages around their arm. Black was starting to seep into the gauze.

“We should probably dress those bandages a little better,” Gunner took his hand and started leading him towards the attic, “. . . That is blood, right? I can’t remember what we agreed on.”

“It's close enough, but the Eye won’t tell me what it actually is. The closest I can guess is that it acts as some form of adhesive to bind the container of Flesh to the rest of me,” Nathan glanced at the fluid, grumbling, “I love not knowing my own bodily components.”

“At least it doesn’t happen when the container’s off?”

Nathan huffed out a laugh, “Ugh, can you imagine that? Constantly dripping black liquid like I just crawled out of an oil slick.”

“We’d have to clean you up like some poor baby duckling.”

“I think eldritch goop would take something a little stronger than soap to clean up. Thank the Eye I’m not an avatar of Corruption.”

The Attic was a bit of a mess after the whole Helen ordeal. Nathan scrunched their nose up, and Gunner could tell that they were resisting the urge to straighten up. It was adorable how fussy they were about this place. Days between jobs got long and tedious, so they took to what they have grown to enjoy- organizing. Every statement and request, be it benign or supernatural, eventually wound up here. There was a meticulous stream of thought put into the organization, stacks and stray papers arranged in a complex net around the room like some kind of computer circuit.

The Buchanan Incident had its own stack, and the spookiest thing that happened in that one was when the missus began cursing out Gunner for ‘fraternizing with the devil’. She was driven out of the village for ‘disturbing the peace’ a week ago. Good times.

Helen’s presence seemed to blow the entire ecosystem into disarray. Papers were everywhere, a few boxes knocked over.

Gunner gave Nathan a little nudge, “You can fix it up after we get to that arm. If it’s any consolation, they messed with my guns too.”

It was a bit of a shock having to disarm himself- the younger Martin- the moment he got home, but thankfully Gunner had unloaded all of Daisy’s guns and put extra child safety locks on them in addition to the built-in safety lock. She really slacked on gun safety, but Gunner supposed that a murder cabin wasn’t exactly intended to be a safe place. Maybe he should put extra security on the chest, too.

Nathan huffed and plopped themselves onto the floor, unwrapping the bandages as Gunner pulled out the large first aid kit. It had everything they could possibly need in there- disinfectant, a wide assortment of bandages, anesthetic, scalpels, anything that they could need for an impromptu surgery or broken limb. Since Jon essentially had access to every medical textbook to ever exist and was a walking diagnosis machine, sometimes the poorer townsfolk would come by for medical assistance.

Gunner thumbed through the supplies, looking up, “Hey, you think we can sew that up? I know it won’t heal or anything, but it might stop all of the goop and tearing until we can get it to Angela.”

Nathan said nothing, simply staring at the now exposed gash along their left arm. The black substance was smeared around the outside of the wound. It was eerily similar to when Nathan first started to physically change- black stains on the skin around their scars and eyes, inching farther and farther every day until it consumed their image, leaving the scars as silver ribbons on their otherwise void form.

It wasn’t a good time for them. According to Jon, the transition didn’t hurt at all, but they would scrub at the black for hours and hours until the area became raw, desperate to stay human just a little longer. It was heart wrenching to watch some days, but after years of adjustment and re-learning to use their body, they reached a tentative truce with themselves.

“Jon?” Gunner tried again, hoping that the stress of the day hadn’t damaged that very truce.

“I just . . .” they gently rubbed circles on the unmarked skin just a few inches away from the wound. Gunner could spot a few eyes peeking out from under the skin, thirsty for sunlight. If he looked close, enough, he could see the ripple of the wispy, formless matter that wove around the eyes and took the place of any muscle ad bone that should be in there, a part of Jon’s real body and not the flesh container he wore.

Jon swallowed and tried again, voice crackling around the edges, “Every inch of me wants to be human so bad, but . . . it’s- it’s exhausting. I- I feel so fragile, I just . . . A little longer? For the stitches, I mean. It’s not like I can get an infection. It’s just nice to be able to See again.”

Gunner smiled, “Of course. As long as you aren’t in pain or anything.”

The caretaker instinct in Martin rebelled at the idea of leaving the wound untreated, but when it came to Jon and his eldritch tendencies, there were certain medical precautions that simply didn’t apply. Stitches wouldn’t actually be helping to heal his container, and leaving it alone isn’t about to make things worse.

Well. Without stitches the cut would definitely start to spread and chip away at the rest of the container, but that was Jon’s choice.

“No, it only hurt for a few minutes,” Several of Jon’s eyes narrowed, “And when you wiped the disinfectant on there.”

“Hush, we needed to clean the goop out. That stuff stinks after a while. And I’m going to do it again, just so you know.”

Jon whined, “My Eyes are sensitive!”

“I didn’t touch the eyes!”

“Uh,” Sasha called from the doorway, wearing a pair of Jon’s pajamas, “Am I interrupting anything?”

Gunner snapped his head over to her, “No, not really. What do you need?”

“Tim’s grabbing a shower, but we were talking about reconvening afterwards for a QnA?” She asked.

“Are you sure?” Nathan frowned, “Today was a lot, we could always talk tomorrow.”

Sasha grinned at them, “See, we got a great idea. To lighten up the mood, we’ll make it a game.”

“ . . . Game?” Nathan raised an eyebrow.

“Never Have I Ever.”

This was a horrible idea.

“Oh. That’s not such a bad idea,” Nathan mused, “Unfortunately, we don’t have any alcohol in the house.”

She shrugged, “That’s fine. It’s the spirit that counts, not the spirits.”

“Ha! We’ll be down,” Nathan waved as she descended back downstairs.

Gunner waited a moment before commenting, “Are you sure this is a good idea? It might be better just to call it a day. You look ready to clock in yourself.”

Nathan shrugged, “It won’t be long. Besides, they deserve some answers. Leaving them to sit on it won’t end well. How about you?”

“What about me?”

“Martin. Don’t think I haven’t noticed how you’re talking less than usual,” Jon leaned against him, “I would appreciate it if you told me what’s on your mind.”

Judging by the phrasing, they must have reworded the question to avoid a compulsion slipping out. They were that worried, huh? They always put a lot of effort into Martin's boundaries by avoiding Knowing things, and apparently Martin’s thoughts were quiet enough that avoiding accidental mind reading was also an option. If he wanted Jon to know something, all he had to do was focus 'loudly' on it and Jon would get the idea. It was heartwarming to know just how much effort Jon put into respecting him.

Martin took big steps to avoid accidentally isolating himself. He made a point of going to the town everyday to interact with the townsfolk, even if they were a bit odd. Some he might even call friends- not terribly close, he wouldn’t want to drag them into all of the supernatural bullshit in his life, but friends nonetheless.

“I’m still adjusting to all of this. It’s hard to talk when you don’t know what to say, you know?” Martin let himself relax, slumping around Jon’s form.

Jon hummed in agreement, burrowing their head into the crook of his neck. That was their favorite spot to snuggle.

“I mean, I don’t intentionally distance myself, not anymore,” Martin continued, “It’s just- it took a lot of time to get used to interacting with anyone from the institute after the Lonely. Even talking to Basira gets tough sometimes. I’m just . . . used to being away from all of that. All of those people.”

Jon nodded, “That’s okay. You can take your time, love. I just want you to know that I’m here for you.”

Martin smiled. He couldn’t quite work out what to say to that, so instead he focused internally on thoughts of his boyfriend, the warmth fluttering around his chest, the raw emotion of safety and comfort he felt here draped around his lover. Time and pressure had turned the flighty crush into a deep burn, a furnace that had only grown hotter and brighter without the Lonely’s pathetic attempts at dampening it.

The logistics of mind-reading were hard to get a grasp on, but Gunner had gotten used to the art of picking out specific thoughts to send and judging on how Jon snuggled even tighter they must have gotten the message.

“You are going to be the death of me,” they muttered, embarrassed, though he could hear how soft and sappy the tone was.

“Good. Better me than worms,” Martin glanced downwards, “Though, we really should clean up your arm. You got some eldritch goop on me.”

“Mph . . . Would you still love me if I were a goop monster?”

Martin smirked, “No comment,”

“Hey!”

He had to lean back to get away from Jon’s indignant squirming.

“Okay, okay!” Martin laughed, “Yes, I would. The entities are going to have to try harder than that if they want to get me away from you.”

“Don’t jinx it.”

Martin huffed, “No, seriously! I almost want to see them try. Covered in eyes? Basic. Extra limbs? All the more to hug with. It’s like they aren’t even trying!”

He doubted they would admit it, but he could feel Jon smiling into his jumper.

Martin wasn’t one for party games. Or parties in general, really.

Still, even he knew what ‘Never have I ever’ was and that was a small comfort to distract from the knowledge that his future self was probably about to spoil the next several years of his life. And that a lot of that would be super depressing.

With the adrenaline from earlier zapped away, Martin wasn’t sure he was ready to confront that baggage. Not to mention, having his older self twist the gun from his grip in mere seconds utterly destroyed whatever courage he had mustered earlier.

However, he seemed to be in the minority opinion here, as Sasha was itching for answers, Jon had recovered enough to regain that gleam in his eye, and Tim had enough enthusiasm for the whole gang.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad. When psyching everyone up to do this, Sasha had said ‘If we do something light now, we can sleep on it and have a proper conversation in the morning.’ Which, honestly, sounded like a good idea at the time.

Now Martin was twiddling his thumbs in the living room, waiting for the future doubles to come down and join them. Everyone had scavenged some kind of pajamas to wear, with Sasha in a silky nightgown, Tim in khaki pants and a tank top (how he considered that to be nightwear was a mystery), and Martin managed to find a pair of clothes he recognized so that he might feel a little less awkward.

Tim had even managed to convince Jon to change into something more comfortable than his work clothes. Though, it took a while to find anything - apparently, Nathan owned far more sweaters and far fewer button ups than Jon would like. There were plenty of woolen ponchos, too, with all sorts of eclectic designs. Thankfully, Tim was able to coax him into a well-worn band t-shirt and fleece pants.

Also thanks to Tim, Jon was currently grumpily wrapped up in a soft, clean blanket. He was clearly still trying to keep the ‘boss’ persona up, but it was a little hard to take him seriously when he was currently a human burrito. Besides, he argued less than usual, which was probably a sign that he still wasn’t doing too great and probably needed that blanket.

It was times like these that Martin really felt grateful for Tim and Sasha. Tim always seemed to pick up on when Martin was struggling with conversing and used his charisma to say what Martin was struggling to put into words. He was a people person in every way that Martin wasn’t, and never failed at lighting up the room.

Sasha was more of a silent support most of the time, giving him a smile and sliding him her notes on research procedure and the kinds of questions Jon would ask when they reconvened with the followup. Sasha was surprisingly stubborn, too- one time Martin had complained about the organization system in the archives, and Sasha took it upon herself to deliver Martin’s suggestions to Jon. She refused to back down, and Martin would always keep that moment close to his heart.

Martin’s primary form of communication involved apologies and cups of tea, so whenever Tim and Sasha just got what he really wanted to say, he couldn’t help but feel fuzzy and grateful.

Especially when it came to getting Jon bundled up in a blanket. Martin couldn’t have done it without their help.

“Anyone else need a shower?” Tim called as he plopped onto the recliner.

Sasha hummed, “I think we’re all good. Now we’re just waiting on Nathan and Gunner for some good old Never Have I Ever.”

“This is a terrible way to be informed of the future,” Jon frowned.

“Why, just because it’s casual?” Sasha challenged, “This’ll also help us get comfortable with each other.”

“Ideally, they would tell us everything chronologically so that it can make the most sense. If everything’s out of order, then we risk confusion and miscommunication.”

Tim raised an eyebrow, “And what does that say about you, Mr. ‘breaking into an attic and scavenging through random statements is a great way to spend my time’.”

Jon’s face darkened with flush, “That was- look-”

“Did Nathan mention what we could use instead of alcohol?” Martin interrupted. The events of the evening were a little too fresh to be teasing about it now.

“I don’t think so,” Sasha muttered, “Maybe we could just do tea?”

Tim shook his head, “There’s gotta be some kinda deterrent. Like alcohol’s perfect because you don’t wanna get smashed, but it’s all a good time. Tea’s just tasty.”

Sasha grinned, “Have Jon make it.”

“Hey!” Jon squawked, indignant, “I can make perfectly good tea, thank you very much.”

“Maybe in the future. Nathan’s got a good cuppa,” Tim laughed.

Martin raised his hand, “I can make it, I’ll just over steep it a little.”

“And put in an ungodly amount of sugar, that’s how Jon does it,” Sasha jeered.

Jon scowled, “I enjoy my tastebuds, thank you.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Making the tea physically hurt, but it had to be done. Martin brought the water to a harsh boil and poured it over a pitcher- there were too many people for the teapot to suffice- filled with as many of the cheapest green tea bags he could get away with. The acrid smell of burnt tea was heartbreaking, and watching it darken for far too long felt like going to a funeral. At last, Martin dumped several cups of sugar into the unholy concoction.

It was the most lethal brew Martin had ever made. There was an almost vicious pride in being able to ruin the poor tea so completely.

By the time he returned with the putrid pitcher and several mugs in hand, Nathan and Gunner had arrived at the living room. Nathan was now in an incredibly oversized hoodie as opposed to the ripped and ink stained clothes from earlier. Gunner squinted at Martin’s burden.

“What. Is that?” He glared- which, to be fair, was rightly deserved. Martin still had the countless tea bags drifting inside, so technically it was still steeping. It would only get worse with time.

Martin gave a shaky smile under his future self’s scrutinous gaze, “Tea?”

“That’s not tea. That’s poison.”

Sasha grinned, “We needed something to drink in the absence of alcohol. This is what we came up with.”

“That’s evil,” Gunner shook his head, “Intentionally ruining that much tea . . . Awful.”

Tim squinted at the tea, “I mean, it can’t be that bad. It still looks like tea.”

“One way to find out!” Sasha chirped, pouring everyone a cup, “So, we all know the rules, right? Someone says ‘never have I ever’ and if anyone’s done the thing that they haven’t then you take a sip of the crusty tea. When the mug is empty you’re out.”

Nathan nodded, “Everyone knows. Who’s starting?”

She plopped onto the couch, “I will, obviously. Never have I ever borrowed a pen or pencil.”

“That can’t be true,” Jon scowled as he took a sip.

Tim, too, lifted his glass and gagged, “Oh my god- Martin made this?!”

Martin himself regretted making this tea. The sickly sugar clung to his tongue as the charred taste slid into his throat.

Jon frowned, “It’s not that bad.”

“It’s that bad,” Nathan muttered over the rim of their own cup.

“It’s worse than bad,” Gunner groaned, “Sasha you vile, vile thing.”

Sasha snickered. She had far too much power here, “Alright, Jon, your turn.”

“I don’t see how this is supposed to help us learn anything at all.”

Tim rolled his eyes, “It’s supposed to be fun, just go with it!”

“Ah. Fine . . .” Jon fidgeted, “Never have I ever . . . been to a school formal?”

Nobody reached for a cup.

“Jon,” Tim sighed, “We’re all gay and ace. The chances of any of us going to a school dance are lower than the floor.”

“Wait- all of us are ace?” Jon blinked.

Martin nodded along.

“Demiromantic,” Sasha volunteered.

“I’m somewhere on the scale, dunno the exact label,” Tim shrugged.

Jon let out a small ‘oh’, and Martin found himself smiling at the sight.

“Anyways, my turn!” Tim leaned forwards, “Never have I ever gone on a date in Scotland.”

“Fuck you, this game is rigged,” Gunner muttered, choking down another sip of the nasty tea.

Nathan hummed, “Actually, it kind of is. Being in the future, we’re naturally gonna have more experiences than the rest of you.”

Sasha winked, “That’s the point! Martin, your turn.”

“Uh,” Luckily, the process of making the tea had given Martin plenty of time to think of some good prompts, “Never have I ever had an encounter with a non-Spiral monster.”

“Damn,” Tim muttered, taking a drink.

Everyone dejectedly took their penance with the tea, and after a moment Martin did a double take, “Wait- Jon? I thought Helen was your first encounter too,”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Jon snapped.

“It was a Leitner,” Nathan answered.

The two took a moment to look at each other, Jon with a glare and Nathan with a nonplussed but eerie smile.

Sasha coughed, “Nathan? Your turn.”

Nathan looked around the room, and it suddenly occurred to Martin that they could easily know everything about everyone in the room. For all of the talk of a rigged game, that seemed like a pretty unfair advantage. They turned their glance towards Gunner, eyes mischivous.

“Oh, don’t you dare,” Gunner’s eyes narrowed, “You don’t want to play this game. I could end you, Jonathan Sims.”

“Actually, I think it’s ‘Nathan’ for the moment.”

“Nathan. Don’t. If you target me, I won’t hesitate-”

Nathan’s face curled into a coy smile, “Never have I ever fired a gun.”

Gunner scowled and took another sip. Martin paused over his own cup, wondering if attempting to fire a gun counted, but he never got the chance to ask because Gunner immediately slammed the mug down.

“Never have I ever had less than twenty-four ribs.” He pointed accusingly.

“Okay, that was uncalled for-”

“I tried to warn you-”

Tim held up his hands in a cross, “Okay, time out. Sorry to interrupt the couple banter, but just one little thing? Excuse me? What the fuck happened to your ribs.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Nathan said once they had finished their sip, “You wanted to hear the rib story, right?”

The rib story? Martin’s eyes drifted towards the bone on the mantle place.

“Yeah. It’s mine.” Nathan explained.

There were a few beats of silence.

“. . . That’s it?!” Jon exclaimed, “That’s all you have to say on that?!”

Nathan shrugged, “I asked Jared Hopworth to remove a rib for me and he took one as payment. The story will get a lot longer if I try to keep explaining.”

Sasha frowned, “. . . Can you at least tell us why you wanted a rib removed?”

They tapped their lip in thought, “When dealing with the supernatural, there’s a concept called ‘anchors’. Things that ground you to reality, identity, and humanity. When you’re in a malicious domain, you need some kind of anchor to focus on in order to clear your head to escape.”

“Alright, so it was a safety precaution. Is that why you still have it?” Sasha nodded along as the tension began to drain out of the room.

“Oh no, the rib is a horrible anchor, it didn’t even work,” Nathan snorted, “It turns out focusing on my own detached rib isn’t exactly very grounding. I didn’t realize metaphysical anchors were a thing at the time. It all worked out though, and it’s a neat keepsake.”

That . . . sounded like a horrible keepsake.

“Can’t believe you went through all of that for a murderous cop,” Gunner huffed.

“. . . Daisy isn’t that bad-”

“Daisy would agree with me!”

“Anymore! I was going to say ‘anymore’, I still don’t forgive her but-”

Sasha cleared her throat, “Alright, my turn. Never have I ever had my tonsils removed.”

Gunner made a face as he took another sip, “This isn’t fair. I think I’ve gotten nearly every one so far.”

Martin quietly took a sip of the tea in solidarity- his tonsils were removed when he was rather young, but there wasn’t much of a story behind it. Tim, too, took a sip.

Interestingly, Nathan reached for the cup, paused, and retracted their arm.

“I saw that,” Tim called out, “You got a bad case of strep after fighting some monster?”

They shook their head, “No, I just realized that it wasn’t my tonsils. Sorry, got the organs confused.”

“You had more things removed from your body?” Jon muttered, horrified. To be honest, Martin was starting to feel a bit horrified himself.

“I mean, it’s not that weird, people get removal surgeries all of the time-”

Gunner rolled his eyes, “I think I know what you’re talking about, and it definitely wasn’t normal.”

“Spill,” Sasha prompted.

“It was his vocal chords,” Gunner supplied, “This was way after the rib, by the way. He was . . . for lack of a better word, ‘cursed’, and wouldn’t be able to talk so we just tracked down Jared again and had him remove them. There’s a lot more to unpack there, but honestly rituals are a discussion for another day. Especially that one.”

“It’s okay, I had them replaced,” Nathan reassured.

Tim raised an eyebrow, “With what? Other vocal chords? You sound pretty much the same.”

“Oh, no- with a tape recorder.”

Every new thing Martin learned about the future was more and more baffling than the last.

Sasha’s brow was furrowed, “How does that even work? The logistics of implanting a tape recorder into your throat . . . couldn’t you have just replaced it with actual vocal chords, like Tim suggested?”

“Organ tissue is easy for all sorts of supernatural forces to manipulate,” Nathan explained, “It would have been all too easy to be lured into the same . . . ‘Curse’ again. Mechanical things are much harder to manipulate- polaroids and tape especially. Only the Eye is capable of manipulating those, and even then you can always turn off the tape.”

“Prove it,” Jon squinted.

Martin suppressed a groan. He was really hoping Jon had given up on the whole suspicion thing.

“ . . . Excuse me?”

“You can’t just expect us to believe whatever you say, no matter how bizarre,” Jon crossed his arms, “Tape recorders are designed to replay previously recorded messages, not converse in real time-”

Nathan rolled their eyes and opened their mouth, a perfect replica of Tim’s voice coming out with a crackle, “Did you just admit to being a monsterfucker?”

Jon blinked in response while Gunner groaned, “Why that out of all of the quotes you could have done?”

“It was funny,” Nathan smirked, “Besides, Tim’s right anyways.”

Tim snorted, “Ha!”

“Shut your mouth-!”

Nathan’s expression suddenly soured as they looked back at Jon, “Before you say anything about impressions . . .”

Their mouth continued to move, but the sounds that came out were distinctly not words. Footsteps, sharp and distinct against what sounded like wood. A shuffling of papers and a creak of the door.

“Woah,” Martin breathed.

Tim whistled, “That’s a hell of a party trick.”

“I- I mean,” Nathan flushed a bit, “It’s- I don’t do it often, if that’s what you mean.”

“You should,” Gunner grinned, turning to everyone else, “When he was first trying to figure out how to manipulate it, he could only replay inanimate noises, and along with a little sign language that’s how we talked for a solid month.”

“Hey-!”

Gunner laughed, a surprisingly hearty sound, “It was cute! I mean, frustrating at times, yeah, but seeing you make wind chime noises at your plants was adorable.”

Nathan failed at trying to hide a smile and began embarrassedly chuckling along as the room lapsed into a comfortable silence.

The light atmosphere didn’t seem to reach Jon, who had been sitting still for a while now.

“Jon?” Sasha prompted gently, “Your turn.”

The suspicious gleam in his eye was back, “Never have I ever gouged someone’s eyes out.”

“Jesus-” Tim balked.

Both Nathan and Gunner took a gulp.

“I knew it-”

Gunner wiped his mouth, “Not even mad about that one. I’d do it again.”

“Jonah deserved it,” Nathan squinted towards the tinted jar on the mantle. Martin swore he saw the eyes moving from within and promptly decided that he was not going to think about it.

There was a moment before the name association caught up and Jon flinched, “You gouged out Elias’ eyes?!”

“Jonah,” Nathan stressed, “He body hopped by replacing people’s eyes with his own.”

“Yeah, technically Jonah already gouged out Elias’ eyes and we just un-gouged them,” Gunner added.

“O-Okay, but- was that really necessary?” Jon sputtered, “That- that seems a bit . . . excessive. And gorey.”

Nathan shrugged, “It was a way to remove him without triggering any of the other curses the Institute has in place. Besides, Elias thanked me later.”

“. . . Elias, the ‘long dead’ host to Jonah Magnus?” Sasha questioned.

Gunner leaned back, “Oh yeah, that was weird. Apparently the Buried already had a hold on him before he got Jonah-snatched and used as a container, and the Entities are known to bypass the whole ‘death’ thing, so the whole time he was dead the Buried was just holding onto him. Scared the hell out of us when he woke up as we were trying to bury the body.”

“I hear he has a successful weed shop now,” Nathan mused.

Tim groaned, “How the hell am I supposed to follow up on that?”

“You can do it, Tim,” Martin reached over to give him a pat.

“Okay, okay . . .” Tim rubbed his temples, “Idea time . . .”

Sasha snorted, “Don’t hurt yourself.”

“I get ideas! Just hang on . . .”

Martin spared another glance at Jon. It was hard to tell with the blanket, but he appeared to be shaking.

He faked a cough, “Ahem- um, guys? Maybe we should call it a day. I think we’re all pretty beat.”

“Ugh, you’re right,” Tim dropped his arms dramatically, “My brain is fried. Can’t think of a single thing.”

Gunner looked morosely down towards his cup, “I think it’s fair to say I lost.”

Nathan swirled around some of the remaining liquid with a thoughtful expression, “You know, it would be a shame to waste all of this tea.”

“You can’t possibly be thinking of finishing it-?” Martin gasped.

“No, of course not,” Nathan smiled and stood up and crossed the room. With a fluid motion, they twisted off the top of the eye jar and dumped the disgusting tea into the eyeball jar.

They screwed the top on, still smiling pleasantly, and spoke with a sickly sweet tone, “That’s for using my mind and body like an eldritch bingo card, you Victorian piece of shit.”

“So,” Gunner turned to the group before anyone could respond to whatever the hell that statement was supposed to be, “How’d you solve the bedding situation, anyways?”

There was a short pause.

Martin felt his cheeks flush, “Well, uh-”

“We’re all sharing the bed,” Sasha answered for him.

“Oh, nice. Try not to fall off.”

There was just barely enough room on the bed for all of them, though it would be a squish. They all agreed that a stressful day meant that nobody deserved to take the couch or sleeping bag tonight. Martin had conceded, but returning to the idea did make him a little embarrassed. His mother never let him crawl into her bed after a nightmare, always said he was too clingy. Hopefully he wouldn’t make it too awkward.

Well, they had discussed boundaries on contact and such and everyone seemed alright with the arrangement- even Jon, surprisingly- so it probably wouldn’t be too bad.

“W-We’ll do our best,” Martin offered a weak smile.

Chapter Text

Jon didn’t think he would be able to sleep tonight.

This in it of itself was not a fairly uncommon thing. Uni gave him horrible insomnia, and his sleep schedule never fully recovered.

Now, though, no matter how exhausted and sluggish his mind was, he could only stare at the ceiling of a small cottage far in the future of the flat he was accustomed to. Was someone else living there, he wondered, going through their day to day business now that Nathan wasn’t around?

The group had collectively decided that Jon would be sandwiched into the middle of the bed along with Martin, the designated heat source of them all. They had just barely managed to squeeze onto the bed by squishing together, Jon himself caught between Martin and Sasha with Tim clinging to Martin, somehow managing to reach over and hold onto Jon’s arm as well.

It was one big net of limbs and warmth, and it was incredibly unprofessional. He really shouldn’t be sinking into the contact like he was- The Institute might be run by an eldritch fear god, but he was still their boss and there were rules. It would be an abuse of power to keep them in this situation.

. . . Except, they were all asleep, and Jon had lost the energy needed to argue with all three of them. The sensation of touch left a pleasant hum on his skin, far more intoxicating than it should have been. It was like basking under the gentle warmth of the sun, letting radiation soak through skin and bone and straight to his heart. He had expected to lie there begrudgingly through the night, but he hadn’t expected to find it pleasant.

It was, frankly, rather startling. Jon was never one for close contact, it wasn’t like him to lean into touch. Especially not with so many people. It was hardly appropriate.

Despite it all, it wasn't actually an unpleasant experience. The cabin had cooled down significantly at night, so the extra warmth was welcome. If Jon had the mental capacity for critical thought at the moment, he might have been aware of a smaller, denser ball of warmth tucked away into the center of his chest.

As it stood, his thoughts were sluggish and sticky, like his brain melted into molasses.

What did rise to the surface of his mind was echoes, the barest imprint of words and memories whispering around the back of his head. Whispering that sounded vaguely like Helen.

Nothing good ever happens to the people you drag down with you.

You don’t know anything, do you?

Everyone is destined to hate you!

He shouldn’t even be listening to it. Nathan had said the Spiral was the fear of lies-

She was already replaced by the time I got here. Dead and gone and nobody noticed.

That was a lie. Jon would never forget Sasha, he refused-

Tim really stole the show with how he died. . . Dramatic and grisley . . .

It was messing with him, he knew it-

I don’t appreciate shapeshifters looking like my dead friends.

Jon didn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it, he would never- he wouldn’t-

They couldn’t get hurt-

They were going to get hurt-

The cold pang in his stomach froze the thought, as lethargic as it was, in place. Ice was spreading through his veins, grabbing hold of his lungs and seeping into his heart, digging the frozen claws into his form.

Sasha and Tim were going to die. They were going to die soon and in pain and the very thought sank into Jon’s chest and ripped, dragging it’s venomous tendrils through him until it was the consuming his thoughts.

They were going to die. They were going to die and it was going to be his fault.

Poor, poor Martin . . . Would you like to know what happened to him?

What was going to happen to Martin? The question burned, searing his throat and skull. What did he do to Martin?

What did he do to himself?

Trying to calm down was a moot point- any attempts at rationalization were dissolved in seconds, words unwinding and losing form the moment they formed.

Fine- He tried telling himself, Safe-

The churning static in his mind didn’t seem to care.

Pins were holding his limbs in place, tense and locked tight against himself.

He couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think-

A soft, circular motion on his arm brought Jon back to the present, the movement now burningly hot on his icy limb.

“Jon?” a voice muttered from the other side of Martin, “Jon, are you okay? You’re shaking.”

Jon opened his mouth to bite back at Tim that yes he was fine, but found that his throat refused to make a recognizable noise.

“Hey, it’s okay. Deep breaths.” Tim was sitting up, still holding him steady.

“Mph?” Martin made a small sound next to them.

God, he was waking them up-

There was a movement on his other side, “Jon? Hey, calm down, it’s okay-”

Warmth bloomed once again along his body, thawing the ice under his skin. They were hugging him, and wherever they touched the fear began to melt away. Jon felt a choked noise make its way out of his mouth, tears weighing heavy on his eyes.

“Are you alright? What happened?” Martin rumbled softly, and Jon marveled for a moment at how he could feel the vibrations in his chest.

“I-” Jon rasped out, sounds still grating on his throat like sandpaper before he snapped, “Nothing. Sorry.”

Tim frowned, “That was clearly someth-”

“What Tim means to say,” Sasha cut in, “Is that if you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine.”

“Nothing . . . important,” Jon clarified, feeling a spark of irritation and humiliation at having to struggle against his own voice box.

“It was clearly important to you if it made you upset,” Tim huffed, “Seriously, I could do this all night.”

Jon didn’t have the energy for a scowl, “S-Sorry for waking you up. It won’t happen again.”

“It’s really alright, Jon,” Martin gave him a soft smile, nervously inching away from the hug. Jon was made painfully aware of the absence by the cool air that took his place, but he kept himself from reaching out.

“Yeah, I wasn’t asleep anyways,” Tim added.

“You . . . weren’t?”

Tim shrugged, “It was a long day. I haven’t even processed ‘time traveller doppelgangers’ yet, how am I supposed to do ‘beehive man’ or ‘apparently black blood is normal around here’?”

Jon blinked, “Do I want to know?”

“Oh, right,” Sasha winced, “We still gotta catch you two up. Uh- Apparently, bee people are a thing. But it’s not always bees, sometimes it’s worms.”

“Like Jane Prentiss?” Jon dully recalled a few statements regarding the maggoty woman.

Sasha nodded, “I think so? Apparently you kill them with fire extinguishers. Anyways, there was a bee one that Nathan and Gunner were supposed to kill. It was some poor woman’s husband.”

“I’m glad I got vacuum duty, I don’t think I got a good look at the guy but I got plenty of evil wasps.”

“Fire extinguisher didn’t work,” Sasha continued, “And the Hive ran off after Gunner shot at it. I think it ran into Nathan?”

Tim shuddered, “Yeah, ‘ran into’ is one way to put it. So yeah, apparently Nathan has black blood and a false skin? Like, they’re literally an eyeball void wrapped up in skin. Apparently.”

“Oh,” Martin murmured, “That’s . . . uh. Spooky.”

Jon made a noncommittal sound. Now that he had calmed down, it felt as though his nerves were fuzzy and whatever was supposed to be making connections in his brain had finally given up. There was probably an important association to be had here, but his brain was too muddled to see it. He would probably snap back to himself in the morning, but for now bee people and eye people might as well happen.

Tim nodded, “Yeah . . . How about you guys? Nathan gave us the footnotes.”

“W-Well, not- not much, actually. Just- Just Helen. Yeah.” Martin smiled, cheeks gaining a rosy tint.

Sasha laughed, soft and bright, “What, no B&E? No smashing eyeball jars? Nothing exciting at all?”

They never mentioned breaking the jar, did they?

Martin seemed to catch that as well, “H-How- How do you-?”

“Told you,” Tim snorted, “Nathan gave us the footnotes.”

That was concerning. Or, it should have been concerning. All of the tension had left Jon’s body by now, and the world was starting to fade in and out of view as drowsiness crept into his consciousness.

Trying to focus on the conversation around him felt like a herculean task now that the adrenaline dissipated. The people around him were little more than blobs of color and emotion and warmth in his mind’s eye, and he found himself sinking into the depths, their soft voices curling around him and lulling him into the slumber that had previously evaded him.

Dully, he noticed the start of a headache forming at his temples and yet he found it hard to bring himself to care. Waking up would be a problem for future Jon to deal with.

“I think Jon passed out,”

“Yeah,” Tim agreed, looking over the man’s sleeping form, still splayed on top of him from the group hug, “He didn’t say a thing about ‘propriety’ or ‘professionalism’ the entire night, I think Helen hit his head or something.”

Martin fidgeted, “P-Please don’t joke about that, I’m- I’m really worried about him. Whatever Helen did hurt him bad . . .”

Tim took in Martin’s tense and furrowed face and allowed his own expression to soften, “Yeah . . . I know. I’m worried, too.”

Not once had Tim ever expected to see Jon this vulnerable. Fragile. He always surrounded himself with a maze of barbs that Tim had grown used to navigating. It never occurred to him just how flimsy those walls and barbs were.

Seeing Nathan, seeing Jon, skin torn and festering with some supernatural ooze . . . Well. Tim was tired of watching people he loved ripped away from him by things he couldn’t understand, let alone control. It also happened to be the first time it really sunk in just how small Jon was- Nathan was far lighter than Tim had expected, which could easily have been from the whole skin suit situation, but it was hard to imagine Jon being that much better. The man was so lanky and thin that a stiff breeze would blow him over.

Tim adjusted himself to support Jon’s head a little better. Amongst the four of them, Jon was practically swamped by the blankets and limbs. It would have been cute if Tim hadn’t been preoccupied with mortality at the moment.

“No more splitting up,” Sasha decided firmly.

And she had been face to face with the Hive, hadn't she? Tim was firmly not thinking about what would happen if she had gotten stung.

“No more splitting up,” Martin echoed in agreement.

For as worried as Martin was about Jon, Tim kept thinking about when they arrived back at the cottage and, god, Martin just looked so scared-

Tim nodded, hoping the movement would clear the image from his head, “The Archives crew sticks together.”

He wouldn’t let them deal with monsters alone anymore.

“Tomorrow I am not going to leave this cabin,” Sasha continued her declaration, “I’ll just ask Gunner for his phone or something to do research on, I’m perfectly fine here.”

Martin nodded, “I-I might look through some of the books they have. There might be some useful information there. M-Maybe a monster encyclopedia?”

“Good call,” Tim hummed, “Might be useful to know how to handle these things.”

Tim was now sure that he trusted Nathan and Gunner, but it was clear that they didn’t feel comfortable sharing everything. He could respect that, but it wasn’t going to stop him from hunting down the answers himself.

“Alright, plan time,” Sasha grinned, “We meet up for the spooky lecture, then afterwards we take over the living room. I’ll handle the future research, maybe ask Jon to help out, and you two tackle the books.”

They fell into a soft, agreeing silence. Tim took a moment to look back at Jon, who had crashed in a position that barely looked comfortable. Still, judging by how the creases in his face softened, there must be something enjoyable about it.

“I think this is the most peaceful I’ve ever seen him,” Tim mused.

Sasha let out a small huff, “Yeah, too bad it only came after a panic attack.”

“Small victories,” Tim tilted his head a little, smiling, “He’s kinda cute when he’s not scowling.”

Martin’s eye widened, “I-I- well, I- you c-could say that-”

“Yeah,” Sasha nodded, “He’s kinda like a disgruntled cat. Angry but cute.”

“Right?!”

“Y-yeah . . .” Martin trailed off.

Sasha blinked, “Sorry- we aren’t making you uncomfortable are we, Martin?”

His face had turned rosy, “I-I mean, as- as long as you aren’t . . . making fun of me?”

“Why would we be making fun of you?” Tim frowned, “I mean, I’m not good with romantic stuff, but I think I can get where your crush is coming from.”

Sasha hummed, “Same. We wouldn’t make fun of you for that.”

Martin’s flush deepened as he rubbed the back of his neck, “T-Thanks . . . He is. Cute, I mean.”

“You’re so right, Marto,” Tim gave him a soft pat.

“Y-You should have seen Jon earlier,” Martin mumbled, “Apparently, Nathan can- can read minds. Jon found this out and- and thought that the best way to fix it . . . was to scream. In his thoughts.”

“Oh my god.”

Sasha pursed her lips, “Maybe not the best method, but I think he’s got the right idea.”

Tim turned towards her, face slack, “Sash, please, please tell me you aren’t seriously considering screaming your thoughts at Nathan.”

“Well, not Nathan,” Sasha amended, “But we have to go back to the past sometime. If Elias can read minds . . . Well, I might just change my playlist to something a little more jarring.”

Tim lit up, “Hang on, you think if we blast 100 gecs in the Archives, Elias will just leave us alone?”

“One way to find out.”

Martin let out a startled laugh before clapping a hand over his mouth and glancing down towards Jon. Once he saw there was no sign of disturbance, he huffed out a smaller laugh, “You know, I kind of thought Jon would be a light sleeper with how skittish he can be.”

Sasha scoffed, “I doubt he sleeps enough to have the luxury of interrupting it.”

“Yeah . . .” Martin frowned, “I wish he would take better care of himself, you know?”

Tim sighed, “Your guess at trying to convince him to do that is as good as mine. He’s been like this since Research, probably before the institute too.”

“When we get back to the past, we are definitely dragging Jon on a vacation,” Sasha slumped back down onto the bed.

Martin smiled, “Y-Yeah, maybe somewhere cozy . . .”

“Scotland” Tim suggested.

“God, yes . . .”

Tim laid down and listened to the sounds of nightlife outside of the cabin as the conversation puttered out. He probably still wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight, but that was fine. That gave him plenty of time to think. And take another rein check on his priorities.

Priority one. Learn as much as he can about the Circus and how to kill the freaks that skinned his brother. When he gets back to the past, he’ll be done waiting.

Priority two. Nothing is going to hurt Sasha, Jon, or Martin again. He should have known that messing around with the supernatural was bound to get dangerous- if anything spooky so much as looks at one of his friends, they won’t be leaving with their eyeballs intact.

Speaking of which . . . Priority three. Find Helen. From what he’s heard of her, she wouldn’t have gone far from the excitement. Tim wasn’t dumb- blindly chasing aster her would end very poorly. But that’s why learning about monsters was Priority one. Once he Knows what makes her tick, how to take her apart piece by piece, she’s going to regret hurting Jon.

Priority four. Find a way to quit and live someplace where he won’t have to worry about this supernatural bullshit. He still wasn’t sure what job he’d get next- maybe start reporting for a small town newspaper? Tim did enjoy a little gossip.

Priority five. Take Sasha, Jon, and Martin kayaking. They could all use a day on the water, nothing but them and nature. Maybe watch the stars- the London sky had too much light pollution, proper stargazing had to be done away from all of that. Jon seemed like he would like that, and Tim knew for a fact that Sasha had a constellation phase as a kid. He would eat his shoe if Martin didn’t romanticize pretty things like stars and nebulas. It would be great.

Yeah . . . That sounded like a plan.

“To the left, to the left-! No, other left!”

“There’s only one left!”

“Go right, then!”

“You’re omniscient, how do you not know left and right?!”

Nathan rolled his eyes, “This should be good. Swing on three?”

“Right.” Gunner huffed.

“One . . . Two . . . Three!”

With one large heft, the body of the flesh hive plummeted into the Pitch. Nathan let out a groan of relief, barely holding back a stumble as the strain from carrying that carcass left their body. It took only moments before they gripped Gunner’s hand.

“Why was it so heavy, anyways?” Gunner grumbled, “Was it all the bees?”

Nathan frowned at the Knowledge leaking into their head, “I don’t think you want to know.”

“Lovely.”

Nathan carefully tugged Gunner away from the densest part of the Pitch and through their inky surroundings. It had shown up a few years ago- a spontaneous domain of the Dark, manifesting in the form of a sort of chamber of darkness. Humans would wander around for the rest of their life, never knowing what was in front of their face until the sensory deprivation drove them insane. Nathan thought it was an interesting choice- a blend of Dark, Vast, and Spiral that they had only just figured out how to seal up.

Luckily, it was also a convenient place for getting rid of monster remains. No matter how you kill a monster, there was always some sort of supernatural effect left in whatever remains of them. The ashes of Jane Prentiss needed occasional re-cremating because they would spot wriggling maggots emerging from the ash. At the very least, tossing all of the contaminated things into a domain will allow them to be absorbed by the influence of another Entity.

“Remind me why we had to do this all tonight? It’s got to be, like, three AM by now.”

“Four twenty-four,” Nathan corrected, “Bella is planning on returning home in the morning and part of the agreement was that we would handle whatever’s left of her husband.”

“But right now?”

“. . . I would have done it earlier, but I forgot.”

Gunner sighed, “Right, right . . . Better Dark than Lonely.”

“Anything would be better than the lonely,” Nathan muttered, “The Fog made my hair too frizzy.”

Gunner laughed a little as Nathan continued, “I can get the lights in a moment here . . .”

The Dark could never completely obscure their sight these days, but bringing in too much Sight too close to the heart would completely destroy the domain. As good as that would be for locals, Nathan found that the supernatural was never quite so simple. Some other evil would just move in to fill in the gaps, or the Dark would create a similar domain somewhere far out of the Archivist’s reach.

“Alright, this should be enough distance,” Nathan took in a breath and pushed on their Gaze, bringing it into the physical world. The Dark began to clear the space around the two of them, allowing the ground and debris around to be visible.

Gunner looked over at them, “You know, your eyes are beautiful when you do that.”

“Ah yes,” Nathan said dryly, “The inherent beauty of evil eldritch eyeballs.”

“They are! I swear, anyone in the world would find glowing eyes beautiful,” Gunner declared.

Nathan glanced down at their arm, where a soft glow was breaking through the veil of their sweater, “Even these eyes?”

“Yes.” Gunner affirmed, “Even those. Don’t give me that look- you’re allowed to be beautiful, eldritch influence or no.”

“Heartwarming. It’s still concerning that you find arm eyeballs attractive.”

“I find you attractive,” Gunner stressed.

Nathan raised an eyebrow, “My point exactly.”

“Oh, hush!”

The dark began to thin as they approached the edge of the domain. About time, too- Nathan’s leg was killing him, and the only reason he was even standing right now was because Gunner made a very nice brace. It was almost unfair how that mark manifested- After the Unknowing, the only part of him that hadn't regenerated from the explosion was the leg, and the pain followed him even when his body morphed into something unrecognizable and legs were optional. It even followed him into his container, despite Angela’s best efforts. It was as if the End was purposefully taunting him with a ‘one foot in the grave’ pun everywhere he went.

Nathan was very tired of the Entity’s sense of humor.

“Alright, let’s see,” Gunner muttered, pulling out the checklist, “Leaf blower . . . check . . . Body . . . check . . . Wallpaper . . . check . . . We should tell her not to sleep in that bed, but otherwise I think that’s everything.”

Nathan nodded, “She hasn’t slept in that bed for months. She should be fine.”

“Right. Why didn’t the fire extinguisher work?” Gunner asked.

“Well, it did,” Nathan frowned, “The thing is, the Corruption decided to bring the Hive back.”

“That’s . . . Bad.”

Nathan nodded grimly, “This isn’t just a Scotland problem, either. Avatars in America, Africa, Asia- they’re all developing far too fast, growing a stronger connection faster. Getting harder to kill,” Nathan sighed, “It’s . . . I can’t look too close, but I have an idea.”

Gunner gestured for them to continue.

“Right . . .” Nathan chewed the inside of their cheek, “I think you were right about the latent ritual. You may have stopped me from completing it, but- but it’s still in effect.”

Gunner groaned, “Fuck. There goes our one big victory.”

“It’s not- We aren’t in danger of an apocalypse, I don’t think. But the Entities are still too close to the physical world for my comfort,” Nathan rubbed their neck.

“Okay . . . Okay,” Gunner grimaced, “So, the Entities have been building up a stronger influence with beefier avatars and domains, and they’re, what, pressing on the glass? Are they going to try to break through or something?”

There was an itch in their brain when the knowledge refused to come, “I don’t know. I can’t look too close at the veil- As far as I could tell, the Entities still need me to complete the ritual and actually arrive here. I brought them here but I still have to open the door to let them in. Supernatural encounters are going to keep growing more common, but I think . . . I think it’ll level out. Reach a point where it’ll stabilize. Eventually.”

Gunner had a contemplative look in his eye, “And . . . What does this mean for Avatars that already have strong connections and stuff? You know, like Simon.”

Like you, Gunner didn’t say.

“I . . . I don’t know. I think- I think the worst that could happen is that we can expect to see more stage four avatars? Nothing’s happened yet, at least,” Nathan offered.

Gunner nodded, “That . . . could be worse, all things considered . . . Hell of a day. Time Travelers, Hives, Helen, and global cosmic threats . . .”

“I don’t even have a plan for today’s breakfast,” Nathan pouted.

“I’ve got it, if you want to sleep in,” Gunner offered.

Nathan blinked, “What? No-”

Gunner gave their hand a squeeze, “Well, you just got up early. Sleep in today, I’ve got things covered. I can answer questions and cook breakfast.”

“You don’t know how to cook,” Nathan stated incredulously.

“Rude. I can cook scrambled eggs,” Gunner smiled, “Well? What do you say, darling? Breakfast in bed?”

Damn him, pulling out a pet name and that smile.

“Fine, fine . . .” Nathan conceded, “Just this once.”

Gunner had a smirk that said that it was most certainly not ‘just this once’.

When they finally broke through the last traces of the Dark and reached the small pile where they had left their supplies. Nathan greedily snatched up his staff- it wasn’t the best walking aid by any means, its height made it difficult to distribute weight correctly, but it did its job.

“I’ve been thinking,” Gunner mused as he put on his bag, “Why did you stop making all of those little tape recorder noises?”

Nathan huffed, “If I can talk like a human, I might as well do it.”

Gunner raised an eyebrow, “I mean, humans make all sorts of weird noises. You’ve just got range,” Nathan let out a small snort as Gunner continued, “You said sounds were easier than voices, right? Maybe give yourself a break from time to time.”

That was a bad idea. Sounds were easy, alright- too easy. It took more conscious thought than Nathan would like to admit to stop themself from letting the tape that weaved around their throat to bend into inhuman sounds. Old habits die hard, and the thought of slipping up, of revealing themself to be anything less than human-

“I’m used to voices now,” Nathan said instead, “It’s no big deal.”

Gunner squinted, unconvinced, “Alright, just . . . You know I support you no matter how human or spooky you act, right? If you want to make little recorder noises then make those noises.”

. . . He did want to make those noises, sometimes. There was just something intrinsically different about making a humanoid groan versus the low, droning groan of a tree about to topple over, fibers splitting and snapping. Something more resonant and complex, allowing the warm buzz to drift from his lips as smooth as breathing.

Voices were far from that kind of ease. Even Knowing how the vocal cords bent to form these noises did nothing to translate that into the warping of tape. If Nathan hadn’t been so bloody stubborn, he would have given up on sounding like himself entirely. He even set up recordings to play back when speaking in real time began to grate along the tape. “Hello,” and “How are you?” in neutral tones, innocuous enough to use in any environment. It was flat and expressionless and sometimes he forgot how to differentiate English sounds with sounds from other languages but it was human and that was good enough.

They worked hard to get this far. They should be enjoying it, not sulking about it. This was progress. This was good for them.

. . . If only progress weren’t so exhausting. Nathan had been trying to go into town more often lately, but found that after an hour or two of smalltalk their concentration would waiver, thinking about the words coming out of their own mouth and the mouths around them grew dizzying. They even got into a bad habit of repeating words from other people.

A break, no matter how undeserved, would be nice.

“I . . . I’ll think about it.”

“That’s all I can ask for,” Gunner smiled and gave his hand a squeeze, “Now, I’m dead tired. Let’s deal with the universe tomorrow.”

Chapter Text

Sasha was out of bed bright and early, ready to take on the future. It just so happened that Tim beat her to being the first one awake.

“Tim?” She asked, keeping her voice low so as not to disturb the other two, still sleeping, “You aren’t one to get up early. How did you sleep?”

“‘How?’ Well, first I lie down, then I close my eyes-”

“Tim.”

Tim smirked, “I slept fine. Well, probably not as well as those two dorks.”

It was a diversion tactic and Sasha damn well knew it, but that didn’t stop her from following his gesture towards Jon and Martin, curling around each other on the bed and looking utterly peaceful.

“Wow,” Sasha crossed her arms, “Still think they’re gonna be dense after this?”

Tim hummed a little, “Honestly, I’m not sure. I mean, how oblivious do you have to be to literally see your future self dating your crush and still not ask ‘em out?”

“At least as oblivious as one Timothy Stoker.”

“Hey!”

Sasha raised an eyebrow, “I had to be the one to tell you that these two dorks were crushing on each other. Tim, sweetie, you are one of the most oblivious people I know.”

“I’ll have you know, I already figured that out on my own-”

“You thought I was dating Dave,” Sasha tossed him a deadpan look, “You know, only the most sexist man in research. I still have standards, you know.”

Tim grinned sheepishly, “Yeah, uh, that was . . . Not one of my better moments.”

Sasha patted him on the shoulder with a smile. Tim, as charismatic as he was, had a massive blind spot when it came to romantic relationships. She could relate, since she never really got crushes, but sometimes it got truly absurd. Feeling the need to be included in the office gossip, Tim would make truly ridiculous matches just to stay in the breakroom conversation.

“I mean- This time, in my defense-” Tim began, “It was still jarring actually seeing those two together. Jon’s just so Jon and Martin’s so Martin you’d think it would be a complete disaster.”

“. . . Yeah, fair,” Sasha was instantly reminded of how she still had no idea how far they actually were in the future. She was itching to start snooping.

She grinned as she tugged on Tim’s arm, “C’mon, let’s get to it.”

There was an odd stillness in the cabin that wasn’t there the morning before. Sasha looked around the drowsy cottage, lit only from the light drifting in from the windows. The kitchen was empty.

“You think Nathan and Gunner are still asleep?” Tim mused.

“Probably,” Sasha pouted. She was really hoping to get that phone, but she wasn’t quite desperate enough to steal it and hack her way in while he was asleep. Not yet, “I guess future google will have to wait. Anything else we could do?”

Tim rubbed his chin, “Attic’s open, right? Maybe we could find the photos of Nathan that Gunner mentioned.”

It wasn’t as informative as Sasha would like, but it would pass the time at least.

The last time she was in the attic, Sasha was helping Tim carry out a delirious Jon. It was nice to have a moment to really take in the place. Not that there was much to really look at- all the papers, shelves, and boxes made it look like your regular old storage space.

“Weird place,” Tim muttered, “Wonder if they have any cursed artifacts lying around?”

Sasha gave him a teasing shove, “In their house? They’re too smart for that.”

“If you say so,” Tim snickered.

“I do say so, thank you,” Sasha sniffed, “Now, it’s photo time. Spot any picture frames? Any albums on the shelf?”

Tim took a few steps towards the center of the room, spinning around, “Uh, not really? Hard to see anything in this mess.”

Sasha hummed in agreement. She was careful to step around the papers and not on them- there was a slight prickle in the back of her neck, and she was hoping not to deal with any more supernatural encounters for one day.

“Guess we start digging then,” Sasha hummed.

“You know, you can almost see where Jon and Martin were poking around,” Tim pointed out, “Looks like they rummaged around the trunks a bit.”

“Good a place to start as any.”

It was very hard to ignore the chest that had been chained and locked up in favor of the one that was already open. Sasha was aghast at the clutter in the chest- tools and books and a sloppily arranged first aid kit with contents spilling throughout the rest of the chest- but, luckily, it seemed that Jon and Martin beat them to finding the photos. Even if all of the polaroids were scattered recklessly about the trunk.

Trying to spot monster photos was like searching for a needle in a haystack. Some photos were seemingly old and worn, with smudges or other kinds of damage on them, though most looked disappointingly average. Sasha was able to spot several photos of Nathan and Gunner, but nothing really spooky.

Sasha pouted, “Why do they have so many polaroids anyways? Seems impractical, especially if you’re just going to scatter them around haphazardly. Nobody could find anything in this mess.”

“I mean, didn’t Nathan say Polaroids are hard for supernatural stuff to mess with? It’s probably a security thing or something,” Tim mused.

Sasha sighed, “Yeah, probably . . .”

“Is snooping always your default to boredom?”

She and Tim jumped, turning to face Gunner, who was only a few steps behind them. The man looked as if he had just rolled out of bed, hair tousled and glasses absent from his face.

He rubbed his eyes, “Actually, I don’t know why I’m surprised.”

“Sorry, uh,” Sasha blinked, “How did you know we were up here?”

“The floorboards creak,” Gunner replied evenly, “To answer your other question, polaroids are kind of a supernatural filter? Spooky things like to hide in plain sight. They come out of hiding for a moment to get some of your fear and then everything seems to go back to normal, leaving you wondering if it even happened. Polaroids get rid of all that so you can see things as how they are. Let’s see-”

Gunner reached into the trunk and began rifling through the photos, drawing one out, “Ah, here we go . . .” He blinked at the photo before frowning, “Oh. Damn it, Jon . . .”

“‘Oh?’ What’s the ‘oh’ for?” Tim questioned, looking over his shoulder.

Sasha too moved to look at the photo. It was one of the damaged ones, looking underexposed and blurry with various stains on it, marring the image.

“It’s just- ugh, you remember how the Eye is the only entity with the power to manipulate polaroids and tapes? That’s what Nathan did,” Gunner rubbed the bridge of his nose with a sigh, “I mean, if you look close you can see the poncho they were wearing.”

The photo was hard to make out, but Sasha leaned a little closer and found that she could, in fact, spot a cute patterned poncho amongst the blur.

Tim smiled, “I think I spotted that when we were hunting down pajamas. Didn’t think ponchos were Jon’s style.”

“Hm? Yeah, ponchos, dresses, skirts, cloaks- When they’re out of their container, they like wearing all sorts of loose, flowing things. Makes it easier for them to move around and cloaks specifically make them feel more comfortable when they have to leave the house. Actually, I think that’s the poncho I knit them myself.”

“You knit?” Tim lit up, “Is that a hobby of yours and Martin’s, or-”

“Actually, do you think you can describe Nathan for us?” Sasha interrupted, still squinting at the photo, “I don’t want my only image of them to be ‘floating poncho’.”

Gunner snickered, “Ha, yea, sure. I dunno how much justice I can do, though- eldritch things are kind of hard to describe.”

Sasha nodded, hands clasped. Besides her, she heard Tim make a small sigh.

“Okay, so. First off, I should mention that they don’t really have a set form?” Gunner rubbed the back of his neck, “It’s sort of defined by how many eyes they have open. Like, if they’re low on energy or hungry or something they’ll have more eyes closed and look smaller and less defined. It’s the opposite when they open more eyes- they get bigger with more limbs and mouths and stuff.”

“Oh, wow.”

Gunner chucked, “Yeah, and it’s not exactly easy to predict, either. One time they were struggling with forming legs so they tried opening more eyes, but only got these weird wing things instead. I think it’s easier after they eat. They can usually find a sweet spot of ‘vaguely human’ that they stick to.”

Tim tilted his head, “If they don’t always have legs, how do they move around?”

“Wait, wait-” Sasha grinned, “Can they float?”

“They can float.”

Sasha felt a giddy laugh rise into her throat, “Our Jon, local skeptic and ghost denier, becomes the Casper of the Archives.”

“Jon, the friendly little tape recorder ghost,” Tim added.

Gunner opened his mouth as if to mention something, but pauses and seems to rethink whatever he was about to share.

“You two are, uh. Taking this well,” He glanced between the two of them.

“Well, yeah, Artifact storage was worse.”

“Seeing the black blood was kinda bad, but you live and you learn,” Tim shrugged, “Honestly? I probably won’t be taking this so well if I were back at the archives. It’s kinda obvious now, but working there always puts me on edge. Actually, kinda weird that Nathan’s little pocket archive feels more homey than the institute archive.”

“Yeah, that would be Jonah’s fault. Nathan makes sure not to look too hard at anyone, and I’m pretty sure Jonah wants his institute to be as uncomfortable as possible,” Gunner shuddered, “Not to mention how obsessed he was with the archives. Makes me feel gross to think about.”

Tim nodded, “Huh . . . What’s it like, dating a monster and all?”

Gunner paused for a moment before taking in a slow inhale, “Tim, I know you don’t mean anything by it, but please try not to call Nathan a monster.”

“I mean- that’s what they are, aren’t they?”

“Yes, I know that, but . . .” Gunner sighed, “It’s a word they use against themselves far too often. It’s a lot harder to put yourself down with something silly like ‘spooky’ than it is with ‘monster’.”

“Oh . . . Yeah, I’ll do that. Sorry.”

“It’s . . . It’s okay. Just be aware of it in the future, okay?” Gunner offered a patient smile.

Sasha glanced back down at the photos, trying to imagine Nathan removing their own image from the photos. It wasn’t a pretty thought. All of the little red flags were weaving together, and with Jon’s breakdown last night . . . She was going to talk to him. The events of the future were still being pieced together, but the effects were loud and clear. He was going to need someone there for him, and Sasha wasn’t going to wait for the other two dorks to get their shit together.

Jon clearly had a weak support system. They didn’t have the time to dance around when he could be starting to spiral any day now. She doubted he would get as bad as Nathan in a matter of days, but she also had no idea what Jon was dealing with on his own.

Tim nodded, “Alright, let me try that again, What’s it like being in love with the spooky village warlock?”

“Better!” Gunner smiled, “It’s- god, where do I begin? Loving the Archivist . . . It’s like . . . Well, for the most part, it’s kind of like every other relationship. You live together, you cook and cuddle and care . . .”

Gunner looked away for a moment, wistful, “And then. Then, there are moments where you realize just how extraordinary they are. They’ll look at you like you’re the only thing in the world- which, when you think about it, is pretty remarkable for literally being able to look at anything in the world,” he let out a small, amused breath before continuing, “It’s not always sunshine and rainbows. You need to understand them completely, to know how to communicate and how they move, how to read the signs that they need help and how to adjust your lifestyle for them. And, in turn, they’ll Know you for all you are, for all you want them to Know . . . Not to mention how brutally stubborn they get.”

Yeah. That sounded like Jon.

“ . . . The hugs are worth it,” Gunner sighed, “It’s like they’re made of this smokey velvet, curling around you so completely and carefully, and once they relax it’s like- like snuggling a nebula, or something. And they enjoy telling you things. Not statements or anything, but they’ll share some of the random bits of information Beholding gave them. Stories of people that lived long ago, the genetic makeup of turtles, when stars are born or when they implode . . . Some days, it really does feel like being in love with the universe.”

Gunner suddenly blinked, “Oh, um- sorry, I, ah, rambled a bit.”

Sasha found herself blinking as well, leaving the momentary trance.

“No, yeah- wow,” Tim breathed, “That was a lot.”

“Um,” Gunner flushed a little before turning on his heel, “Breakfast! Better come back down. Nathan will get upset if you mess up any of the papers.”

And with that, he was already making his way out of the attic.

Sasha and Tim stood there for a moment.

Tim glanced at her, eyes wide, “Sasha.”

“Tim?”

“That was-”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Tim took in a steady inhale, “Finding out some new things about myself, I think.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow and began to make her way towards the exit, “I’m pretty sure the goal is for Jon not to get all spooky.”

“Yeah . . . Yeah,” Tim was quiet for a moment, “Okay, but that sounded cute, right?”

She chose not to say anything to that as Tim red began to fill his face.

“Sash, please tell me the future isn’t scrambling my brain-”

“Think of it this way. As long as Jon’s human, you won’t have to make any of those pesky soul-searching revelations about the attractiveness of spooks. You coming?”

Tim snapped his head up and began trotting over, “Wait up-”

As fun as it was to watch Tim get all flustered, there was something off about the scene that Sasha couldn't help but notice. Something in their surroundings- something missing that was edging at the corner of her brain. She paused at the exit and rolled her foot once or twice, pressed a little extra weight on her steps and moved around.

“Uh, what are you doing?”

The floorboards didn’t creak.

She would keep that in mind for later, “Nothing. Think Jon or Martin are awake?”

The two of them made their way weaving through the cottage to poke their heads into the guest bedroom. It seemed that Jon had woken up- Martin, however, had not. This was particularly entertaining as, evidently, Martin had a tendency to cuddle and was currently wrapped around Jon in a bear hug.

“Sasha,” Jon hissed under his breath, “Tim! Get me out of here . . !”

“You got it, boss,” Tim smirked, walking over.

Sasha watched, amused, as the two attempted to gently detangle Jon from Martin. Limbs splayed as they whispered directions, freezing when Martin made a drowsy sound. Jon took advantage of this momentary pause, slipping out from the hold as Martin readjusted and held onto Tim instead.

“Jon?” Tim muttered, “Hey, Jon- wait-”

Jon rushed past Sasha and around the corner, disappearing from view.

Tim cursed, “Uh, Sasha? Sash? Most kindest person in the world? A- A little help here?”

He had been dragged back down to the bed, wrapped up in what Sasha assumed was one of Martin’s signature cuddles.

“I always knew you were a little spoon,” Sasha smirked.

Tim’s face, still not recovered from the conversation with Gunner, was starting to darken as he looked back at Martin, “Hang on, I- I literally brought my wallet with me, I will pay you to help me out.”

Oblivious Timothy Stoker indeed.

“. . . Nah,” Sasha grinned, “I have research to do.”

“Sash-!”

“Enjoy the cuddle!”

Gunner frowned at the sad excuse for scrambled eggs as he once again ruined the batch.

He wasn’t sure what kept going wrong. Was the heat too high? Should he move it around more? Use less milk? Eggs weren’t this hard last time he cooked.

. . . When was the last time he cooked? Jon had been doing it for so long, Gunner genuinely couldn’t remember the last time he prepared a meal. He was never a great cook, but it’s not like he could just un-learn how to do it, right?

With a sigh, he pushed the pan to the side. There were frozen waffles in the freezer he could use-

“Morning,” a drowsy voice called out from behind him.

“Oh!” Gunner spun around, hoping to hide the disgrace of eggs behind him, “Hi, honey!”

Nathan shuddered a little at that, “I think Bella’s nightmares are going to ruin honey for me for a long time.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Nathan murmured with a small, dopey smile, before stepping forwards to lean against Gunner. It was then that it completely registered how lethargic Nathan was. Usually, a night full of nightmares was quite refreshing for them.

Gunner wrapped his arms around his boyfriend, “Did you get a dry statement in you yet?”

“Mm-hmm,” they hummed, “Don’t why ‘m so hungry, a live one should last a few days . . . Don’t like it.”

“. . . Yeah,” Gunner sighed, giving them a reassuring squeeze, “Think it might be the wound?”

“. . .”

He didn’t wait for a response before glancing towards their left arm, “Christ, Jon-”

“I don’t think he would like me much.”

It took Gunner a moment before he groaned, “Not the time. You picked at it, didn’t you?”

“ . . . Maybe?”

The skin had peeled away down to the hand, though there were still pits of skin still clinging desperately around the fingers to maintain some semblance of a hand. A quick glance at the other hand caught them red-handed . . . Or, rather, black-handed. It was too early for this.

“Jon, you can’t have the bandages off if you’re just going to make it worse.”

Jon shuffled guiltily, and Martin could hear a soft, remorseful chirping noise. Martin refused to let himself coo over it- as cute as it was, the two of them both knew that if Martin let this slide then he would only continue to pick and peel at the container.

Martin took the poor hand in his, meeting the gaze of the eye nestled in the center, “I know it’s tough, but I don’t want you hurting yourself over this, either.”

“Well, it only hurt for a moment-”

“That is literally not the point,” Martin rested his head on Jon’s with huff.

“I . . . Yeah,” Jon muttered lamely, “I’ll wrap it up and go see Angela.”

Martin blinked, “Wait, today?”

“No point waiting, is there? I’ll head up by myself and be back before you know it.”

“That’s a six hour transit on a good day,” Martin raised an eyebrow, “And I get the feeling you don’t plan on taking the metro.”

Jon made a small, squelching noise that distinctly reminded Martin of squeezing a wet sponge, “All that noise in a tiny underground box? No, thank you.”

“Are you sure you want to leave today?” Martin stressed, “We can let Basira know and when she gets here she can give you a ride up.”

“Yes, today. I don’t want it to get any worse than it already is.”

He could see what they were trying to say. They didn't want themself to make it worse than it already was.

Martin sighed, “Just . . . Try to find a good BnB or something when you get there? You could use the sleep.”

“Yes, yes . . .” Jon muttered in a way that said they had not, in fact, considered stopping to rest for the night.

“Take my pho- Hang on, I just gave it to Sasha-”

“It’s fine, I’ll just use a payphone,” They waved it off.

“And- are you sure about going alone?”

Jon raised an eyebrow, “I am perfectly capable of handling myself, Martin.”

“I know, I know,” Martin felt his face soften a little, “I just- I worry about you, sometimes.”

“And I appreciate it. I really, truly do,” Jon tilted their head up and placed a small peck on his cheek, “Now, do you think you need a little help with breakfast?”

“Oh- I, uh . . .”

Jon smiled, “I think we have enough eggs for a little eggy toast and roast tomato. I can whip that up before I go?”

“Alright . . .” Martin paused, trying to think if there was anything else he should talk with Jon about before they left. There was something bugging him, “Uh, Jon?”

“Yes?” He hummed, pulling out a few bowls and utensils.

“Could you . . . Could you Look at me?”

Jon blinked, “Hmm? Why?”

“Just- I’ve been steeping in spooky for a while, I’m a little overdue for some . . . changes.”

“I don’t need to Look at you to know you’re still yourself,” Jon offered a small, loving smile.

Martin let out a breath, “No, Jon- I Knew something today.”

Jon’s expression immediately sobered up. “Wh . . . This happened today, and it’s the first time? And- you don’t need to . . . to feed, do you-?”

“No! No- I mean, as far as I know?” Martin leaned against the counter, “I just Knew that Sasha and Tim were in the attic. Honestly, I wouldn’t have noticed if Sasha hadn’t pointed it out.”

“. . . Oh.”

“So, yeah. I give you full permission to take a little peek,” Martin offered his hand.

Jon furrowed their brow as they gently wrapped their hand around his, “Are- are you sure? I- I mean, you haven’t been feeding the Eye, so it could have been a coincidence-”

“Better safe than sorry,” Martin pointed out, “Besides, I’m asking you to do it.”

“I . . . I don’t want to hurt you,” they murmured.

“You won’t. It’ll only be a quick look anyways,” Martin stated confidently.

Jon closed his human eyes, “O- Okay. Give me a moment . . .”

Martin pressed his forehead to Jon’s as they took a slow, steady breath. After a moment, they pulled their left hand up to cup Martin’s cheek, the feeling of their gaze washing over him. It was a weighty, fluttering feeling that made him feel as if he was being prepared for a dissection. It was a gaze that could turn piercing in a moment’s notice, something that could easily flay him down to the core of who he was.

But it wouldn’t. Because this was from gentle, cautious Jon who forced the steel of their eyes into something soft and light. Only they could turn the Eye’s brutal leer into something almost pleasant, a familiar affection cushioning those jagged edges.

He trusted Jon. Now they just had to trust themself.

Jon shuddered after a moment, “I . . . There’s definitely a connection there, but it’s . . . it’s muddy, what with the leftovers of you betraying the Lonely. I think . . . I think it’s from being associated with the Archivist. Or, from being an Assistant.”

“Yeah, that makes sense,” Martin allowed himself a rueful smile, “Guess I never did formally quit, did I?”

“I’m so-”

Martin gave him a nudge, “If you apologize, we’re getting a divorce.”

“We aren’t even married yet-” Jon skwacked.

“Then you better not apologize,” he smiled for a moment before hardening his face,“There is literally no way that any of this was your fault. Besides, I was a little worried that all of the guns would pull me into the hunt so at least that’s a relief.”

“It’s not like the Eye is much better . . .”

Martin sighed, “Well, duh, but at least I don’t have to murder things to survive.”

Jon pulled away, once again turning to the breakfast preparation, “You’re still human, anyways. Stage one, maybe? And progressing slowly enough that you won’t actually be in danger of Becoming for a long, long time.”

“Yeah, not everyone speedruns their Becoming like a certain someone did,” Martin laughed.

“I can’t help it if I’m curious.”

“I guess you can’t help climbing into coffins, either.”

“What does that have to do with anything-”

Despite the looming threat of eventual monsterhood hanging over him, Martin found that this knowledge didn’t actually change much. He was still with Jon, the world was mostly fine, and they even had a chance to twist the past and make sure that some version of themselves will get to move on from all this spookiness.

It was a morning just like any other, and Martin was helping his boyfriend cook some eggy toast and tomatoes. Life was good.

And if one day, somewhere in the future, he does get caught with that same not-choice between dying and Becoming . . . well.

He couldn’t just leave Jon alone, could he?

Chapter Text

Jon watched as Sasha returned from the kitchen, phone in hand.

“Got it!” She grinned, “Ready to explore the future?”

“This is hardly ‘exploring’,” Jon huffed.

Sasha stuck her tongue out, “It’s an adventure to me.”

“Sure.”

“Anyways, let’s get googling!” Sasha plopped herself next to him on the couch, pulling up the google app.

Jon squinted, “They changed the logo.”

“Huh?”

“The google logo. It’s sans-serif now.”

Sasha blinked, “Oh, yeah. Good eye. Already got some changes- wait, you grabbed the notebook, right?”

“Right,” He confirmed, raising the aforementioned items, primed and ready to take notes.

“Great!” Sasha beamed, tapping away, “Okay, first thing’s first- the date. Look’s like it’s- oh wow.”

“What is it?”

“2026. A whole decade,” She nudged him a little, “I guess Nathan’s finally the age you tell people you are, hm?”

Jon frowned, trying not to let the embarrassment of the whole ‘age’ fiasco color his face. Instead, he pointed out, “They don’t look like they’re near forties.”

“I mean, if you count the grey hair-”

“Besides the greying,” Jon rubbed his chin, “It’s- It just doesn’t fit. Five years, maybe, but ten?”

Sasha tilted her head a little, “Forty isn’t that old. Nathan’s, what, thirty-nine? That’s just close enough to be your older sibling or something.”

Jon . . . didn’t want to think about how he could be siblings with himself. It was just a strange thought, being a separate person from his own self.

The most unnerving part was that they probably could pass as siblings, if need be. Nathan’s face had grown sharper, more gaunt, and the scratchy beard did wonders to tell them apart. Their eyes were seemingly a bit larger as well, though it would be hard to tell without being able to compare side-by-side. All of this together with the distinguishable scars made it easy to pick the two of them apart. Perhaps a little eerily similar for anyone that looked close enough, but nothing that couldn’t be waved off as a coincidence or genetics.

Jon shook his head out of his musings to find Sasha on some gambling site, furiously scribbling down numbers.

He huffed, “Gambling? Really?”

“Shh, look-” Sasha shoved the phone towards him.

With a begrudging grunt, he turned to the screen to find that this particular page was an archive of previous lottery winnings.

“I don’t get i-”

“Look, we’re in the future, right? I dunno how the rules work, but surely we can bring back knowledge.” Sasha grinned with her best ‘it’s not crime if you don’t get caught’ smile, “These guys are literally just handing out money!”

Jon frowned, “It’s still rather unfair-”

“What? A little extra financial security couldn’t hurt- especially if we’re going to quit our jobs sometime after coming back.”

“Alright, well-” Jon sighed, “It still feels . . . wrong.”

“Do you see any laws telling you time traveling to win the lottery is wrong?” Sasha shook her head, “One day, I’m going to convince you to commit a crime with me. One day, Sims.”

He puffed up, “Just finish up. There’s still so much out there that we need to figure out.”

“Right, right . . .” She tapped the phone to keep it awake, “I’ve written down the winning numbers for 2017, 2020, and 2024. Best to stagger it out so it’s not suspicious. What’s next to look for?”

Embarrassingly, Jon was drawing a blank on what could have possibly happened in a whole decade. Learning about global events they would have no way to stop was going to be far too much anxiety to handle.

Sasha hummed, “Wonder if Hozier came out with another album?”

Jon stared at her for a moment, “We have the chance to learn everything we could ever want about the next ten years, and you’re using it to listen to songs?”

“It’s Hozier,” Sasha stated as if it were an answer, already googling the artist.

There was, in fact, a new album. Two, actually, if you counted the EP that would be released in 2018. Jon would never admit it, but the music hummed pleasantly around the back of his head. If they weren’t wasting time, it would have been quite soothing.

“That’s enough,” He grabbed at the phone as ‘Wasteland, Baby!’ faded to its end.

Sasha pouted, “You don’t even know what you want to look up!”

“Of course I do,” Jon retorted, “I’m . . . I’m googling myself. Nathan.”

It was an idea he pulled out of his ass, but it wasn’t a terrible one, to be honest. It would be idiotic to deny the reality of time travel at the moment, but that didn’t mean that he trusted his double. Snippets of his conversation with Helen kept worming into his brain, though not nearly as anxiety inducing as before, and refused to let him be.

Regardless of Helen’s trustworthiness, Jon already had proof that Nathan was willing to go to drastic measures in hurting people, and there was no telling how the decade changed them- him? Sorting through identity, history, and time travel was something Jon decided to deal with later, he had enough existential crises in forty-eight hours, thank you.

After a swift movement of his thumbs, the search results for ‘Jonathan Sims’ stared back at him from the small screen.

“Wanted for murder?” Sasha jabbed at the phone prodding at the phone, “Wanted for two murders? Maybe I finally did manage to convince you to commit a crime!”

“This is serious!” Jon hissed as he began to grow very, very cold.

She took the phone back from him and began scrolling through the article, “Wanted for the brutal murder of an unknown elderly man and- Gertrude Robinson?”

Jon blinked, “I didn’t kill Gertrude? I- I wouldn’t kill anyone-”

He wouldn’t gouge someone’s eyes out, either. Clearly, Nathan was not quite the same person as Jon, regardless of their same origins.

“Yeah, I can’t imagine you being able to take her down.”

“I- what do you mean by that? No, nevermind,” Jon turned back to the site- a reputable and local one, unlikely to exaggerate details- and scrolled up to find the date, “Oh. That’s- that’s not too far off.”

“2017? That’s barely a year away,” Sasha frowned, concerned.

Only a year until he’s being investigated for the murder of his predecessor and a complete stranger.

Jon matched her expression. “Why haven’t they told us about this? It’s so soon-”

“If it has to do with spooky things, they probably have to sort through that first,” Sasha hummed in thought, “I bet you were framed for something a spooky creature did.”

Jon wasn’t particularly convinced. Things weren’t adding up, and he wasn’t quite comfortable with the man he was, apparently, destined to become. A murderer and monster in just a year . . .

Next to him, Sasha finished writing down details and dates before tapping back to the search screen, scrolling through more results.

“Linked-in, Facebook . . . The Magnus Institute has a website?” She muttered as she kept going, “Aha, another news site . . . oh. Fuck.”

“What?”

She leaned over, showing Jon the headline.

‘Medical Miracle or Zombie Nightmare? Yarmouth Bombing Leaves Man in Bizarre Coma.’

Jon scoffed, “What is this, clickbait? I thought we were looking for information, not tabloids.”

This didn’t seem to reassure Sasha, as her brow furrowed and her eyes grew intense, “‘A London man identified as Jonathan Sims was found in the wreckage of a wax museum in Great Yarmouth . . . Sims has fascinated neurologists and cardiologists everywhere with his fascinating condition. His heart has stopped, but his brain has yet to die after months of intensive care-’ Jon, are you hearing this?!”

“Hearing and seeing, yes,” Jon muttered dryly, “I still rather doubt its authenticity.”

“‘Thus far, despite pulling the plug, doctors are hesitant to remove him from their care . . . His wounds made a complete recovery from the incident and tissue samples have proven his cells to be very much alive in the absence of oxygen . . .’” Sasha continued.

“Reading more of it doesn’t make it more credible-”

“‘Also found in the wreckage’,” She cut him off, voice starting to waiver, “'Was the remains of a man . . . of a man identified as Timothy Stoker.’”

Oh.

Do you want to know what his last words were? The memory of Helen’s voice taunted him, They were for you, actually. ‘I don’t forgive you’. Right before he blew himself up, too- it was almost poetic.

There was no way that was a coincidence- Jon held no trust for the words of Helen or some shady news website that probably hasn’t even been created yet, but it was too close, too accurate-

Jon forced himself to take a breath as silence fell over the two of them, “Um- were you close to him?”

He noticed the mistake in his wording a moment too late as Sasha snorted with false humor, “‘Was’? He’s in the other room.”

“Y-yeah, I just-”

“It's okay, I get it,” She said softly, “We’re close. Considered dating at one point, but for the moment we're queerplatonic.”

“Really?”

“Yeah- see, I don’t really get crushes, so most of my relationships are pretty accidental,” Sasha mused, “And Tim mixes up platonic crushes with romantic crushes so much that when rumors started going around about us dating, we genuinely didn’t know how to respond.”

“Oh, yeah . . . I know how that feels,” Jon had a similar experience with Georgie. He never formed very many relationships with people, so it felt as if the one time he does have a long lasting relationship, it had to be a romantic one.

Though he voiced none of this, Sasha gave him a little sympathetic pat, “You can probably remember most of the disastrous relationships Tim’s had. I don’t start getting romantic feelings for someone until literal months into a relationship, and sometimes not at all. I don’t want to be just another broken heart for him to carry around.”

Jon blinked, “You can’t help when you do or don’t feel attraction,”

“I know, it’s just- it feels like I’m lying to someone, you know? I agree to date but then, whoops! I never develop feelings for them and I have to break it to them that I never loved them in the first place. Sometimes it’s just better not to date at all,” She sighed,

“. . . Do you want to date? It’s okay if you don’t.”

Sasha groaned, “Yes? Probably? I’ve felt romantic attraction before, I know I can do it, I enjoy it, I just don’t want to go around tricking people into loving me while I wait for my brain to catch up.”

“Sasha, you aren’t tricking anybody,” Jon took her hand, “Dating is like . . . like a test run. You think this person would be a good romantic partner and you try it out for a while, do romantic things and see what it’s like. If things don’t work out, you break up and you can try again with someone else.”

“You really do sound like someone from Research, huh? Make a dating hypothesis and conduct trials. Trial fails and you revise the hypothesis.”

Jon rolled his eyes, “Point is- there’s nothing wrong with a queerplatonic relationship, but if you and Tim both want to date each other, then you should. You’re a kind, amazing person, Sasha. I think he’d understand your situation.”

“Yeah, but- it’s a waste, isn’t it? Loving someone that may-or-may not love you back?” She gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

He had no idea how he ended up giving romantic advice- Jon barely had any love life at all, he was hardly qualified- but he could at least try.

“Well, you make each other happy, don’t you?” Jon spoke softly, “It’s hardly a waste if you enjoy yourselves in the moment.”

It was hypocritical of him to say that after everything that happened with Georgie, but part of him knew that they would have been close had they parted on better terms. If he hadn’t been such an ass about it. Though the situations were different, this was the advice that he would have needed to hear.

Jon soon found himself wrapped in a hug as Sasha relaxed around him, “Thank you.”

“I- uh, you’re welcome?” The confidence he had earlier was now drained from his body.

She laughed a little, “I’m just glad you didn’t say something like ‘Tim and Sasha? Dating? In this workplace? How unprofessional!’”

Jon felt a heat in his face, “I’m not- I’m not obsessed with propriety and all that. I’m just acting as a proper manager would.”

“You’re still an ass about it.”

“I . . . I don’t mean to be.”

“I’ve seen how you treat Martin sometimes,” Sasha muttered, “The things you say about him. You’ve been better the last few days, I think, but would it really hurt you to be a little nicer?”

Jon felt himself slowly losing steam, though he still continued the flimsy defense, “It’s- academia is a hostile environment, at least critique will make sure he won’t lose his job.”

There was a small pause before he heard Sasha gasp, “Oh my god. You’re mean to Martin so that he won’t leave you.”

“What?! That’s not what I said-!”

“Oh, really? Tell me- if you’re so concerned with his work, why don’t you just fire him? Isn’t it more effort to go through the extra work to correct his stuff?”

Jon flustered, “That’s not- I do care about him-”

He didn’t need to see her face to know a grin had split across Sasha’s face.

“He’s- He’s a good person and I just . . .”

The grin grew just a little bit wider.

“I . . .” Jon said weakly, “He . . . Makes good tea?”

Sasha laughed, “Hate to break it to you, but you’ve got it bad.”

“It’s not- it’s not romantic-”

“You are literally living in a future where you and Martin are dating after a decade of knowing each other,” Sasha raised an eyebrow.

“I . . .”

“What do you think of the idea of you and Martin together?”

The heat in Jon’s face had miraculously moved down into his throat, which must be the explanation for why his only response was a choking noise.

“Too much?” Sasha smiled, “Okay, how about this- Forget all of the work stuff for now. What do you like about Martin?”

After a moment of silence, she sighed, “Alright, I’ll start- He’s very sweet and considerate. He works hard to understand you and respects who you are as a person.”

Martin never stopped trying to reach out to him, even when he snapped and shoved.

“He’s a good listener,” Sasha continued, “And good at keeping secrets, I think. He never told HR that I was the one that put the bug in the email systems.”

His smile could light up any room, even though the gloomy haze of the archives. It took all of Jon’s composure not to melt at the sight, to keep up whatever flimsy façade he had of being a decent boss.

“Well? Don’t leave me hanging here.”

“He’s . . .” Jon tried, “He’s good at hugs.”

Sasha nodded, “A staple trait for boyfriends. Might just ask him out myself.”

“Huh?”

“Oh- please don’t look sad, I’m not going to take him away from you,” Sasha held him close, “Just trying to lighten the mood a little.”

Jon allowed himself a reassured smile, “I was- I was going to say, ‘what happened to the plan about dating Tim?’”

Sasha chuckled, “What about it? I have two hands. If I’m going to date, I might as well go all in.”

“I suppose,” Jon joined with a small laugh of his own, trying to bite back his own fluster, “It would be a shame if I kept Martin’s hugs all to myself.”

“An utter travesty,” She added with a flair.

Jon hummed, “However, in exchange, I would like to see what all the fuss is about with Tim’s ‘legendary’ dates.”

“You hear about the time he took Susie out to a waterfall picnic?” Sasha glanced down at him, “I helped him pick out the rose petals, and apparently he wasn’t ‘romantic’ enough for her.”

“Really?” He raised an eyebrow.

Sasha groaned, “Honestly, I couldn’t stand being around her after that.”

“Huh. Was she straight?”

“Must be.”

Jon snorted, “Well, if you ever want to take Tim out to a picnic, I’ll be happy to cook.”

“Really?” Sasha perked up, “Is cooking a hobby of yours? I noticed Nathan’s pretty good at it.”

“Ah- yes,” Jon rubbed the back of his neck, “My grandmother taught me most of what I know, and I do enjoy cooking shows . . . I haven’t bothered for myself as of late, but there’s a certain charm in cooking for other people.”

Sasha leaned into him a little more, “Well, we’re gonna need it! I’m no cook, and neither is Tim.”

The fluster from the start of the conversation had long since left his face, which was a relief, but now Jon found that it had simply migrated towards the center of his chest. A dense ball of heat, spreading outwards through his body.

He . . . He liked the idea of cooking for them all. Learning their preferences and favorite dishes, introducing them to the herby stews he grew up with, fesenjan and ghormeh sabzi that never tasted quite right with the limited Bournemouth food market but still felt like home. Cozy comfort foods like cheesy baked potatoes and pesto lasagna.

The warmth turned into a dull, beautiful ache. Something that hurt in a way that made him want to hold it close. He had forgotten how much caring hurt.

Oh, he thought, I guess I am in love, aren’t I?

“. . . Jon?” Sasha moved away to look him in the eyes, “Do you want to talk about last night? I understand if you don’t but- If you’re going through something, just know that we’re here for you.”

“I . . . thank you.” He murmured, “It wasn’t- it wasn’t that big of a deal, I was just stressed.”

Sasha’s face softened, “You can still talk about what made you stressed.”

The idea of Tim being rendered to lifeless pieces of gore, or Sasha being robbed of everything that made her Sasha, or Martin-

“Maybe another time,” Jon looked away, “We still have work to do . . .”

The cellphone had long since faded to black.

Jon cleared his throat, “Do you- ah, know the password?”

“You’re not getting out of talking about your feelings that easily.”

“But we just did that,” Jon protested.

Sasha kept her gaze firm, “Jon, I’m going to be honest here- I’m worried about you. Everytime Tim or I have tried to approach you for something- and yes, he and I have talked about this- you shut yourself off. Maybe if we were still at work I would have just let it be, but we aren’t. We’re ten years in the future, our boss is evil, and fear gods are a thing. I want to know if you’re okay.”

Part of Jon wanted to double down, to snap back at her for prying into things that were none of her business.

. . . But it was her business, wasn’t it? They were stuck here together, and here he was falling apart in the middle of the night. She at least deserved an answer . . .

Except, no words came to his aid, “S-Sorry, I genuinely don’t know how to answer that question.”

“Then let’s take it piece by piece, okay?” Sasha gave him a pat, “When was the last time you had water?”

Jon blinked, “Oh- Water? I . . . I don’t know? I had the tea last night.”

“Alright, I know you haven’t eaten much either, so next one- How did you sleep? After the panic attack, I mean,” She clarified.

“Good? . . . It was warm. Dreamless.”

Sasha frowned a little, “Do you get nightmares a lot?”

“I- I suppose,” Jon fidgeted, “It’s . . . It’s usually of the statements. I’m there, staring down the statement giver as they go through their statement. I can’t- I can’t move or shout or do anything. I’m just stuck . . . watching. Hah.”

“. . . That’s from the stalker god, isn’t it.”

“I- I think so.”

“Alright, we should ask Gunner about it,” Sasha sighed, “Okay, last question- and this is a tough one- How are you coping with all of this future stuff?”

Jon blinked, “What do you mean?”

“Like, what are you doing to help process all of this? I know you’ve seen Dr. Who episodes where knowledge of the future drives someone crazy.”

He paused for a moment, retracing the past day. There was very little room for downtime and reflection between all of the events. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he remembered his uni days where he would reach for a smoke to get himself through finals.

Apparently, his silence was answer enough for her, “Jon . . . “

“Look, I’ve barely had any time to think-”

“I’m not trying to guilt you,” Sasha assured, “Just- you know you can talk to us, right? It doesn't matter how unprofessional you sound- our jobs literally have no meaning at the moment. The future is a hell of a slap in the face.”

Jon huffed a little, “At least the world didn’t end.”

“Small blessings, I guess.”

They sat there for a moment, taking in the blissful little cabin atmosphere. A cozy little haven in a world filled with monsters and fear gods and the petrifying ordeal of the future.

“We should be researching, shouldn’t we?”

“Yeah. Probably.”

Neither of them moved for the phone.

Chapter Text

Nathan’s footsteps made a satisfying crunch against the gravel as he found himself drifting through the town square. It was a pleasant place- folks would wander in from the market, meandering through on their way home; children would run around unsupervised, playing around the small fountain in the center of the lot; the artists of the town would set up little stations to observe the quaint little town around them.

Their timing was lucky so far- the metro wouldn’t be terribly crowded, which was a blessing if Nathan ever saw one. It would pass through Liverpool and Birmingham, but at the very least they could get through the first four hours. Time square was the fastest way to the station, so it was worth wading through the crowd.

Thoughts drifted around the air as ambient as birdsong, giving the place a breath of life. It was almost paradoxical- there was a point where humming thoughts went from annoying to background noise, oddly comforting with its presence. Nathan supposed it had something to do with how they drowned each other out, words and specifics lost in the cloud of wants and words and fears.

A familiar hunger chewed along the edges of Nathan’s consciousness, though it was easy to suppress. He grabbed a handful of statements and shoved them into his satchel to snack on later. Once he gets a little time alone, it should be able to keep the sharp pangs at bay.

Without noticing, Nathan’s hand drifted to his injured arm, bandaged and stuffed into a glove, numb to the world. Whatever that black fluid was that held him together, it connected himself to the suit of flesh he moved around in. It let him feel through the foreign structure, and evidently the loss of fluid in that area seemed to also disconnect whatever sensory information was supposed to be coming through.

This was far from their first time going to Angela for repairs, but it would be the first time they needed some kind of fluid replacement. Nathan hoped it wouldn’t be as gruesome as getting the body in the first place, but unfortunately the Flesh had a tendency towards the revolting.

Besides the numbness, underneath the skin was a horrible feeling of being loose- like water sloshing around in a very fragile water balloon, all of the feeling he had in the area was coming from him, not the meat around him. It took effort to keep his arm still, to minimize the feeling of rolling against the inside of his own skin.

They knew it was their own damn fault. They shouldn’t have made it worse, shouldn’t have mindlessly clawed and picked at the edges. Nothing they could do about it now, though.

“Hey, Mister!” a childish voice called, “Mister!”

Nathan startled at the Knowledge that they were, in fact, calling out to him. A quick glance verified that it was, in fact, three children approaching him with matching mischievous grins.

“You’re the Story Man!” one in the middle of the group called out, eyes bright.

Nathan blinked, “I- well, I suppose I am,”

“You talk funny,” another shorter child huffed, seemingly disappointed in the Story Man.

“Talk funny,” Nathan mused, absentmindedly casting their Gaze around to try and spot the children’s parents, “Yes, I do a lot of funny things. Talking just happens to be one of them.”

“Why?”

The short child kicked the one in the middle, “You don’ ask Story Man why, that’s rude.”

Should they be trying to tell these kids not to kick each other? How could they be the only responsible adult figure around?

Nathan put their hands up, “I don’t mind. Ask away.”

The middle child beamed, “Do you live in the woods?”

“I live in a cottage in the woods,” Nathan clarified. They had about fifteen minutes until the train arrived, they had enough time to humor the children for a few minutes.

“Do you eat brains?” Short child asked, eyebrow raised.

“I, uh,” Nathan blinked, “I eat Stories. It’s- well, it’s in the name, I suppose.”

They had almost forgotten the third child, who gasped in awe, “I wish I could eat stories! Reading is a billion times better than gross peas.”

Nathan tried to think of a way to tell this child that peas were infinitely better for their health than whatever the Eye could offer, “Um-”

“They’re not gross, you’re just a wuss.”

“Am not!”

“Are too!”

“Leave the poor man alone, you wee demons,” A woman called out.

Nathan looked up as the children scattered with muttered apologies, “Mrs. Morrison?”

“Call me Bella,” she smiled, though her frame still had a fragility to it.

“Sorry, Bella,” Nathan apologized, “You can call me Jon. Or Sims. Or . . . whatever works, I suppose. How did- um. Sleep well?”

“Naw. That’s part of the deal, right?”

“R-Right.”

It was rare that Nathan ever got a chance to speak with his victims. Even around the town, they tended to avoid or ignore him- a respectful nod was the most interaction he could expect, and it was far more than he would ever ask from them.

She looked him up and down as he fidgeted, “You . . . You were there. At least, I- I think it was you.”

“. . . Yes, I was. I’m- I’m really sorry you have to go through that.”

“Quit apologizing,” she let out a puff of air, “I . . . I knew what I was getting into, you made sure of that. Thank you.”

Nathan sighed, “That- that doesn’t mean you had the free choice to go through with it. You didn’t have many options . . .”

“Cause you were the only one offering to help me between family, the police, and . . . Well. The entire rest of the town.”

“I-”

Bella cut him off, though her voice stayed soft as ever, “No more apologies. What that man’s done to hurt me is going to hurt for a long, long time no matter what you did. So I’m going to thank you and you’re going to leave it at that.”

This was a far cry from the trembling Bella he met with yesterday, terrified for her life. Now she just looked . . . tired. Maybe even a little tense. She still held herself close and her eyes kept darting back and forth, mistrusting and irritable.

“. . . Okay.” Nathan agreed.

“I’m heading out of town tomorrow. Breath of fresh air and all that,” She continued, “If I meet anyone else that needs a . . . special brand of help, I’ll send them your way.”

They tensed up, “You- you don’t have to do that-”

“I want to,” She assured them.

“I . . . Only as a last resort. Please. Promise me that.”

He couldn’t bear the image of desperate people being led all the way to his doorstep like lambs to the slaughter, and his revulsion was only stronger when part of him, the ravenous, monstrous part, was salivating at the thought. He wished he was strong enough to beg her to keep everyone away.

Bella smiled, “Of course. I’ll mention the nightmare thing too, if you’d like.”

“Yes. I- thank you,” Nathan paused for a moment, “Did- I’m curious if you’re familiar with those kids.”

“One was Mary’s kid, dunno about the other two.”

Nathan hummed, “They should have another lesson about ‘Stranger Danger’, I think.”

“Naw, if anyone’s gonna keep a kid safe it’ll be you,” She grinned, “Deep down, you’re just a big ol’ softie.”

“Running up to a monster to ask questions is a bad habit to get into,” Nathan huffed, “Trust me, I would know.”

“Yeah, yeah. Anywho, I’ve got a train to catch,” She offered a small wave.

Nathan perked up, “Oh, really? Me too.”

“Finally stepping out of that little hole in the ground, are ya Sims?”

They started making their way towards the station, weaving around the edges of the morning crowd. If there was one thing the crowd was useful for, it kept them from obsessively Looking back at the cabin. They trusted Martin- he could keep everyone together without Nathan peeping in, and if they kept Looking they might just convince themselves to rush back. No, the distraction was very much welcome.

“Doctor’s visit,” He explained briskly.

She gaped, “You have a doctor?”

“. . . I’m not sure if I should be offended by your disbelief.”

“I mean,” Bella blinked the shock away, “I always figured you were some kinda woodland fairy. Do fairies even have doctors?”

Nathan gave her a flat look, “I’m not a fairy.”

“Coulda fooled me with all that talk about ‘deals’ and ‘choices’.”

“I think I was going for more ‘demon’ than anything,” Nathan rolled their eyes.

“Yeah, well,” she mused, “Demons don’t help people like you do. The fae are a wee backwards, but the Seelie are more fair with their deals than not.”

They smiled, “Shame that I’m neither.”

“You’re a real mystery, ya know that Jon?”

“So I’ve been told.”

Apparently, trying to figure out how to trigger eldritch powers was a pain in the ass. Gunner had a list of things to attempt and experiment, but no matter how hard he stared there was no picking apart the notes that Jon left behind, no unnatural burst of understanding from the oh-so-omniscient voyeur that apparently claimed him.

Gunner sighed, turning to the group, “We’ve already started sharing things out of order, so I guess you can just ask away. I’ll add context as it comes up, I guess.”

There were probably some fundamental things he still had to explain, like rituals, maybe go a little more into depth about avatars. Did they talk about Gertrude yet? Should he go through the events yet to come? Sometimes Gunner really hated talking to people.

“Actually,” Sasha started, “How does Nathan manage to switch between all of these languages? Is it some kind of code?”

“Not by a long shot. I think they mostly do it by accident,” Gunner laughed.

Tim leaned forwards, “Another spooky thing?”

“Yeah,” Gunner set the notes on the coffee table, “The more languages you know, the more statements you can collect. The Eye is basically a built-in translator for literally any language. Even sign language and morse code got through.”

Would it really be that hard for the Eye to toss him a bone here? Knowing Nathan, they probably mapped out everything shared already, everything that needed to be told, and a complete flow chart of the best order for delivering this information. Too bad it was in one big mess of Mandarin, Swahili, and Inuktitut. The only English on the whole page was the proper nouns, which stood out glaringly when sandwiched between scripture of different alphabets.

It made a sort of sense that Gunner, only just finding out about the connection, wouldn’t have nearly the repertoire of Spooky Powers as his boyfriend, but still. A decade of working for it had to stand for something, right? How hard could it be to get a little internalized Duolingo?

“That sounds useful,” Sasha commented.

Gunner snorted, “Not when they understand any kind of code you show them. Literally nothing can stay secret to them- we tried an escape room for their birthday once, and we got the record fastest time because the Eye spoiled the whole thing. They were so upset . . .”

“Ahem,” Jon cleared his throat, “Now that we have an idea of how the supernatural manifests, could we start working on a plan once we return to the future? Things to do or change, events to happen?”

“. . . Yeah, we can start there,” Gunner nodded, somber, “There are a couple big things you’re going to need to focus on. Quitting the institute is pretty big, and the Unknowing might cause some trouble but you probably won’t have to worry about getting too involved with that. Biggest thing? You need to make sure that, this time, Elias is the only one dying at the end of this.”

The mood in the room noticeably chilled. Gunner had figured that they would have put two and two together to notice the deaths, but the elephant just sat in the room, undisturbed until now.

Funnily enough, his past self’s expression was out of place in the room, more excited than anything. Gunner could practically see the wheels turning as Martin had yet to realize that, maybe, being told ‘try not to die this time’ by someone from the future implies that someone did, in fact, die.

Gunner let out a breath, “I won’t sugarcoat it. Getting involved with the supernatural never ends well. The first problem you’re going to have to deal with- besides Elias- is Jane Prentiss. You’ve at least heard of her, right?”

“Yeah, she’s the boogeyman of the Research. Get sent to work on her case and you’ll get sick and disappear a week later.” Tim nodded along.

Jon seemed to shuffle in place a bit, but made no move to jump into his usual spiel of why this was, clearly, a case of an unknown parasite. Well. At least it was progress.

“I, um,” Martin raised his hand a bit, “I don’t know about her?”

“Murderous worm-infested hive lady,” Gunner deadpanned, “If nothing changes, you’re gonna get real acquainted with her.”

Martin flushed, “Ex-Excuse me?”

“Oh yeah, we had some brilliant conversation while she was assaulting my apartment with worms and keeping me trapped inside for fourteen days. Should be easy enough to avoid if you don’t try to look into the Vittery statement.”

For a moment, Gunner considered sharing the little fact that Nathan told him- he had asked them why Prentiss even attacked him in the first place, and thanks to the eldritch bossman they found out that it was yet again Elias’ fault. The Head of the Institute made a deal with the Hive, agreeing that if she kept enough victims alive long enough to give a statement then he would send a researcher to her in exchange. When Gunner did not turn out to be the meal she was promised, she went after the Archivist and Institute herself.

It was sickening to hear, even if it wasn’t surprising. Not even the Research department was safe from being used as pawns in this big spooky mess. It was like they were nothing but cuts of meat for Eldritch horrors to take a bite of until there was nothing left.

Looking at the horrified faces of people he once knew, Gunner decided to keep these depressing thoughts to himself.

“Jesus,” Sasha swore, “Are you okay? How did you get through that?”

Gunner shrugged, “Rationing canned peaches helped. It was a lifetime ago, I’ve moved on from it myself. Just add it to the list of things to avoid,” He paused for a second before turning to himself, “You might want to get some extra food in case things don’t pan out. And change your phone password, Prentiss kind of stole our phone and made sure nobody noticed for the whole two weeks.”

“Wait, fourteen days and none of us notice?” Tim blinked with a frown.

Jon matched Tim with a concerned face of his own, “I find it hard to believe that Prentiss was able to fool us with a few texts and two weeks of absence.”

Hah. A few years ago, this whole conversation would have him breathing ice into the room. Now, though, he knew better than to invite the fog into his chest.

“Well,” Gunner crossed his arms, “I’m not exactly the person to explain that. All I know is that I got out being a hostage and there was no search party or whatever. I know it wasn’t your guys’ fault. You had no way of knowing and I had no way to tell you.”

The last part was mostly directed at himself. Or, the mirror of himself that was currently trying to look anywhere else so as to not make the conversation awkward with his own pesky insecurities. It took a while to learn how to get past his abandonment issues and break the cycle of isolation, and here sitting in front of him was someone that hadn’t yet learned that lesson the hard way. A couple soft nudges should be enough to get the ball rolling towards getting therapy a little sooner and avoiding the lonely altogether.

Now, though, they should probably avoid stopping just for commenting about how horrible some future event was. If they kept up like that, then there would be more pity than information being exchanged here.

Gunner continued before anyone could say any more, “After that whole situation, the next thing to happen is when Sasha got confronted by Michael- uhh, he’s like Helen but not really? Like, Michael became Helen.”

Sasha raised an eyebrow, “Helen’s trans?”

“Uh, no- maybe? I didn’t know her before-” Gunner groaned, “The Distortion is a whole story by itself and none of it makes sense. I guess it’s more like ‘you are what you eat’?”

“What-”

Martin held his knees, “That’s- that doesn’t clarify anything?”

“. . . Are you saying that Helen exists because of vore?” Tim probed.

Gunner rubbed his temples, “We aren’t having this conversation. Nope!”

Tim tilted his head, “Are you sure? Because I’d really like to know more about the time-travelling hallway vore monster.”

“Anyways!” Gunner clapped. He was sure that wherever she was, Helen was relishing in his exasperation, “This is important because Michael took Sasha to show her how to kill a Hive with a fire extinguisher, which let us stock up ahead of time. Prentiss attacked the institute and . . . Sasha ended up dying in the commotion. Ideally, you want Elias out of the way before this point but I guess it’s a little hard to get away with gouging your boss’ eyes out.”

Martin gasped, “Sasha dies?!-”

“I still don’t see why murder and eye gouging are our only options here,” Jon interrupted, “Couldn’t we find some other way to stop him?”

Gunner snorted, “Yeah, I managed to get him convicted for a double homicide. Turns out, he could break out any time he wanted and was just waiting for us to tear each other apart.”

He was normally pretty good at reading people, but the look Sasha and Jon shared was hard to pick apart. He had given Sasha his phone earlier, hadn’t he? Did they find something related to this?

“Elias murdered Gertrude Robinson and Jurgen Leitner,” Gunner clarified, “Gertrude because she was trying to stop him, Leitner because he was going to tell Nathan about the entities and that would have also hurt his plans.”

“Did you just say Jurgen Leitner?”

“What’s his plan, then?”

“H-Hang on,” Martin stuttered, “Are we just- Are just going to ignore that Sasha dies?!”

With questions flying around everywhere, it was all Gunner could do to keep his head straight. Sometimes, he really did wonder if talking was worth the effort.

Sasha shrugged, “I mean, getting eaten alive by worms is pretty bad but it could be worse, I guess.”

“. . . It wasn’t the worms that killed you.”

Four pairs of eyes were weighing on Gunner as he took a breath, “In the attack, you ran to Artifact storage.”

“ . . . Ah. Figured that place would be the death of me. Cursed object, then?” She mused.

“Sort of?” Gunner rubbed the back of his head, “A Not-them was trapped in a table that Elias had sent to artifact storage. This is why you should probably have him handled before then.”

Tim frowned, “‘Not them’? What’s that supposed to be?”

“How much do you know about changelings?”

“Fuck,” Sasha muttered, “So, it killed and pretended to be me or something?”

Gunner shook his head, “Worse. It didn’t even pretend. It replaced every memory of you we had with it’s own face and behaviorisms.” He smiled bitterly, “I guess it took ‘whitewashing’ a little too literally, huh?”

Immediately, Tim’s gaze grew intense, “You mean we just- forgot Sasha? Let a monster kill her and walk among us while we went along our merry fucking way?”

“A statement giver remembered her. That’s . . . That’s what first tipped Jon off,” Gunner sighed, “It- it was a rough time for all of us.”

Seeing Jon now, body still while his eyes jumped around everyone, was a jarring reminder of just how bad he had it back then. How he let his paranoia consume him because suddenly he had no way to protect himself from the supernatural or even his own coworkers. In the moment it felt ridiculous, but looking back it was an obvious cry for help.

That’s why Gunner was worried whenever Nathan let slip just how much they hated their past self. They disregarded all of the pain and fear they were going through as if it meant nothing while tearing themselves apart for being a bit rude.

In all fairness, they could be a right ass sometimes, but at the same time there was never anyone there for them. Tim began lashing out, Martin was starting his path into distancing himself from everyone, and Not Sasha was filling the place with so much fear that it was remarkable they didn’t all just snap.

Watching him stalk Tim and hound everyone for answers was terrifying, and standing by Jon was never easy, but Gunner knew deep in his heart that Jon was a good man and that, above all else, he needed to be treated with love and care.

Gunned emerged from his thoughts as his phone began to ring. It wasn’t a number he recognized.

“Hold on, I gotta take this,” he stood up.

“W-Wait,” Jon crossed his arms together as if to hide their tremble, “W-What’s Elias’ plan? What does Jurgen Leitner have to do with any of this?”

“I’ll tell you when I come back,” Gunner waved him off as he stepped out of the living room.

Jon still looked unsettled, but that would have to wait for a few moments.

Gunner weaved his way into the kitchen as he answered his phone, “Hello?”

“Martin?” A familiar voice called.

“Oh, Basira,” He relaxed a little bit. Unknown callers were always a bit risky, but Basira tended to use payphones to avoid tracing, “Are you still off the grid? Nobody’s even trying to find you guys anymore.”

She grunted, “Can never be too sure. We got your letter, can Jon confirm your little guests are real?”

“They’re out of the house at the moment, but yeah. Real and human.”

There was a pause before a long sigh carried through the speaker, “Time travel, then. Sure. Why not.”

“Better than strangers, isn’t it?” Gunner laughed.

“Yeah, yeah,” She grumbled, “Do you have any idea of how to get them back?”

He paused, “. . . Nathan might have some ideas?”

“Nathan?”

“Oh, sorry,” He backpedaled, “Jon. We had to figure out names, so they’re going by ‘Nathan’ while ‘Jon’ is past Jon.”

“Uh-huh. And you are . . ?”

“. . .”

Basira’s smirk was practically audible, “Ooh, this is going to be good.”

“They’re calling me Gunner,” he admitted, defeated.

“Gunner?” She snorted, “Do they know that you nearly cried when I first offered to teach you shooting?”

“I didn’t ask for this! They were all like ‘Oh, he has a gun, that sounds like a good name!’ and I didn’t even get a word in before, suddenly, I’m Gunner!”

As she burst out laughing, there was a knock at the front door. Gunner groaned before calling out, “Can you guys get that?” with the response of some shuffling feet from the other room.

“So,” Basira let her chuckle taper off, “Time travel. Any other surprises I should know about?”

For a moment, Gunner considered telling her about his recent spooky developments. It was something she should definitely know about, especially if Gunner had no plans of causing some eye trauma to cut it off. However, this wasn’t the kind of news to share over the phone.

“Not at the moment,” Gunner settled on, “I can tell you about it next time you drop by.”

“Well you shouldn’t have to wait too long for that.”

He blinked, “Huh?”

“Daisy and I are coming down to help you guys out,” Basira offered.

“Really?” Gunner leaned against the counter, “You don’t have to, we’ve got the time travellers covered-”

Basira interrupted him, “Wait, did Jon not notice?”

“. . . Not notice what, exactly?”

“I guess time travel would be distracting- look, we noticed some hunters on your trail a couple days ago.”

Gunner stilled, “Wait, capital ‘H’ or-”

“No, no-” She quickly said, “Small ‘h’. Cryptid hunters. The youtuber kind. American. They rolled past our town not long ago and I was able to pick up enough rumors that they were looking for some kind of ‘soothsayer’ that did magic and listened to stories.”

“Well, that’s not so bad,” Gunner sighed. At least it wasn’t a Hunter- that would be a pain to deal with.

“Still, we figure you can use a couple extra hands around.”

He smiled, “I appreciate it, I really do. I’ll get out the ramp for Daisy.”

“Thanks,” Basira said before snarking, “Don’t be a Stranger.”

“Hah! You too,” Gunner returned, hanging up.

He took a moment to sink into the counter, letting it sink in just what his life has become. Living with his spooky partner in the middle of the woods, helping people with their own spooky problems, and spoiling the future to time travelers on the side. He had pretty much given up on trying to predict his path in life for his own sanity.

Still. He wouldn’t trade it for the world.

The sound of heavy footsteps and the muted exchanging of words coming from the other room led him out towards the front door to see what was going on. Tim had placed himself in between the visitors outside and the other archival staff, who turned their attention towards Gunner with some kind of relief. This couldn’t be good.

“Ah, hello!” The one of the strangers outside greeted with an American accent, “Mind if we ask you some questions? We won’t be long.”

Fuck.