Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Timothy Stoker was finally going to be free. The only way out of this hellscape, as far as he was aware, was death. Even if that escape led into a blissful, ignorant nothing, it was still freedom. His freedom, which he refused to let go of the notion that he damn well deserved.

Plus, that old wax museum had sucked anyways, even before The Stranger decided to use it for a ritual. Two birds with one firecracker, to butcher the turn of speech. So once he had been made aware of the detonator in his hand, all bets were off. The show was over. It was a curtain call for this dreadful circus.

And sometimes, a good show needed some fireworks to end on. One more venomous quip, a bitter grin that was all teeth and more terrified tears than he would ever admit, and it was done. To hell with the rest of the morons who didn't get out in time. They weren't his problem anymore.

Five months. Five months he was presumed to be about to die at any moment. He had been dragged from the rubble alongside Jon, hooked up to countless machines that, had he been aware of, he would have ripped them off of him. He would have demanded they let him die. He would have demanded they let him be free. By all accounts nothing about his physical state while in the coma made sense. His temperature was unstable, often rising to horrific fevers that couldn't be quelled by any intervention but eventually resolved on their own. He showed no brain activity, no response to stimuli. He didn't breathe, even during the brief time he had been intubated. In fact, the times he became feverish were the times that he had been given desperate supplemental oxygen by concerned and distraught hospital staff. It only seemed to worsen his condition, so in month three they left him without that oxygen in hopes that he would either slip away peacefully and no longer have to suffer, or somehow improve. His body was covered in blistering burns but they slowly, over the course of those months, faded to pinkish, gnarled scars that littered his chest, neck, and extremities.

It wasn't until that fifth month to the day he pulled the trigger on the detonator that his heart gave out. The droning flatline of the monitor weighed heavy in the room, but sent almost a wave of relief to the poor nurse who had just felt so terrible for the suffering man whom Death seemed so reluctant to take for so long. Before she moved to page a doctor for the formalities of a death certificate, she uttered a quiet prayer for him to find peace and for his pain to be over. He looked like he'd been a nice man, she knew he deserved someone to pray for him when he faded into the great beyond. She just hoped the man who had been brought here with him would get the same chance.

Tim sat bolt upright in his hospital bed, coughing and gasping for air as he clutched the center of his chest with both hands. His lungs burned harsh like a first-time smoker far too young for the habit. The nurse looked like she'd seen a ghost, and sprinted out of the room for the nearest doctor rather than paging for one. Tim didn't even seem to notice her in the first place, instead being too busy trying to fight his own body's attempts to not have any oxygen in it.

"Wow, you sound like hell." Basira said, poking her head into the room as soon as Tim's desperate gasping stopped for long enough that he'd be able to hear her. She'd seen the nurse sprinting from the direction of his and Jon's rooms on her way to visit both him and Jon, and figured something had happened to at least one of the two. The coughing from Tim's room had just told her which one it was. Honestly, she was just glad it wasn't anything objectively horrifying. Tim gave her a half-hearted glare, scowling hard as she rolled her eyes, not even noticing the thin stain of soot on his lips and teeth. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Tim. You beat Jon to it."

"What are you talking about?" Tim asked, voice ragged and strained. He glanced out the window, and noticed the change in the leaves on the trees outside. The seasons had changed. It was late summer when they had taken the trip to Yarmouth, but now outside the trees were bare and the sky a rich gray. With abject horror creeping in on him, he hesitantly asked his next question. "How long has it been?"

"Five months." Basira responded, pulling a chair over to Tim's beside. She had to admit it was nice to see him up and breathing again finally. "To the day, actually. Jon's in the next room, still in a coma. I'm amazed you woke up at all though, much less first. You were a lot worse for wear."

Tim was silent as he processed that. He hadn't even gotten the dignity of death. He just skirted around it for five months, and now that he paid attention he could feel the same nagging itch in the back of his mind. Like he was still being watched. He let out a broken roar of something between rage and sorrow, grabbing the pillow from his bed and flinging it in Basira's general direction with every ounce of strength he could muster. Admittedly, that didn't amount to much and it landed on the floor just off the side of the bed, but it was the thought that counted. Tears tracked down his cheeks, hot and miserable, and he doubled over sobbing and clutching his sides. Basira put a gentle hand on his upper back, not particularly great at being a comforting presence for anyone besides Daisy but still putting in the effort. So they sat in the relative silence of quiet monitor beeps and grief-stricken sobs, until a doctor showed up to fuss over Tim and his sudden miraculous recovery from the grips of death itself. She pitied him, really, and wished there was much she could do for him. But for now, the best thing she could do was keep him grounded.

He stayed in the hospital for a scant three days after waking from his coma, paying a brief visit to Jon's bedside just before he left.

"If I don't get to die from this shit, you don't either. You better wake up, you prick, and damn soon. Otherwise I'll find some way to drag you back to life kicking and screaming just to kick your ass and put you back in the grave." He growled, sharp and demanding but laced with a sort of worry that Basira knew better than to point out. He hesitated, before reaching down to tuck a lock of silver-streaked dark curls behind the still comatose man's ear. He frowned for a moment as he felt a familiar pang of grief, but turned on his heel then and gestured for Basira to get him the hell out of this hospital. At least for now. There would be plenty of chances to come back and visit, should he want to. Not that he wanted to be back here or anything, but he had to make sure he didn't have to find out which one of the stupid Fear Gods could resurrect the dead for a good beat-down.

"So Martin's plan actually worked?" Tim was in disbelief as he sat in the car with Basira on the way back to the Archives. Granted, that wasn't to say Martin was dim-witted or anything, but it had sounded like the world's most idiotic plan at face value. Especially to his own psyche. "What did Elias put in his head to torture him?"

"He didn't want to talk about it. All he said was that it wasn't something he didn't already know to begin with."

"Christ." Tim said, combing his fingers through his hair and noting to himself that he needed to get it trimmed at some point in the near future. Five months without a haircut, with how he kept his hair, made him look like a tramp. Didn't help that he hadn't exactly been able to shave either, since he had been in a coma. "How's he been doing?"

"He's been going through hell. On top of what happened to you and Jon, Daisy's disappearance, and what Elias put him through, his mother apparently died not long after we stopped The Unknowing. Plus he's been having to deal with the monsters trying to get to Peter Lukas---"

"Peter Lukas? The boat captain?" Tim interrupted. "What's he doing around Martin? Hell, what is he doing around the Archives in the first place?"

"Oh, he's who Elias put into place as the head of the Archives while he's in prison. At least Lukas stays out of the way for the most part, except for disappearing a few of the people from the upper levels of the Institute."

"Isn't he something completely unassociated with The All-Seeing Eye, or whatever?"

"I don't know, I haven't even been able to talk to the guy. He just sticks around the office and vanishes whenever anyone besides Martin tries to talk to him."

"Why Martin?"

"I don't know, but it can't be good. Peter Lukas decided to take Martin under his wing as a personal assistant, so nobody's seen much of him either."

"Would it be too much for me to light this guy on fire?"

"I wouldn't recommend it. He's pretty powerful, as far as I can tell. Disappeared a few people who didn't follow his orders to the letter. I doubt you'll do much by trying."

"Wait, did you mention more monsters?"

"Oh, right. The Archives have been crawling with them ever since The Unknowing. It kind of put a target on our backs, and Elias isn't around to keep things stable."

"What sort?"

"A lot of them. It's been a real pain in the ass trying to get them out once they've gotten in, too."

"I take it you've been doing most of that?"

"It's been a pretty good effort from most of us, actually. Melanie has been doing a lot of killing monsters, though. More than usual."

Tim just sighed, resting his head against the window and watching the rain dribble down the glass in tracks. At a stoplight, Basira glanced at him and took note of the morose expression on his face.

"I know you said you weren't expecting to get out alive," she began. "But something tells me you didn't want to, either."

"Gee, what on earth gives you that idea?" Tim grumbled. "I was the distraction. I don't have much to live for anyways, so I figured I'd go out with a bang and on my own terms so maybe I might be remembered with some fanfare, instead of being skinned by a bunch of mannequins and my hide made into a grotesque puppet. At least then I wouldn't have to live with Bouchard keeping his omnipresent eye on me at all. Fucking. Times."

Basira was quiet for a few minutes, letting all that suicidal ideation from Tim settle in the air like a thick, stuffy fog that threatened to choke her. She rolled the windows down about a half an inch and turned the heating down in the car as they drove forward, almost feeling like the suffocating atmosphere in the car was actually physical. The windscreen had even started to fog up a little on the inside. She needed to get the air conditioning checked before that could cause an accident.

"I'm glad you made it out of there, Tim," she said. It was tentative, but definitely there and definitely truthful. If there was one thing Basira Hussain wasn't the kind of person to do, it was resort to flattery to make someone feel better. Tim liked that about her, because it meant she wasn't going to just blow smoke up his ass about anything. He huffed a little through his nose, the barest of smiles gracing his lips. Despite the oppressive heat in the car, steam followed his breath in barely visible clouds as if he was still outside in the biting cold.

"Yeah, here's hoping I don't end up regretting it more than I already do."

Chapter Text

Tim nearly killed Oliver Banks when he saw the death-worshiping bastard in Jon's hospital room. He had no idea what came over him, but hearing something about being inhuman, and about Jon having to make some sort of choice, sent a white-hot fury blazing through his veins that he had almost no control over. He lunged at him, but was evaded relatively easily and didn't get out again to chase him down before hearing Jon's heart monitor flatline. Tim felt his stomach drop, and for the first time since Sasha or his brother he actually felt true, real loss over another person. Now don't get him wrong, he wasn't necessarily "friends" with Jon, but the guy had been the only person Tim felt he could trust even marginally ever since that thing took Sasha's place. He had been too obnoxious to be a replacement. Plus, he'd been the only one able to ground Tim enough to make him aware of the detonator in his hand back at the wax museum. That had to count for something, right?

"Tim, wait up! I get you want to see him even if he's still in his coma, but---" Georgie hurried into the room after seeing Tim charge in and Oliver come back out shortly after. Her own heart sank at the realization that Jon was, at last, dead. Despite being less horribly off than Tim had been, Jon had been the one to succumb to the injuries he sustained while trying to stop The Unknowing. "No, no no no no, this can't be happening. Tim, what did that guy do!? Who was he!?"

"I don't fucking know what he did!" Tim snapped, voice cracking, and Georgie could've sworn she could faintly smell lit matches. But in a moment it was gone again, and she was certain she'd just imagined it. Stress could make the mind do crazy things, that much she already knew. She could see tears leaving vaguely grayish tracks down his cheeks in the way the light in the room hit him, and actually felt bad for the guy. Tim had it hard most of the time, and she wished she could take that away from him. Unfortunately, she wasn't magically able to just disappear someone's misery. Plus, she herself was pretty distraught over Jon anyways. "He was some sort of agent of the fear of Death! Who knows what he could have done to--"

Was that a gasp for air? Tim looked back over to Jon's body, and could see his chest rising and falling with the man's breaths again. The monitor had gone silent, not even making the steady beeping sounds to match the reading of a heartbeat on the screen again. Just simple silence. Tim scrubbed the tears from his eyes and cheeks, thinking his eyes might be playing tricks on him, only to realize that Jon was, indeed, once again breathing and seemingly alive. No signs of waking yet, but he was something other than totally lifeless and Tim wasn't about to argue that.

"...There is no way that was a human thing to have happened." Georgie spoke matter-of-factly. She was clearly not particularly happy about the blatant supernatural aspects of this. Tim wasn't having it.

"Shut up. He's alive, and that's what matters."

"No. I am staying right here, and you're going to have to read the statement with me in the room."

"Tim, don't be ridiculous." Basira was getting tired of Tim's stubbornness. Ever since Jon had woken up, Tim refused to leave him be. Something about having a certain bond with him despite still hating his guts, or something like that. She hadn't even pretended to take his excuse seriously. "If he wants to be by himself to read a statement and get his strength back, then let him."

"No, Basira, it's- It's fine." Jon clarified, voice still hoarse and weak. "If the Archives have been targeted, now that I'm awake I guess it makes sense for me to be targeted too."

"Still bullshit that they're not even trying to go after me." Tim grumbled. Truly, it was as if anywhere in the Archives he was, any monsters mostly avoided. He did get to beat a flesh monster with a chair at one point, though, and he appreciated that. Jon raised an eyebrow at him. "What? Listen, I still don't trust that Banks guy to stay out, and if I see him again I'm going to rip him in half--"

"No, the part about the monsters." Basira said, reaching into her bag and pulling out a manilla folder with a number on the tab: 0150102. "You actually miss being chased down by things that want you dead?"

"It's the death wish, Basira. Just leave him be, you're not going to convince him." Jon rolled his eyes and took hold of the folder, immediately being overtaken with an intuition about it once his fingertips came in contact with the surface of it.

Tim clasped a hand onto Jon's shoulder, causing the skinny man to wince in pain as he was interrupted in the middle of whatever process had begun without his knowledge.

"Don't. Read. Me." Tim said through gritted teeth, stern enough to make it clear it was a first and last warning on the matter. "Whatever you are now, don't you dare be like him."

Jon just nodded once, seeing too many similarities and connections he was already familiar with to press the issue, plus many, many more he didn't know if he liked having flood his mind all at once. He groaned and held his head in his hands, dizziness and pain hitting him in crushing waves. Tim abruptly let go of Jon's shoulder, if not just so he felt a little less threatened at that exact moment.

"Please, just... Just let me read the statement. Alright?"

"I'll get out of your way. Let me know when you're done." Basira made absolutely no hesitation in getting outside of the room. Tim made a point to make himself more comfortable in his chair, arms folded over his chest, one ankle resting on the other knee, and an unimpressed frown on his face. Jon sighed exasperatedly, but got to reading the statement anyway.

"I still think we would have been better off dead." Tim grumbled, once again on the way back to the Magnus Institute in a car with Basira driving. "Or at least I would."

"Well, technically, you--" Jon started, only to be shut down by a downright vicious glare from Tim. Jon recoiled a little bit at that glare. It was the same one Jude had given him over being compelled. But he was pretty sure the thin beads of sweat on his forehead were from the sudden wordless threat and his distaste for it. "Nevermind. I just know you had no intention of getting out intact."

"Don't like it? Give me good reason to want to be alive." Tim snapped back at Jon. Jon winced. "I have nothing left! I have no family to go back to! I haven't had anyone who gives a damn about me since Sasha, and we both know how that went! I didn't even get the dignity of being allowed to die on my own fucking terms to get away from our psycho horrorshow boss's all-seeing eye! The Archives are full of monsters set on tearing everyone apart, Melanie has been out of commission for some fucking reason except for absolutely demolishing monsters, Daisy is missing and presumed dead, Martin got drawn in by the skeevy bastard Elias put in charge, and I know damn well I'm still being watched!"

He took a few moments to breathe, fighting back tears that threatened to spill and embarrass him.

"Tim, I--"

"I don't even know if I'm a fucking human anymore, or if I'm something like you. Or worse, like him!"

"I could tell you that, if you'd just let me 'read you,' you know!" Jon offered, despite the blatant insult to his humanity. Not that he was still in much denial about that, but it still wasn't appreciated to have to hear it.

"I don't want to know, Jon! I want to stay in blissful ignorance until I go insane and have to be put down like some rabid animal!"

Jon didn't know how to counter that. Ignorance is bliss, and whatnot. Hell, if he could stay in ignorance about all of this, he'd be a lot happier too. And so, the rest of the drive back was in relative silence. Thick, uncomfortable silence. He just hoped this would turn out alright in some way. He doubted it, but he could hope.

Chapter Text

"Melanie, you fucking lunatic, knock it off!" Jon could hear Tim faintly from down the hallway as Melanie continued to lash out at him. Okay, something was definitely wrong with her, she hadn't always been like this. If he had a moment's peace not having her attempting to beat him to death for existing, he'd be able to try and see what was wrong--

"Daisy is dead, everything else wants us dead, and this is all! Your! Fault! I don't know what you are, or if you think you're still Jon, but I want you to leave me the hell alone!"  She was about to throw a punch when her wrist was grabbed from behind. Jon opened his eyes from the instinctive flinch prior to being punched, and saw Tim restraining Melanie's arms. A split-second of confusion, and Melanie was straining and struggling to attack Tim instead.

"You're not Tim! Tim blew himself up in that shitty old wax museum! Get off of me, you fucking impostor!"

"You're the one who started it! Jon didn't even approach you! He was probably just trying to figure out what the hell was rampaging around the archives! He opened a door, Melanie!"

"GET! OFF! OF ME!" Melanie shrieked, flailing and kicking Tim directly in the kneecap, causing him to buckle and hit the floor with a shout. Before he could impulsively get back up and do the same thing to her, she had run off again. She was clutching the wrist that had been initially grabbed, growling unintelligibly about ice or something like that.

Jon stooped down to offer Tim help getting back up again, something Tim actually accepted after a moment. Once Tim was standing, Jon actually yanked his hand away, shaking it a little from the sting crawling across his skin.

"What, do I have cooties now?" Tim scoffed, giving Jon a judgemental expression. Jon rolled his eyes with a long-suffering sigh.

"No, it was just like touching the wrong part of a coffeepot. Don't flatter yourself." He examined his hand, frowning at the sparse small blisters forming on the surface of the skin. At least those should heal quickly. He just didn't like what they implied. "So you're sure you don't want to figure anything out about what's happening to you? Because I have a hunch--"

"Drop it or I'll continue where Melanie left off."

"Fine!" Jon held up his hands in surrender. After Tim seemed to accept the response, he dropped his arms again. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to looking through my office for a pen of all things... And maybe figure out what I stepped in."

"Probably some old meat left over from the bone-turner's siege." Tim said, fishing around in his hoodie pocket before handing a pen to Jon. "Here. Just make sure I get it back later or I'll hunt you down."

Jon hesitantly took the pen, grateful it wasn't blazing hot to the touch, and nodded a little. Tim had been showing some concerning signs, but Jon could still be wrong at this point. And if Tim didn't want to have his reality looked at from an outside perspective, Jon knew better than to press the issue.

"Sure thing, Tim. Thanks." Jon said, clipping the pen to the collar of his shirt. Tim shrugged and turned to walk away again.

"Eh, just know I'm keeping tabs on how much you owe me for every time I save your ass." Whether or not Tim was being serious was anyone's guess, but Jon's response was yet another eye roll, and a trip back into his office to finish what he'd set out to do.

"Can I bum a smoke off of you?" Tim asked once Jon had finished recording a statement and had left his office again. "And maybe a light too. I don't exactly carry a lighter around with me."

"When did you start smoking?"

"Same time you started smoking again and keeping them on you."

"...Fine."

Tim seemed grateful at least, and after a moment of pondering going outside by himself, he sighed.

"Come out for a smoke with me, actually. I think we need to talk."

"About what, dare I ask?"

"I'm not talking about it here. I'll at least feel a little more reasonable about it elsewhere."

"Suit yourself." Jon made sure the lighter and box of cigarettes were in his pocket, and walked over to Tim. He made sure to avoid any errant little piles of meat on the floor that had somehow been missed, and ducked into his office to grab his jacket off of the hook near the door as he walked by. "But I'm not sure how much I'm going to like the conversation, if your behavior lately is anything to go by."

"You're not exactly the most striking, pleasant conversationalist yourself, Archivist. I don't want to hear it from you." The vitriol on Tim's tongue was bitter and acidic at the title. It shut Jon up surprisingly quickly.

"By the way, I only started smoking after this thing with The Unknowing. I just said what I did to make a point." Tim lit his cigarette with surprising ease, considering the cold, biting gust of wind that blew past as soon as he got ready to do so.

"Figures. So what did you want to talk about, any--" Jon began, lighting his own cigarette once Tim handed him the lighter back.

"I already know I'm not human anymore." Tim said immediately after letting out the first drag of his own cigarette. Jon raised an eyebrow.

"Then why have you been insisting you don't know?"

"Because I don't know what I am, and I'd really rather not know right now. I just know something has been wrong with me ever since The Unknowing, and I figured you'd be the best to confide in since you're in the same shitty, sinking boat I am."

"Well, don't expect any sympathy from me, because you're not getting it."

"Glad to know you're just as cold a bastard as always. Human or not, that hasn't changed."

"And you're just still as cynical as you were before you pulled the trigger on the detonator." Jon flicked ashes onto the pavement, watching them fizzle out and seeing how, when Tim did the same, they took about five seconds too long to fade out of their faint orange glow. "You realize it's going to be obvious before long, right? Whatever Dread Power that decided to claim you is going to force itself to manifest through you when you least want it to. Trust me, that's... That's just how it works."

"Oh, and you learning to drink information out of someone against their will wasn't something you desperately wanted to be able to do, was it?" Tim accused, baring his teeth. "You had wanted information about those tapes of Gertrude's, and you just happen to hate the fact that you were able to magically get that out of Basira? Is that it?"

"That's not the point, and you know it!" Jon didn't want to raise his voice at Tim, not right now, but it wasn't something he had much control over at the moment. No matter what they had been through together, Timothy Stoker still grated on his nerves with his cynicism and devil-may-care attitude. Not that Jon wasn't fully aware that he had the same effect on Tim, the other had made that clear enough even without the ability to essentially read his thoughts, but nonetheless. "The outcome and the method are two entirely different things to be concerned about, and wanting the information I got wasn't worth the way I know I've gotten it now!"

"What the fuck does it matter when the outcome is the same god damn thing, Jon!?" Tim outright snarled. A flash of day glow orange appeared in his eyes, swirling and snapping like flames, the same color as the way the embers at the end of his cigarette flared and flickered. Thin wisps of smoke trailed from his lips despite not having taken another drag of his cigarette, and he gestured said cigarette at Jon in an animated, enraged fashion. "Do you know what you've put the rest of us through, Sims? Do you know what kind of hell the rest of us have been dealing with because of your thirst for knowledge, or whatever you decide to call it? Do you know how much power you've been giving Elias this whole fucking time just by being an insufferable, nosy prick!?"

He would have gotten a response if not for the way the both of them noticed how the paper of the cigarette smoldered and burned back from the edge rapidly, and Jon stepped back from Tim a little to avoid being touched (at least he'd learned his lesson from his encounter with Jude Perry). The thin, miserable raindrops that snuck around the overhang above the two of them ceased to touch Tim's skin or clothes, seemingly boiling off instantaneously a few inches from the surface of his body and rising away in translucent puffs of steam. Tim himself was struck dumb by the sight, and dropped the cigarette on instinct as if that was the source of the problem. He hesitantly stuck his hand out from under the awning and into the driving rain, watching the same happen with even the heavy downpour around them. His hand tremored, and his throat seemed deathly dry. Steam clouded his vision even without the rain touching his face. Was he crying? His breath hitched in his chest, burning like a red-hot iron in his windpipe. Something in him relished in the agony of it. Panic set in across Tim's face at the realization, and before Jon could stop him, Tim had bolted. And as Jon's luck would have it, Tim was far more athletic than he had any right to be and was well out of sight far too quickly.

Jon was, for once, at a complete and total loss for what to do. He knew Tim was acutely suicidal, be it passively or otherwise, but where Tim was going was a whole different story. He didn't even seem to be running anywhere in particular, just wherever he had the least resistance in the crowd. He hesitated, before accepting he needed help from others and heading back into the Institute. He'd have to get Basira's help, at the very least. He knew he wouldn't be able to get ahold of Martin on such a short notice, not with Peter Lukas around, and honestly to hell with Melanie at this point, but for right now he was more concerned with the help Basira could give.

"What do you mean he just ran off?"

"I-- He-- Well-- He's been showing some signs of being marked by The Desolation, and then they became far more obvious when he and I got into a little bit of an argument during a smoke break, and I guess he got spooked and ran off! It's not like I chased him out or anything!"

"Jon, I didn't even suggest that you'd chased him out. Calm down. We'll find him."

"How am I supposed to know where the hell he's even gone!?"

"Can't you just, you know, know that sort of thing now?" Basira asked, tapping a finger on the middle of Jon's forehead. Oh. Oh. Oh shit, he had forgotten about that in the panic of the moment. That was something he could do now if he tried hard enough. It wasn't necessarily something that was easy so to speak, and he was skeptical it ever would be, but it was something he could do. "That look on your face says you completely forgot about the whole thing you have with The Eye now."

"Just-- Just let me figure it out, okay? Once I get a general idea we should be able to chase him down and get him back before he does something stupid."

"What, like blowing himself up a second time?"

"Not the time for that, Basira." Jon frowned, and Basira shrugged as nonchalantly as she could.

"Sorry, force of habit. Daisy always appreciated the dark humor better than you do, I guess."

"You know, I'm still not entirely sure she's dead. I just don't know why I have that feeling, and I definitely don't have enough proof of it yet."

"Wherever she is, if she's not dead I bet she wishes she was."

"You're right, I'm sure."

"Now focus on the task at hand, scatterbrain. Find Tim. Or do you need one of his belongings like some sort of scent hound?"

"Seriously, Basira?"

"Just find him, okay?"

Jon took a moment to clear his mind and focus, to try and zero in on Tim. He got a muddled image of a small part of London, followed instantly by what felt like the burn of a lit match pressed directly in the middle of his forehead. It snapped him out of his self-induced trance, causing him to lose his balance and topple over, at which point he landed flat on his ass.

"Bloody hell, ow..." He put a hand to his head, recovering from the assault to his sixth sense for a moment. Soon, though, he looked up at Basira. "I think I have a good idea where he is. He might keep running, so I'm going to have to check in on him again while we search." He spoke as he stood, only helped up by Basira once he was already mostly to his feet. Just enough to say she tried, but only performatively. Jon wasn't surprised. Not anymore.

"Then let's go. No time to waste, right?" Basira grabbed an umbrella on her way to the doors, and gave Jon a look that urged him to hurry the hell up.

"Right."

Jon had to check up on Tim no fewer than four more times before the information he got before being shut out became consistent. And being shut out hurt just as badly every time, to the point that he felt like he was going to have to check for a burn scar on his forehead when he got back to the Institute. But Tim seemed to have stopped at a park finally, and the bits of surroundings he could glean before getting kicked back into his own mind told him exactly where it was.

Sure enough, Jon and Basira found Tim on a wrought-iron bench in a park about three miles from the Institute. Given the amount of time he had spent attempting to evade any chance of Jon finding him before finally tiring out, he'd probably run close to five miles.

Athletic bastard.

Now, though, he was curled up with his knees against his chest, shaking heavily, and the rain was still boiling off in midair a few inches away from his body and rising away as steam. He was pretty clearly still worked-up, and understandably so. Jon approached slowly, trying not to startle him too much.

"Tim, come on. It's going to be alright--"

"Fuck. Off." Tim snarled, though without looking up. The radius of where the rain turned into steam widened a little, and Jon pulled his hand away and backed off a few steps again to avoid the surge of blistering heat he knew would be in the wake of that steam. He could've sworn the metal of the bench was starting to glow orange like it was back in the forge. "I want nothing to do with you, or the Institute, or any of your ilk!"

"Tim, we can try to fix this, or at least how to work with it. I don't want this either, we can--"

"I said fuck. OFF!" Tim snapped his head up to glare at Jon. His eyes were that glowing orange again, his gaze almost feeling like it was burning a literal hole through Jon. Jon didn't know if that was fear he was feeling, or some sort of direct physical manifestation of The Desolation that he hadn't been aware of yet. He hoped it was the former. Tim's mouth was held in a deep scowl, the dim light of a flickering flame barely visible behind his teeth, and a curling, wispy trail of smoke leaving his mouth. He clenched his fists as Jon stood his ground, and made a move to stand up. Basira cleared her throat from her spot a few feet away from Jon, catching Tim ever so slightly off guard before he could launch himself at Jon for not immediately turning tail when told to do so.

"Tim, you're being completely unreasonable. Look at you. You're making it worse for yourself and you know it." She said, giving Tim a pitying sort of look. "Tears look good on you, but this is just sad."

"Basira, now is not the time to decide to flirt--" Jon started to warn, completely missing the point of Basira trying to coax Tim back out of his own head.

"I'm a fucking monster, Basira! How am I making this any worse for myself than it already is!?" Tim seemed to back down from the outright hostility at the realization that it wasn't just Jon who had decided to track him down, but he was still apprehensive at best. The signs of The Desolation gripping him weren't any less blatant than before, but his behavior was starting to even out at least.

"Well, for starters, you're making this... Whatever it is, flare up worse the more agitated you get. So you need to calm down before you literally combust." Basira flicked her wrist at him, more-or-less gesturing at the whole of him for emphasis. "But also Jon is actually worried about you, which is weird for him. So maybe you should take that part seriously right now too."

Tim actually glanced over to Jon then. Jon, who had abandoned the umbrella with Basira and was now standing in the cold, pouring rain and getting thoroughly soaked. Jon, who was clearly going out of his way for this rather than just trying to keep things in one place for the sake of convenience. Jon, who had honestly not done anything to directly harm him yet despite everything. Dammit, Basira was right, and Tim didn't like that. He closed his eyes and took a few breaths to calm down, and after a moment he could feel the cold of the rain hitting his neck and scalp. Jon took the cue to cautiously approach, and sat next to Tim on the bench. The bench was warmer than would be possible in normal circumstances, but not dangerously so. Hell, it almost felt sort of nice on Jon's sopping wet, rail-thin form.

"Tim, I'm sorry. You're right, and Melanie's right. I dragged every one of the people in the Institute into this. This is all my fault--"

"Just shut up and let's go back to the Institute before you catch a damn cold out here, Jon. It's fucking freezing out." Tim tried to stand, and ended up slumping back onto the bench. He'd used far too much energy in the past few hours, and it was hitting him like a freight train. Jon looked up at Basira, and nodded his head in Tim's direction. Basira took that as her cue to walk over and help Tim up in a sort of crutch carry. Jon scooted up to Tim's other side and put himself in a similar position to help Tim up. They both stood, bringing Tim up with them, and started heading back the way they came.

"Come on, let's get you back. We've got you." Jon said. He was pretty clearly trying to suppress the teeth chatter from the cold. Suddenly, something felt a little warmer against the back of his neck and shoulders, and a glance over to Tim made Jon aware of a barely noticeable smile on Tim's face.

"...Thanks, you two."

"It was nothing." Basira said with a shrug of her other shoulder. "Gotta stick together, after all."

"Yeah. What Basira said. Sticking together." Jon managed not to stumble on his words for once.

Tim pretended not to notice the slight flush on Jon's cheeks.

Chapter Text

"I could have told you that was a bad idea." Tim was bandaging Jon's shoulder while Basira tended to Melanie in the tunnels below the Institute. "You're lucky you don't need sutures. You didn't even take out the scalpel before you ran off."

"I happen to know that removing the object from an impalement wound can make it much worse, thank you very much." Jon retorted, wincing as Tim wrapped the bandages a little too tight. "Be careful, would you!? I'm not as, well, robust as you are!"

"Just because you're built out of toothpicks instead of having even a hint of muscle on your body doesn't mean you can't bleed out from a scalpel to a joint if I don't wrap it tight." Tim paused for a moment, taking in what had been said to him. "...Are you trying to say I'm fat!?"

"No! You've just got at least three times as much muscle on your body as I do! Didn't you have some sort of 'outdoorsy' hobbies before you came to the Institute to begin with?"

"I mean, I enjoyed backpacking and kayaking every now and then, but I wouldn't call myself outdoorsy?"

"Better than an introverted bookworm avoiding other people at all costs."

"Quit making yourself sound even more sad than you already are. I patently refuse to feel pity for you." Tim managed to deadpan what was clearly meant to be a joke at Jon's expense. Jon just scowled at him to make a point while the bandages were fastened in place. "You know, now that I think about it, I could have probably cauterized that for you instead." 

"Absolutely not."

"You realize Elias probably knows you're here with me already, right?" Basira asked, walking with Tim into the prison where Elias was thankfully incarcerated. "Besides, I thought you didn't want anything to do with him?"

"I don't want anything to do with him." Tim replied, nonchalant as he strolled just behind Basira with his hands in the pockets of his jacket. "I'm not here for him. Not technically."

"You're going to find guards to flirt with so you can schmooze your way into having them rough Elias up, aren't you?"

"Aww, you do understand me!"

"No, I just recognize your methods from the police station and the minimum two different officers you were shacking up with for intel."

"Is that jealousy I hear?"

"Don't flatter yourself. You're hot, but I'm not interested. I have too much else on my plate." Basira slugged Tim in the arm at that, and got a laugh out of him in response. "I had been wondering why you went to the trouble of getting as cleaned-up as you did. Guess I have my answer now."

"Now if you'll excuse me, I have some guards to charm." Tim veered off the course Basira had been headed down, raising his hand and giving her a little wave.

"Don't make too much of a mess in any of the supply closets."

"No promises!"

Tim slipped back out of an office, straightening his shirt and pulling a pen comb out of his jeans pocket to comb his hair back. He adjusted his collar to somewhat hide the two differently colored lipstick marks on his neck, and turned a corner to see Basira waiting for him.

"I'm amazed you waited for me."

"I'm not letting you wander London to get back to the Institute." Basira huffed, eyeing the marks on Tim's neck. "Two people? Really?"

"It wasn't two people!" Tim sounded genuinely offended, just for a moment. "It was three. One of them was the bloke who was looking after the main door. He wasn't wearing lipstick."

"You had a foursome. In an office. In the prison where your boss is currently incarcerated."

"And?"

"Tim, I don't know what's wrong with you, but it's definitely something."

"Don't shame me! With any luck, one of those three will give Elias a good beatdown within 48 hours! Then you'll understand!" Tim put a hand on his chest, absolutely scandalized by the judgment from his so-called friend. How horrible, the way he was being treated! Basira just shook her head and started walking, and Tim followed close behind her. "Besides, I needed that. A lot of pent-up emotions going on, you know?"

"How are you holding up, by the way?" Basira asked, and Tim immediately regretted what he'd said about pent-up emotions. "You seem like you're handling the fire demigod thing pretty well."

"I'm not sure I want to get into that."

"Suit yourself. Let's get back to the car before it gets dark out. I don't want to be out in the dark right now, and I have to talk to Jon about something anyways."

"Jude, I have great news!" A woman, still in her uniform, sprinted towards Jude Perry with a look of wild-eyed ecstasy. Her lipstick was smudged, and her hair slightly disheveled. Jude looked at her like she'd lost her mind.

"Were you screwing random prisoners at your job today?" Jude asked, more judgemental than any one person should be able to be. This clearly wasn't the first time this had happened, judging by her exasperated response in place of an enraged one. "There are better ways to draw them in, you know."

"No, I found one of us, Jude! We can have a new messiah! One conceived by the Flame!"

Chapter Text

"So she's in there, is she?" Tim asked. He, Jon, and Basira were all standing around the coffin that had been left in the Archives while Tim had been away for a few hours. None of them seemed particularly happy to be dealing with the thing, and Tim certainly wasn't happy to have run into one of the stony freaks on his way back into the Institute. He'd been under the impression that they both died in the explosion, but as luck would have it one of them survived. Great.

"Apparently so. At least I got some information out of him. Almost feel bad for him being alone now. Not quite, but almost." Jon nudged the chains on the coffin with his foot, and sighed. "Where were you, anyways?"

"Well if you must know, I had a lunch date."

"Tim, I swear if you're--" Basira started. There was a degree of irritation in her voice.

"Yes, Basira, it was one of the guards from the other day." Tim saw the look both Basira and Jon were giving him now, and felt as if he should be offended by the judgment and incredulity. "She slipped her phone number into my back pocket, okay!? I couldn't just not call her! We hit it off, and decided to meet and have coffee today!"

"What do you mean, one of the guards from the other day?" Jon asked. "I'm trying very hard not to pick through your head to figure this out, but you're being evasive and making it difficult to resist the urge."

"He shacked up with three prison guards the other day to see if he could get them rough Elias up a little bit. I guess one of them took a liking to him." Basira said before Tim could even start trying to explain himself. She wasn't letting him beat around the bush about this.

Jon seemed entirely unsurprised. Mildly disturbed, definitely disappointed, but unsurprised. Tim wasn't offended by the particular response he got from Jon, he knew the guy was sex-repulsed and figured that'd be what he got from him.

"Well, I'm glad you're trying to adjust yourself back to a somewhat normal lifestyle and relationships now, but does it really have to be  a guard from where Elias is currently imprisoned for murder?" Jon gave Tim an exasperated sort of mini-lecture, and Tim just got agitated about it. That was the judgment he didn't want to deal with. How dare someone else judge his personal choices!?

"She's cute, and she actually likes me! It's actually nice to have someone I hooked up with be interested in something other than just sex for once!" Tim snapped. "Far cry from the deep emotional connections I can get in this dusty old crypt!"

Tim ended up storming off before anyone could really argue with him any more, and nobody thought it was particularly wise to follow him.

Jon essentially barged into Tim's office, completely without knocking, and without any sort of acknowledgement that anything was wrong about it.

"Jon, what the hell!? Don't you understand privacy, you---"

"Tim, this is important. I don't know who else to talk to about this, so other than rambling to a tape recorder like a madman you're all I've got here."

"How sweet."

"Would you can it with the sarcasm please?"

"Sorry, I didn't know you'd gone soft about the relentless bullying. Please, continue." Tim leaned back in his chair and rested his sneakers on the desk, gesturing flippantly at Jon. Jon seemed to think about something for a moment, as if he was deciding whether this conversation was worth it or not. Ultimately, he decided it was.

"I think Martin has been avoiding me, and it's got something to do with Peter Lucas and The Lonely." He finally admitted, shoulders dropping a little. Tim chewed on the cap of his pen in a mockery of thoughtfulness, and twirled it in Jon's direction like a magic wand.

"If you're looking for relationship advice, I'm telling you that you pretty seriously fucked up your chances with him." Tim responded. Whether he was being serious or not was hard to tell. He just knew Jon had been developing a clear crush on Martin for a while at that point, and that it made Jon an easy target. Jon's face turned dark red in embarrassment and indignation.

"What!?" Jon exclaimed, immediately trying to figure out how to backpedal and make what he said sound more like platonic worry. He didn't have feelings for Martin. There was no way he had feelings for Martin, right? Shit, did he have feelings for Martin? All this ability to just know things, and none of the self-awareness he needed for this predicament. "I mean that it's dangerous for him, and maybe the rest of us too! If he's getting drawn into another Dread Power's influence, do you have any idea what sort of problems could come up!?"

"All I'm hearing is that you're down bad, and now that you're aware the boy ever had an interest in you, you're desperate to hear that he's still madly in love with you so you can go rescue him from the big mean new boss trying to keep him away from you." Tim teased, sitting up properly in his chair. His pen got tucked behind his ear and he looked at Jon seriously. "Listen, Jon. Boss. Jonathan Sims, great avatar of The Eye. You're not subtle. Daisy is in that box of endless dirt, and I'm sure even she knows you have it bad for Martin. I know he's cute, so I can't judge you for that part, but with the way you've treated him this whole time--"

"Enough." Jon snapped, and Tim felt an icy twinge of terror shoot through his chest. Since when was this scrawny prick of a man intimidating at all? Was it the avatar thing, or just the fact that Tim knew he was being a colossal pain in the ass and realistically kind of deserved to be told off for it? He didn't know, and didn't care. All he knew was that it wasn't a fear like having his thoughts picked through like a bargain bin at a charity shop, but one that told him to cut the shit or get slapped for it. It was hilarious coming from Jon, as far as Tim was concerned. "If you're going to be deliberately obtuse about this, there's no point in talking to you at all. So unless you're going to be reasonable in any way, I'm leaving and you'll be lucky if I decide to keep you in any sort of loop about anything around here."

Okay that part was what hurt. Tim felt brief panic, and took an ever so short moment to right his thoughts before holding his hands up in surrender.

"I'm sorry, okay? You're an easy target. But more than that, you need to think about your relationships.with other people if you're going to worry about them suddenly leaving you behind." Tim sighed, resting his elbow on his desk and his chin in his palm. He could see the look on Jon's face, and rolled his eyes. "I know I'm not one to talk, but I already know I'm an asshole. It's kind of my personal brand at this point."

"Right." Jon said, calming back down again. He seemed anxious, like there was suddenly a lot more on his mind. "I'm still worried about Martin, you know. I'm worried about everyone, but Martin more than anything."

"I know, Jon." Tim responded, giving Jon a tired smile. "I am too, but I don't think there's much either of us can do about it right now. He'll just have to figure it out on his own time."

Jon took a deep breath, and nodded. He didn't like to admit it, but maybe Tim was right about Martin. Jon would still try to convince him to leave The Lonely behind, though. He couldn't help it.

Chapter Text

"I'm starting to think he's incapable of making any good decisions." Tim was stooped down next to Jon on the floor. Jon, who was heavily unconscious and holding in his hand what appeared to be a human rib, of all things. He refused to touch that bone in Jon's hand. "You said that thing is his rib?"

"Said it'd be an anchor." Melanie explained. Helen was standing behind Tim and smiling pleasantly. Or, well, it'd be pleasant if she didn't have that weird, spindly situation about her and her smile didn't always look like she'd just talked her way into something she shouldn't have.

"As in a part of his ribcage, which is now removed from his body and is now being held in his hand." Tim clarified, as if it wasn't obvious. He hoped Melanie was fucking with him. Because Jon was stupid, but surely he wasn't that stupid, right?

"He was trying to work up the nerve to chop off a finger when I gave him the idea."

"Seriously!?" Tim was flabbergasted, and ready to beat Jon to death with his own bones for being an idiot.

"You know, I hope Jared took a second one for himself. Can't have the Archivist being asymmetrical, can we?" Helen mused almost absently.

Tim elected to ignore that comment. He had no idea what to make of the sheer level of stupid he was listening to here. He sat there in stunned silence for a moment, just processing the fact that Jon had willingly gone into the Distortion, found the guy who removes people's bones, and asked him to remove his bones for him.

"What the fuck is wrong with him!?" Tim finally exclaimed. He heard an aggravated growl from behind him.

"Shut up, firecracker." Melanie seemed to finally get tired of the pot calling the kettle black. "Or do I need to remind you that you're not any better?"

Tim was about to argue, but he felt his body temperature rise a little as he got more worked up, and that was a pretty staunch reminder that he, indeed, had made some incredibly stupid, self-destructive decisions and realistically had no place to talk. He just huffed, going back to looking Jon over.

"Well aside from the new soft spots in his sides, he's pretty alright. Probably just passed out from shock." Tim grumbled, moving the deadweight known as Jonathan Sims to sit up so he could get a good hold on him to lift him. He sort of flopped like a ragdoll, but Tim managed. He saw how surprisingly peaceful Jon looked when he wasn't awake and worrying himself to death about anything and everything, and felt a thrumming in his chest that he would take to his grave. Nope, he still hated Jon. Or at least mostly. Probably. Whatever, what mattered was getting him somewhere that wasn't just crumpled on the floor like a discarded toy. He scooped Jon up in his arms bridal-style and stood, making sure that bone wasn't dropped, but also that it didn't fucking touch him.

"Did you let that... Thing go?" Melanie asked Helen as Tim righted himself.

"He found a door."

Melanie perked up, ready to have to fight the guy despite the state of her leg.

"Where did he come out?"

"The door may have been in a wall some distance above a river."

Melanie couldn't help but laugh, and Tim followed suit. He didn't like relying on Helen, especially with his past experience with the Distortion, but she seemed more stable than Michael did, at least.

"Nice." Melanie smirked at Helen.

"Think he might drown?" Tim asked, just glad to not have to deal with Jared Hopworth personally. He had a feeling that wouldn't go well. Didn't know for whom it wouldn't go well, but it just wouldn't. He felt Jon shift a little in his arms, and was kind of surprised he was awake already.

"Is it..." Jon started to ask, not even opening his eyes yet. He was dizzy from the shock, and he could more-or-less figure out what was going on around him anyways.

"It's done." Helen reached forward and poked Jon's hand, specifically the one still curled around a freshly-removed rib. Jon let out a shaky breath of some sort of relief.

"Thank you. For your, uh... For your help."

"You are very welcome. I have decided that I support what you’re doing, and I’m happy to assist. I think we’ll all be much happier this way."

"Basira’s not going to be happy that you let him out." Melanie stated. Jon huffed.

"Basira isn't here." Jon squirmed a little, realizing something felt off that wasn't just the ache of two missing ribs. "And if this works, I’ll have Daisy waiting for her when she gets back, so I don’t think she’ll be thinking too much about Jared."

"Like hell you will, Jon. You're going to rest after that, and you're going to be a captive audience to the lecture I'm about to give you!"

That was when things added up for Jon, and he opened his eyes to see he was being carried by Tim. Red-faced, he squirmed in Tim's grasp, but soon winced and went somewhat limp at the pain and the exertion of trying to wiggle out his arms like that. The hand holding up Jon's torso got a little warmer, and Jon all but melted into it as it eased some of the pain in his side. He slumped his head against Tim's shoulder in defeat, but kicked his feet a little bit to show disapproval in being carried. Tim couldn't help himself and smiled at that.

"You do need to rest. You can use Basira's cot since she's not here." Melanie offered.

"Oh look, I happen to know exactly where that is! Come on Jon, it's naptime for you!" Tim carried Jon off with an almost exaggerated sort of gait, bordering on a march. Jon squawked indignantly and squirmed more while swearing at him, only giving in after the short burst of exertion exhausted him again. So with a groan, Jon gave up and just let Tim carry him away, slumped in Tim's arms and grumbling to himself about not needing help and being able to handle himself, thank you very much.

"...So how long until they do anything about it?" Helen asked Melanie as soon as Jon and Tim were both well out of earshot.

"The real question is if it happens before or after Martin comes to his senses." Melanie's tone was incredibly tired, specifically of whatever Jon and Tim were dancing around like a couple of fools. Really she didn't give a damn about Jon's relationships, but she just wished it'd quit being so blatant and obtrusive, and that they'd stop being stupid about it.

Tim was pacing around the room where the coffin was kept. The chains had been pulled off of the coffin, and there were probably thirty or so tape recorders of unknown origin (or, more unknown than usual, if that meant anything) scattered around the thing, along with the rib Jon had stupidly had taken out of his body, and formerly a note before it had gotten picked up and read. If Jon came back out of this alive, Tim was going to fucking skin him over this. Melanie and Basira were both watching Tim pacing around, concerned more with the scorch marks and the beginnings of a rut he was wearing into the floor.

"I can't believe he just went in!" Tim threw his hands in the air, finally stopping his pacing and looking at Melanie and Basira. "Didn't let anyone know, didn't decide to have anyone sit here and keep watch, nothing! Just dove right into the coffin! He really is the dumbest person I've ever had the displeasure of knowing! I go on another date and he takes the opportunity to literally crawl in an endless hole without any sort of assistance!"

"Tim," Basira started, pointing down toward Tim's feet. "You're burning footprints into the floor." Tim glared at her, and she raised an eyebrow, unimpressed.

"I don't care about the floor! I care about Jon!" He realized what he'd said, and immediately backpedaled. "Well, I mean, I care that he's being fucking stupid about this! He voluntarily gets a rib taken out as some sort of anchor, waits for everyone else to be preoccupied, and then just descends into the depths of hell!"

"See what I mean, Basira?" Melanie asked. Basira sighed and nodded.

"What you man about what exactly, Melanie!?" Tim growled. Melanie was completely unmoved by the tone Tim had.

"You're being fussy over Jon, and you both need to just shut up and date already before the rest of us lock you in a room together with no way out."

"Melanie, I have a girlfriend!"

"Congratulations. That doesn't change how clearly in love with Jon you are."

"I'm not in love with him! I've never even been any sort of interested in Jon, and I never will be! He's nosy, and paranoid, and reckless, and doesn't know when to let things go!" Tim stomped a foot in sheer indignation, cheeks dark red in what appeared to be rage and embarrassment. "Who the hell gave you the right to--"

He could've sworn he heard a familiar voice, muffled and accompanied by a few dull knocking and thumping sounds. A heavy slam of a wooden door being flung open resounded, causing all three occupants of the room to jump and turn to look at the coffin. Jon was hefting himself out with one arm, and Tim hurried over to grab his hand and help pull him out. He got a glimpse into the coffin, and couldn't believe his eyes. Jon stepped out of the coffin, clumps of dark, loamy soil falling off of him as he did so, and soon after Daisy emerged too. Basira was so dumbstruck she didn't even get the chance to start going off on Jon for being a reckless, self-sacrificing moron. She ran in and pulled Daisy into a tight, desperate hug. Jon's shoulders relaxed a little as he watched Daisy and Basira's reunion, and soon there was a hand clasped on one of said shoulders tightly. Very, very tightly.

"Good job, glad you got her back. Now you've got some explaining to do before I personally kick your ass for this stunt." Tim said through gritted teeth, pulling Jon into a side-hug that barely concealed the rage boiling in his chest and how tense his posture was because of it. Jon could feel the temperature in the room rise a few degrees.

"Shit."

Chapter Text

Tim, upon seeing Daisy standing around in the corridor outside Jon's office, had taken it upon himself to get her to somewhere she could sit down. Yes, she needed to get her strength back up, but that didn't mean she wasn't allowed some degree of comfort between moments she needed to force herself along. She had protested at first, but upon being shown to a small couch she immediately sank into it at Tim's insistence.

"You know, there's a difference between working back up to where you used to be, and torturing yourself for the hell of it." Tim sat down next to her, taking in how exhausted she looked. She had that exact same look of having not slept in half a decade that Jon always did anymore. Honestly, he felt bad for her. She used to be so boisterous and headstrong, and now she was mostly listless and tired. "And Basira is worried about you too."

"She's been pretty obvious about that." Daisy sighed, leaning forward to rest her elbows on her knees. She looked up at Tim, a dullness evident in her eyes that had Tim's chest knotting up in awful sorts of ways. Was she dying?

"Are you okay?" Tim asked despite himself. He knew the answer to the question. It was obvious. And yet he still felt the need to ask.

"Well it's not easy actively fighting whichever of the Fears decided you belong to it." Daisy stated. Tim let out a dry, humorless laugh.

"You can say that again."

"The Eye doing that much to you? What, are you taking over for Jon now?"

"What? No!" Tim shook his head, utterly confused. "Has nobody told you yet?"

"Apparently not." Daisy furrowed her brows at Tim. "Did you find a way out, or something?"

"Not quite, but I got nabbed by another one of the powers." Tim said. Daisy was about to ask him to elaborate, when he snapped his fingers lightly and produced a small flame akin to what a lighter produced. Daisy's eyes widened.

"Seriously? You managed to align yourself with the Lightless Flame?"

"No, it's not like that! I have nothing to do with the cult!" Tim held his hands up and frantically tried to correct Daisy's assumption. "I was the one to pull the trigger back at the waxworks. Wanted to die, wanted that thing that took my brother dead even more. The explosion I guess technically killed me, but whatever powers may be just decided that the way I went out was just perfect for me to be an avatar for it. Jon got the same treatment with a lot more lead-up. His heart stopped in the hospital. I thought I lost him."

He saw Daisy smile a little bit at the last part. He narrowed his eyes at her as a warning, while idly playing with the small flame in his hands to keep his hands occupied. Twisting, twirling, and growing and shrinking it without even paying attention to what he was doing. 

"Thought you lost him, eh?" Daisy teased. It was rare that Tim ever heard her joking at all, but that was ignored for the fact that it was at his expense.

"What is it with everyone and thinking I've got a thing for Jon!?" Tim asked, clearly getting more and more annoyed every time the subject got brought up. Daisy gestured for him to calm down, and he did after a few breaths to calm himself. "I have a girlfriend now, okay? I'm not interested in Jon. He's not even my type to begin with."

"Congrats on the girlfriend, Stoker. Never took you for the type to settle down with someone."

"Yeah, well we really hit it off. It's nice."

There was a moment of tense silence, the both of them still not entirely sure what to say at this point. They had never really interacted much before now, and now they were getting a whole conversation just with each other that was getting more serious than either of them wanted.

"You don't have to do what the flame wants you to, you know." Daisy was quiet when she spoke again. "It's hell, and you'll end up miserable and weak, but you don't have to give in to it."

"I'll be fine." Tim said with a shake of his head. The little flame in his hands swelled and flickered, and just for a moment he wondered what it'd be like just setting the room alight. He didn't intend to, but intrusive thoughts were just that, right? "Besides, having my girlfriend helps with those urges. I don't know why, but my best guess is that the human connection helps it like it does most mental problems. You should look into it."

Daisy raised an eyebrow at that. She knew damn well that wasn't how it worked. She'd been afflicted by The Hunt for long enough, and had Basira by her side for long enough, to know that. Something told her that'd be a bad idea to bring up, though, so she kept it to herself other than the confused, concerned look she couldn't help but give Tim.

"Well I'm glad something is working out for you finally, Tim. You deserve that much."

"Thanks, Daisy. I think you're the first person to tell me that."

Chapter Text

"I can’t help but notice you’re recording right now?" Peter Lucas gestured at the tape recorder on the desk in front of Martin. He sounded, well, disappointed, but not enough to really be a threat. It was enough to sting, though, and Martin wasn't sure if that was worse or not.

"It was a statement, alright? That's what we do." Martin was clearly annoyed with Peter's almost-accusations. He was uncomfortable, he felt cornered, and it was just overall awful. Peter sat on the edge of the desk then, eyeing the tape recorder in a degree of suspicion. Better try and do something to get Martin out of this lovestruck situation he has going on with Jon.

"Anyway. Point is, I’m not your captor or your torturer. I’m not going to tell you to stop talking to him, or even saving him if it comes to it. If that’s not a decision you’re willing to make yourself, me scolding you isn’t going to help." He began. Martin scoffed at him, and Peter gave a mildly threatening glare at that. Martin was surprisingly unfazed by the glare. Good boy. He was learning. Peter continued "You know what the stakes are now, and I just have to hope that you’re with me on this. Focusing on the big picture." But before Martin spoke again, he held up a finger to him to get him to hold onto that thought.

"What now?" Martin asked, more annoyed the more Peter decided to interrupt him.

"I do hope you're not still in love with the Archivist. Not just for what we have going on now, but for your sake." He said, with surprisingly convincing mock worry. "You're a nice man, and I really don't want to see you hurt that much. Even if it'll help me in the long run."

"What do you mean?" Martin was suddenly incredibly interested in what Peter had to say. Peter tutted his tongue and shook his head with a sigh.

"He and Tim have been getting awfully close lately. They've just got so much in common now, what with being avatars of The Eye and The Desolation, respectively." Peter smiled sweetly, and it unnerved Martin a little bit. Martin's heart was hammering in his chest. No, Jon and Tim still hated each other. They had to. They fought constantly! "Plus, I mean look at Tim. Jon might not have any sort of interest in, well, sex, but he'd be stupid not to realize how devilishly handsome the man is. He'd be dating up, and who are we to try and stop that?"

"Wait, but--"

"Now, I really am running late, so if you don't mind?"

After Peter had left, Martin was left dumbfounded sitting at the desk. He got up and cracked the door open to give a listen in the corridors, and as luck would have it he could hear Tim and Jon down the hall.

"You still had me worried sick, you ass!" Tim said, chastising Jon for probably about the fifteenth time about the situation with the coffin. Jon groaned exasperatedly.

"It was the only way to get her out of there!" Jon argued. Martin heard Tim stomp his foot, and ducked back into the room properly though still able to hear the conversation.

"Have you ever heard of a rope!? Or a chain!? God dammit Jon, I almost fucking lost you! You got me actually giving a damn about you, and then you go and fuck off into The Buried to grab someone who may or may not even be able to come back out again!?"

Martin closed and locked the door again, face red and tears starting to form in his eyes. That was all he needed to hear. Peter had been right, it seemed. He sank down to the floor with back against the heavy wooden door to the office, and pulled his knees to his chest. He knew there was no sense in grieving a relationship that would've likely never happened to begin with, but it was still horrifically painful.

Peter, hidden in the shadows, was delighted by the coincidence.

"Well excuse me for actually deciding to try and fix something I wasn't able to prevent in the first place like I was supposed to!" Jon gestured his arms wide, but then paused. "Wait. Tim, did you just say you actually care about me, or have I finally lost it?"

Tim sighed. That hadn't meant to come out, but there it was.

"Of course I do! Christ's sake, you're the only reason I was able to snap out of whatever unreality shit that mannequin had pulled and actually end The Stranger's ritual for good!" Tim wasn't necessarily backpedaling, but he was definitely arguing the case away from the notion of feelings. Because he didn't have them. Not at all. "Do you know how many times I visited you in the hospital during that month you were still--"

"Every other day." Jon responded without skipping a beat. He didn't even have to reach out to his patron Fear to know that. He had been holding onto that knowledge since he woke up. "And you kept bargaining for me to wake up every single time you were there."

Tim was silent for a moment. Soon, Jon held a hand out to him. Tim looked at the scar there from Jude Perry's handshake, and knowing damn well what it meant.

"Truce?" Jon asked. "Friendship, even?"

Tim smiled and shook Jon's hand in return.

"Surprised you even had to ask."

Chapter Text

"A cosmopolitan? Really?" Daisy asked Tim once the barkeep had taken drink orders from each of them. "Didn't take you for the fruity drink type."

"I don't always want to just drink myself under the table, you know. Sometimes I want to enjoy my liquor." Tim rebutted. "I'd say I didn't expect you to go for Scotch, but that'd be a lie." He knew damn well she liked an incredibly stiff drink. She was just that kind of person.

"Tim, the bartender knew what you wanted before you even ordered it. He just asked if you wanted the usual. You're clearly a regular here and always get that." Jon smirked a little at Tim as a Moscow Mule was slid across the bar to him. He drummed his fingertips on the side of the copper mug and then swished the contents around a little by shaking the mug, listening to the gentle sounds of the ice clinking against the metal. After everything lately a calming sort of sound like that was nice to be able to focus on. He took a few slow, methodical breaths to center himself. He didn't get the chance for that very often lately, and it was nice once in awhile. "Besides, you ordered it extra strong, so Daisy doesn't have much place to judge."

"I didn't even verbally order my drink! How the hell did you know!?" Tim asked. If Jon was reading his mind again, he--

"It's too light to not have extra vodka in it. Vodka dilutes the color of the cranberry juice." Basira said exasperatedly, tracing lines in the condensation on the outside of her glass of ice water.

Oh. Right. Sometimes a spade is just a spade. He had completely forgotten that it was actually easy to tell if a cosmopolitan was heavy on the vodka. Speaking of his drink, he was watching the (actually kind of cute, hence why he frequented this place) bartender mixing his, when he heard a voice a small ways behind him.

"Tim!" She said, and Tim perked up and spun around on the stool he was sat upon. He hadn't planned on his girlfriend showing up, but hey if she was out with a friend then that was even better! Her friends were his friends, after all. That was how that worked, right? He stood and walked over to his girlfriend and the stocky woman she was with. He hugged her, and felt a warmth in his chest he associated with happiness. He really did like this girl, and he had the honest feeling that it was mutual. "I was just telling Jude all about you!"

"That's so sweet, babe! I hope she's impressed?" Tim let out that charming laugh of his, and she pulled back to hold him by his shoulders at arm's length.

"Oh I definitely hope so! I've been telling her how wonderful you are!" She got a devilish grin and giggled a little. "You know, at everything." She winked, and Tim actually blushed and was taken aback a little.

While Tim and his lady spoke, Jude took the chance to walk over to Jon, grinning like a shark.

"Hello again, Archivist." She crooned, relishing in how Jon covered his drink and pulled it close to his chest to keep it away from her. "Oh, I'm not interested in you, or your drink. And my friend just wants to talk with his sweetheart for a minute. I can't be that bad to see around, can I?" Before Jon could answer she cackled and turned on her heel to walk back over to the happy couple. "It's time to go. We've been here too long anyways."

"Aw, fine." The woman with Jude all but pouted, and before she left she made sure to give a firm smack to Tim's rear end. He yelped, not expecting any of that even with his track record. She waved goodbye to him, blowing him a kiss and then walking away with Jude. Tim sat back down, clearly flustered by having his ass slapped in public like that, and picked up his drink before he noticed how the other three with him at the bar were giving him the same look.

"What? She has some issues with boundaries, that's all!" Tim was prepared to defend that display until his dying breath.

"Tim, do you know who she was with?" Jon asked, shaking hands putting his drink down. Tim furrowed his brow and tilted his head to the side like a confused puppy. "That was Jude Perry, Tim. You know, that Jude Perry." Jon pointed to the burn scars on his hand for emphasis.

"Tim, I thought you said you hadn't gotten involved with the Lightless Flame!" Daisy said, gesturing her already half-empty glass of Scotch at Tim. "No wonder being around her feeds the fire urges!"

"Tim, how in the world did you manage to find the one prison guard with connections to Jude Perry?" Basira asked, exasperated and more than a little irritated by the turn of events. The arguments of all three of the others were overlapping, and Tim put down his drink and held up a hand to get them to stop.

"Enough." Tim folded his arms over his chest and looked at Jon, Daisy, and Basira disappointedly. "I really thought better of you all. Association doesn't mean alignment, and you know that. She's a nice girl. A little hot-headed, and she doesn't have much impulse control, but I'm the same way."

"Tim, Jude doesn't associate with people she doesn't align with unless she's planning on destroying them to feed her god." Daisy said, putting down her own glass. She rested her chin on her hands, giving Tim the most concerned look. "That means either your lady is about to be taken down by her, or you are."  Tim went quiet then, staring into his drink for a bit before sighing to himself.

"If I promise to look out for red flags, will you guys leave it alone?" He asked in defeat. He figured he might as well appease them, if they were all that worried. The other three looked back and forth between one another, and each nodded.

"I think we all deserve to gloat a little if we're right." Jon said, pointing a finger at Tim. "That's my only stipulation. Also for you to keep Jude away from the Institute."

"Alright, alright. It's a deal." Tim said. He thought about it for a second, and raised his glass a little. "How about we just move on and have a toast for making it out alive this far?"

One by one, three more glasses were raised.

"To living another day!" Tim said, and all four glasses clinked together.  "To living another day!" Jon, Daisy, and Basira said simultaneously, and drinks were brought down and finally drunk. And for once, the four enjoyed the evening together as well as they possibly could.

Jon never thought Tim would be a sloppy drunk. Granted, it took far more drinks than he expected for Tim to end up that drunk, but he got there eventually and he was a mess. Not that Jon was much better right now, himself and Tim leaning against each other to stay upright, but Jon was at least some degree coherent and present. Just a little clumsy and slow to react, and with less of a filter. Daisy seemed mostly unbothered by the haze of alcohol, a fact about which Jon was in no way unsurprised, and Basira hadn't even had any alcohol. When Tim, already three drinks in, had asked about it she said she needed to keep track of the rest of them.

"Y'know, Jon," Tim began, words jumbled together and barely intelligible. "You look... Really good with long hair. Makes you look roguish. Mysterious, even." He reached up and awkwardly patted Jon's face, dragging his palm across the stubble from being too tired to shave for three days. He then grabbed a loose lock of hair between his thumb and forefinger, pulled downwards on it to carefully straighten it, and then let it go to watch it spring back up into its original shape. He cooed at that in amazement, as if it wasn't a totally normal way for curly hair to behave.

"Thanks...?" Jon asked, unsure what to make of the sudden compliment, and also of his face being touched. He looked down at Tim, who was smiling like the drunken idiot he was right now and had his face flushed red from the liquor. "I just... Haven't had the chance to get it cut yet."

"Don't, please!" Tim sounded like he'd been attacked and had his life threatened, he was so legitimately panicked at that notion. "You look s'much prettier than me with long hair! I looked like a tramp after the coma! The haircut made me pretty again! You just look good like this...!" Tim was really laying it on thick with the insistence that Jon looked good with long hair. Jon rolled his eyes.

"I guess my hands are... Uh, pretty tied, then." Jon slurred a little bit, his feet briefly forgetting the proper method of walking and causing him to stumble a little. Basira, who had been keeping an eye on the two drunkest of the group, noticed immediately and caught them both to keep them from toppling to the pavement. "Thanks, Basira."

"Jon, can I braid it...!?" Tim gasped like he'd had some sort of revelation. "I promise it'll look great on you, you just have to let me braid it...!"

"If it'll get you to calm down about it, okay." Jon relented without much argument. Something about having someone playing with his hair felt enticing, and he figured that'd be nice to experience, even if he was drunk.

He was fairly certain he'd remember most of it the next day anyways. And if he didn't, Basira would make sure he knew about it all anyways, he was sure.

"Yaaaaayyyyy!" Tim stopped walking to give Jon a bone-crushing hug, and shortly after Basira had to gently pry Tim off of Jon to get them moving again.

"Come on, you two. You can get back to doing whatever this is back at the Institute, but right now we're in the open. Walk."

"Yes ma'am~" Tim intoned, and they were back to walking again.

Obviously, Tim wasn't going to hear the end of this.

Chapter Text

"Is he telling the truth?" Martin asked, sitting across from Elias in the visitation room and giving him a glowering sort of look. He needed answers, and while he didn't especially trust Elias of all people to be any sort of helpful, he figured he'd at least get a tiny crumb of something he could work with. Anything, really. Even a lie would be something!

"About what?" Elias shifted his hands to rest his forearms on the table and lean forward. Of course he was playing dumb about it. He knew damn well what Martin meant, and Martin was well aware of that fact.

"About any of it." Martin all but demanded. He watched Elias take a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them again he spoke.

"Everything Peter has told you is true."

Martin felt his shoulders droop just a little as he let out a quiet, disappointed "oh," but just for a moment before he brought his shoulders back square again.

"For all his… many faults, Peter is legitimately trying to stop the end of the world as we know it."

"So why haven’t you helped him?"

"My relationship to the apocalypse is more… complicated." Elias seemed all too happy to dance around any specifics. The bastard was hiding something, and Martin knew it. He just didn't know what to make of that statement because it could mean just about anything as far as he was concerned.

"Seriously?"

Elias shifted forward in his chair, leaning forward with his stomach against the table just a little. He was deathly serious.

"Seriously. Anyway, I have helped him. I’ve given him control of the Institute, I’ve provided him with--"

"Me?" Martin interrupted, not even apologetically.

"Any manpower he might require."

Martin scoffed and rolled his eyes. Once again, Elias Bouchard was dancing around what Martin actually wanted him to say. Not a surprise. When he spoke next, he was noticeably more agitated.

"Yeah, but if-- if he’s right about the Extinction, what it is, then why didn’t you say anything before, why am I only hearing about it now, and why doesn’t John know?"

Elias shrugged a bit, nonchalant as ever. Only he could be this unwaveringly bastardly in prison, of all places.

"In my case, while Peter has talked of it before, it was only very recently that I was forced to admit the Extinction is real. And as for our dear Archivist, I’m afraid I no longer have any real control over what he does or does not know, unlike yourself. I notice you haven’t told him either."

"Yeah, well. I’m still not sure I really believe it." Martin sighed, removing his glasses for a moment and pinching the bridge of his nose. "A-- And I don't-- I-- I'm--"

Elias rested his chin in the palms of his hands with his elbows on the table. He was grinning like a shark.

"Worried he might charge off into another coffin." He made a short, smug sort of noise. "Quite." Then, he moved to gesture at Martin with his still cuffed hands. "As for why I’ve done so little about such a looming existential threat... to be blunt, I have been rather busy." Martin stammered and sputtered for a moment, about to ask what the hell Elias could be so busy with, but Elias cut him off before he could speak. With a gesture of his hands to emphasize the fact that his wrists were still very much cuffed together, he continued. "Don’t forget, I am still living at Her Majesty’s pleasure, due in no small part to your actions. So by this point, all I can do is confirm that everything Peter has told you is true."

There was a pregnant pause, with Martin trying to decide what to say next, if anything. He bit the bullet.

"I think he wants me to join The Lonely."

"Then it sounds like you have a decision to make." Elias gave a surprisingly short response for such a loaded statement.

"What?" Martin let out a dry laugh. "That’s it? No, no monologue, no mind games? You love manipulating people!"

"That makes two of us." Elias spoke in a way Martin almost physically recoiled from. He rested his forearms against the table again. "No. This is too important for me to jeopardize with cheap mind games. I simply have to trust that when the time comes, you’ll make the right choice." He was occasionally gesturing to Martin as he spoke.

"Great!" Martin threw his hands in the air, muttering to himself and repeating the aforementioned word a few times for emphasis, or maybe a mental filler as he tried to conjure what else to say. "So what you’re actually saying is that you’re gonna be no help whatsoever!"

Elias's eyes held a cold sort of glare that chilled Martin to his very core, and his grin grew even wider, even skeevier than before. Martin hated that smile, and wanted nothing more than to slap it off of Elias's stupid face.

"Just like old times."

Martin had to physically hold himself back from punching Elias in the throat. Not that the guards would be likely to stop him or anything, but it was a matter of personal integrity for him.

"I don’t know what I expected." Martin had stood and turned, just about to leave, when he heard Elias's handcuffs clatter against the table to catch his attention. He turned to face his boss again. "What now?"

"I take it you were also wondering about Jon and Tim, hm?" He crooned. His eyes held a faint green glimmer, like the sheen on a hummingbird's feathers. Martin's heart leapt into his throat. He, against his better judgment, sat back down across from Elias, still scowling. "That's what I thought."

"Quit with the games, Elias." Martin demanded. "If you've got something to tell me, then tell me."

"Peter has told you they've gotten rather close, right?" Elias asked, all too confident. He knew exactly what Martin was wondering. What had been buzzing around in his mind this whole time. Martin didn't respond, at least not verbally. "Of course he has. And you've certainly done a little investigating into his claims, have you not?"

Flashes of what he'd heard Tim and Jon talking about a week or so prior flooded his head, though he couldn't tell whether that was Elias's doing or his own anxieties. He didn't know which was worse. He fought tears, but the tiny saline pinpricks resting on his eyelashes were noticed all too readily by the near-omniscient man in front of him.

"Would you like to know what happened the other night?" Elias just about whispered, like it was some grand, scandalous secret. He didn't even wait for a response. "They went out drinking with Basira and Daisy. Didn't think to invite you, of course. After all, why would they? You've just been so absorbed in your work."

"Get on with it." Martin actually growled out at Elias, earning a haughty chuckle in return.

"My, someone's getting testy today!" Elias taunted, sitting back in his chair and resting his hands between his legs casually. "Well if you must know, they got quite friendly once they were both suitably under the influence. Jon has always been a bit of a lightweight, and Tim gets his own drinks strong."

"Elias!" Martin directed Elias from his very intentional tangent from the subject at hand. This wasn't about anyone's alcohol tolerances, or their drink preferences, this was about Jon and Tim.

"Fine, fine. I won't give too many details, but Tim is quite the handsy drunk. And I don't think Tim's relationship with his current girlfriend is going to last too much longer, for one reason or another."

Martin felt the color drain from his face. So that's how it was, was it? Martin Blackwood had spent the better part of a couple years being flat-out ignored or detested by the man he was head-over-heels in love with, and when he finally got even a tiny chance with the man, he was pulled away by someone determined to isolate him for whatever reason, and the man he was so deeply in love with had immediately moved on as if nothing had ever happened.

"I think we're done here." Martin said coldly, standing again and moving to walk out the door to the room as he motioned to the guards that the visitation was done now. He could hear Elias continuing to taunt him as he walked away.

"Don’t forget to keep in touch, Martin. There are so many people in here, but without one’s friends…" Elias said, as Martin opened the door. He could just hear the wicked grin on his face. "It does get rather lonely."

Chapter Text

Jon, despite the incredibly oppressive headache from attempting to perceive further than he was ready for, continued poring over the statement regarding Agnes Montague. He couldn't for the life of him figure out what felt so wrong about it. All he knew was it definitely had something to do with Tim. But what did it have to do with him? Mentally he was stringing Polaroids and cut-up documents together with push pins and red string, trying to come up with something, anything, to prove that something was wrong and he wasn't just being paranoid again, albeit this time for someone else's sake.

He knew Agnes was long dead. She had died even before Gertrude did. He knew Diego Molina was dead. Arthur Nolan had all but dropped off the map. That, as far as he was concerned, left Jude Perry, and by extension the woman Tim was involved with romantically, as anyone relevant. But by all intents and purposes she seemed perfectly normal, aside from her association with Jude. He scribbled down words and phrases, notable little snippets from the statement, into a notebook. Many of them ended up scratched out hard enough for the pen to cut through the page and mar the one behind it.

Could they be grooming him to be their next Agnes?

No, no, he wasn't pure enough for that. He had become of the flame, he wasn't born of it. And he certainly hadn't consciously become an avatar of The Desolation. It had happened against his will and he seemed to detest it even with the few choice perks it had. Jon pried into the vast sea of knowledge technically available to him, and was instantly walloped with a wave of full-body pain and intense nausea that actually had him briefly dry heaving into a nearby trash can. Thankfully he didn't have to actually use it, and once the nausea subsided he continued his frankly obsessive analysis of the statement he had recorded not long before. What was he missing? He read over it yet another time, the pain behind his forehead pounding with his heartbeat, and suddenly, a portion of it just clicked.

Some objected, said that unless the child was conceived of the flame, it could never be a true incarnation. But they had no idea of how such a conception could possibly even work, so it was decided that it would have to be enough to birth the child by fire.

"Conceived of the flame." Jon said, his first words spoken aloud in several hours that weren't an expletive of some sort. He realized exactly what that meant. He leapt out of his chair, grabbing the folder that held the statement as he did, and ran out the door at breakneck pace.

Jon, yet again, barged into the office where Tim was without so much as a knock. Scared the living hell out of Tim, but the wild look of panic in Jon's eyes told Tim this was actually important.

"Tim, I know what's wrong!" Jon led with that, and absolutely no context. He all but slammed the statement onto his friend's desk, and Tim just looked at him like he'd lost his mind.

"Wrong with what, exactly?" Tim asked, opening the folder and thumbing through the papers within it, skimming over words and phrases almost absently.  "About this girlfriend of yours! Tim, she is bad news, and she's got to be an agent of The Lightless Flame!"

"Again with this, Jon!?" Tim slapped his hand on the papers in front of him. Recognizing his own temper, he closed the folder and moved it to the side before he accidentally singed a handprint into the paper and sent Jon into a further conniption. "How many times do I have to tell you that my relationship is none of your business!?"

"You're not listening, Tim! She's trying to manipulate you! She wants to bring another Agnes Montague into the world and she's going to use you to do it!"

"The only manipulation I see here is what you're doing! Are you listening to yourself? You're bullshitting a reason for me to break up with a woman I actually get on with really well, and for what? Your paranoia? Jealousy, maybe?" Tim stood from the desk, pointing a finger at Jon in an accusatory fashion. He growled low in his throat. "You are out of line, Sims!"

Jon made a frustrated sort of roar, pulling at his own hair and then gesturing wildly.

"Can you not see how blatant it is!?"

"Oh, you mean the fact that she's attracted to me? Sorry, not everyone is entirely sex-repulsed like you! Most people actually have some semblance of a libido!"

Jon was getting angry. Moreso than he usually got during arguments with Tim, even. Something in him snapped, and as he grabbed Tim by the collar he got a flood of information he never wanted to have, that he didn't need to see. A mess of tangled limbs and crumpled bedsheets, breathy sounds and wandering hands, teeth and lips touching any flesh they could get ahold of, and--

"She's been poking holes in your condoms, you fucking idiot!"

There was a tense, incredible moment of silence between the two of them where both people's faces turned red from both rage and embarrassment.

"Tim-- Tim I am so sorry, I-- I didn't mean to--"

"HOW FUCKING DARE YOU!?" Tim bellowed, shoving Jon off of him by his collarbone and leaving a red, blistering handprint there. Jon felt the temperature of the room rise a few degrees, and that wasn't just because of the red flush that reached all the way down his neck and to the tops of his ears. "This is a new low for you, Jon! Psychically intruding on my sex life, really!? For someone who's so incredibly against the concept of physical intimacy with anyone, you sure seem to get a perverse delight in that sick sort of voyeurism from The Eye! Who the hell do you think you are, using this newfound fancy avatar omniscience to... To... T-- Tell me..."  Tim trailed off, the weight of the information sinking in after a delayed moment. He sank back into his chair again, staring into the middle distance and processing it for a few minutes. Jon was the one to break the silence.

"Tim, shit, I'm sorry you found out like this, I--"

"No. No, I think I needed to hear it from you. Thank you. I, um... I think I need to go take a walk now, though." Tim was calm as he spoke. Terrifyingly so. Jon never thought he'd be unhappy to see Tim calm down, but here he was. Tim stood again and held a hand up toward Jon when the other man tried to follow him. "I will light you on fire if you follow me."

And despite Jon's protests, Tim was soon out the door of the office, and Jon was cursing to himself as he tried to figure out how to repair this. He started pacing, and after about a minute and a half Tim poked his head back through the door again, albeit with a barely distinguishable little smirk on his lips. Jon noticed immediately, and was fairly certain he liked that even less than the calmness.

"I'll be fine."

And he was gone.

Chapter Text

"You're the one who put a target on your back." Jon said to a scowling Tim, who was sitting on his bunk in a boat with both him and Basira on the way to Norway. "I certainly don't blame you for it, but bringing you with us is for your own good, you know."

"Whatever. I just fucking hate this boat, and I hate the cold, and I hate the idea of going all the way to some little company settlement just short of the North Pole for something that probably doesn't even matter." Tim grumbled, hunched forward with his elbows resting on his knees. Basira was busy trying to keep herself from getting sick, clearly not doing well with the rocking motion of the vessel as they traveled northwards. "This is bullshit. I can handle Jude Perry on my own."

"The cult has more people than just her, you know. She's just the most familiar to the Archives." Jon rolled his eyes. "You'd get ambushed as soon as you set foot outside, and you know it. And they're also avatars of The Desolation, so fire won't be likely to bother them unless they want it to."

"I could throw dry ice at them."

"That would hurt you too."

"Gloves."

"Shut up, both of you...!" Basira grumbled nauseously from her bunk, curled up under the blankets. Jon heard footsteps tromping across metal, and figured he'd poke his head out from the cabin door to catch the shiphand's attention.

"Excuse me?" Jon asked the man.

"Yeah?" The shiphand stopped to allow Jon to ask his question.

"Do you know when we're scheduled to arrive?"

"Captain reckons two days."

"Thank you." Jon said, and the shiphand walked away again to tend to his duties. "He says another two days."

"Yeah, I heard. Thanks." Basira groaned.

"Good job, Captain Obvious." Tim snarked at Jon, more as an extension of Basira's comment. Jon made a noise of surprise, and Basira rolled over in her bunk.

"What?" Basira asked.

"The tape recorder." Jon replied.

"Goddammit, did it turn itself on again?" Tim asked, ready to hit the stupid little machine with a hammer.

"Get ready. Any idea what's coming?" Basira asked, cautious.

"N-- No... No, I-- I don't think that's it." Jon stammered. He looked like he was piecing something together in his mind, and Tim could have sworn he saw a faint green glimmer in Jon's otherwise dark eyes.

"It's not recording for nothing." Basira contested. Jon glanced toward the door, and Tim immediately recognized that look. The flash of green became a little brighter, stuck around a little longer.

"No, I… I think…" Jon leaned towards the door again. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah?" The shiphand called out, clearly baffled by being called again. Footsteps returned, and Jon stood.

"You..." Jon almost mused, sounding a little too much like Elias. The Shiphand stammered nervously under Jon's intense glare coupled with whatever prying he was doing with his powers.

"Jon?" Basira sat up hesitantly in her bunk, eyeing Jon suspiciously.

"You used to work for Salesa." Jon stated, an objective fact he had pried out of the vast sea of knowledge that lay before him. The shiphand grew pale and stepped back a little in clear terror.

"What? You-- Who did? I don't know what you're talking about." The shiphand seemed desperate to get away, but was locked in place by compulsion. He was starting to sweat.

"Mikaele Salesa. You used to work on his ship."

"Jon." Tim warned, but it fell on deaf ears.

"I don’t know you." The shiphand all but pleaded, wanting nothing more than to get Jon out of his head.

"But I know you." Jon stated. Basira spoke up to try and warn him as well, but Jon still continued as if she never said anything. "Floyd Matharu. Served on the Dorian from 2011 to 2014. With Salesa."

"Jon, I'm not sure about this." Basira was about to get down, but Jon held a hand out to stop her. Tim gritted his teeth, but realized when an effort was futile.

"I am." Jon insisted. He gave the shiphand, Floyd apparently, an intense stare. "Tell me what happened."

"Wh-- What is this?" Floyd whimpered.

"Whenever you're ready." Jon compelled the shiphand, much to the displeasure of everyone else.

"What the hell was that!?" Basira demanded. Jon moved to sit back down after ushering Floyd away, and Tim stood to stop him via a hand in the middle of his chest.

"Yes Jon, what the hell was that!?" Tim seconded, forcing Jon backwards a little. Tim was clearly ready for a fight, and would be willing to start said fight if given the opportunity. Jon held his hands up.

"He had information about Salesa. I thought it would help." Jon attempted to defend himself, but neither of the other two were willing to hear it.

"Is that why you were so keen on this ship?" Basira asked, climbing out of her bunk on unsteady legs despite her nausea. Sometimes rage could just make a person forget about their illness for a while.

"I wasn’t sure. Just had a hunch there was something here."

Tim shoved Jon, forcing him to catch his balance against the wall. If he didn't defuse this situation, they'd have a fire problem on their hands soon enough.

"So you just sucked it out of his brain, did you!?" Tim shouted, even angrier than Basira. Jon was effectively cornered, and it was starting to cause problems.

"He didn’t exactly seem inclined to volunteer the information!" Jon continued to dig the hole deeper. He gestured to Basira then, clearly intending to drag her into his bad decisions now. "Besides, you said I needed to be ready for Ny-Ålesund. Full power, I believe were your words. The statement helped!"

"That man is going to have nightmares about you for the rest of his life! Just because of a fucking tape recorder!?" Tim stepped closer to Jon, a wave of blistering heat emanating from him. Jon shrunk into himself a little bit.

"Well yes, but we needed it! And Basira, you were the one who wanted to be like Gertrude! Do you think she'd give a damn about a few bad dreams?"

"...No." Basira admitted.

"Don't change the subject, Jon."

"It needed to be done, Tim! Gertrude didn't care about the cost when she did it!"

"But you do, don't you?" Tim growled. He was getting damn tired of Jon's hypocrisy.

"I had to know." Jon pleaded.

"It wasn't right." Basira said, and Jon's shoulders dropped.

"You could have stopped me!"

" We tried to!" Tim shouted. He was about to straight-up punch Jon in the jaw, but a metal hook caught his wrist first. He turned to see Basira with the other end of some implement to pull something down from a high place, and a dark, irritated frown on her face.

"Enough, Tim. Not here." She warned him with no room for argument. "Unless you want to deal with the results of causing multiple casualties on this boat, you are going to, quite literally, chill."

Tim growled low in his throat but stepped away from Jon, who slumped to the floor once his legs gave out from under him after that fight-or-flight response Tim had set off.

"I just..." Jon began. He sighed heavily to himself, deciding against voicing the reat of that thought. "Rest, both of you. Two days yet."

"Fuck off." Tim spat, before testing his touch on a small piece of wood and deciding he wouldn't set his bunk on fire by climbing in. And climb in he did, bundling himself up and refusing to acknowledge either Jon or Basira for the rest of the day.

Chapter Text

"Sure it's this one?" Basira asked, holding a flashlight that hardly was able to cut through the pitch darkness of the supposed research complex.

"Yeah." Jon said. He checked his bag, shining his own flashlight, which he only just had the thought to turn on, into. "Tape recorder thinks so too."

"What, is the thing your guide dog now?" Tim snarked. Basira turned to glare at him.

"Quiet." She said, and got a low growl in response. "Something's coming, then?"

"Could be." Jon was focusing on something, but neither Basira or Tim could figure out what exactly.

"No windows. Guess that makes sense though."

"No shit, Sherlock. No windows in the compound held down by the cult that worships the inky void of darkness! Who would have guessed?" Tim threw his hands in the air.

"Shut up, Tim!" Basira hissed. She heard Tim huff in aggravation. "We still alone, Jon?"

"Never said we were. Just said I couldn't see anybody." Jon explained. Ah, so that was what he was focusing on. He was making sure they weren't being followed. Smart move.

"Oh. I thought you meant, like, see- see."

"Oh jesus christ." Tim groaned. "Fucking semantics."

"Oh. No, not like that." Jon corrected, moving to close a door as they entered a room.

"We need to figure out proper terms for this." Basira said as she watched him fumbling with the door. "What are you doing?"

"Closing the door."

"What makes you think that's a good idea, Jon?" Tim snapped, though still trying to keep his voice somewhat quiet. "There are no lights in here! Basira and I can't see shit! Not everyone has godly perception gifted to them by The Eye!"

"...Right." Jon decided to forego closing the door then.

"Eyes peeled." Basira said. Jon stopped in his tracks, looking over to her in the dim reflected light of the flashlights.

"Was that a joke?" Jon asked.

"Yeah." Basira just shrugged.

"Not a very good one, if you ask me." Tim had to interject, and got his arm punched by Basira. "Ow! Was that really necessary?"

"Jon, any clue where everyone is?"

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"Well my guess is an ambush."

At the word "ambush," Tim instinctively produced a sizable flame and held it in front of him in his palm. He looked around the room under the brighter light of the flame. He didn't see anyone, and extinguished the flame again with some difficulty, although it did grow and sputter first, spewing sparks and cinders around against his intentions.

"Everyone back at the research base seemed pretty sure this place was empty."

"Oh, and let me guess: you compelled them to tell the truth about it? And they didn't even notice?" Tim asked. He didn't trust this. They were about to get jumped, he just knew it.

Jon paused, and nodded thoughtfully.

"Actually, yes."

"Dammit, Jon!"

Jon and Basira ignored him.

"So they were serious. It's been empty for, what, a year?"

"Bit more. As far as they knew, anyways."

"So this was just another colossal waste of time?" Basira asked. She muttered something under her breath, definitely cursing Elias, and saying she was going to kill the son of a bitch.

"No, I--" Jon took a centering breath, focusing in on what he'd been looking for. "I think it's here. I-- I can feel it, like a... A hole in my mind."

"They just left it here." Basira was in clear disbelief. There was a tense silence, and Tim could hear footsteps. He stopped walking to get a better listen.

"Maybe." Jon laughed shakily, not noticing Tim had stopped. "Kinda wish Daisy was here."

The footsteps stopped, and Tim continued walking. He was probably just hearing things.

"Basira? Tim?" Jon called out. Basira acknowledged him with a slight verbal sound. "Sorry, I-- I know this isn't--" The footsteps continued then, much faster than before, and Jon immediately picked up on someone closing in on them. "BEHIND YOU!"

Basira whipped around, pulling her gun as she did, and the flashlight she had went out. Before Basira got the chance to fire her gun into the relative darkness, Tim produced a flame much brighter than needed to compensate for the flashlight before charging at the attacker full tilt. His footsteps left behind flaming prints on the floor that went out after about forty-five seconds or so. He let the flame die out, with it briefly flaring up again, and tackled the woman to the ground, pinning her wrists with burning hands and actually relishing in the pained scream she let out. He backed off on the heat consciously, but kept her held in place as she thrashed. She spat at him, hitting him square on the cheek. It sizzled.

"Charming." Jon said with a grimace. Tim sat on the woman's legs to keep her from kicking him in the groin like she was trying to do.

"Who are you?" Basira demanded. The woman just grunted and thrashed more under Tim's grasp. Tim tightened his grip and allowed more heat to channel into already-present deep burns. She let out another shout of pain.

"Tim, don't kill her!" Basira knocked Tim upside the back of the head, but snatched her hand back when she was given a physical reminder of how scorching hot his body was. Small blisters formed on her hand, but she shook it off as her own mistake. Tim let up on the burning again, though. "Jon."

"Who are you?" Jon compelled. The air in the room felt heavy and oppressive, like a stage where all eyes are on you. The woman resisted, but ultimately was forced to give in.

"Manuela. Manuela Dominguez."

Tim loosened his grip slightly as she seemed to start to cooperate, and she took the chance to thrash more. Tim's grip tightened right back up again.

"Where is everybody?" Basira asked Manuela. Manuela scoffed.

"Go to hell!"

"Answer her." Jon's power deepened a step further. The others' ears were ringing painfully.

"They're dead. Because of you."

Jon paused.

"Me?"

"Jon, what did you do?"

"I doubt he could do anything." Tim muttered.

"Hey!" Jon warned Tim with a glare. He turned his focus back to Basira. "I didn't do anything, I don't think!"

"Your Institute."

"What?" Jon was even more confused now.

"So she sent you to finish the job?" Manuela acted like Jon hasn't even seemed confused.

"Who?"

"Your Archivist." Manuela spat. Jon tried to clarify, but she continued. "Gertrude Robinson."

"Gertrude!?" Jon had gone from in full control, to trying to make sense of how she was so out of the loop.

"Oh god, she's been completely isolated up here, hasn't she?" Tim asked, overlapping with Jon.

"This makes no sense--" Basira said, overlapping with Tim and Jon. The three of them together trying to make sense of this was a clutter of baffled commotion, but Jon suddenly cut off the chaos.

"What. Happened?" Jon once more compelled Manuela. She let out a fearful whimper.

"Please don't make me!" She pleaded. Tim felt some level of empathy for her, but not enough to let go of her.

"Tell me."

The air got heavier again, seemingly almost enough to choke someone. Tim glanced over at Jon, and felt his heart briefly flutter in his chest at the sight of his eyes glowing and shimmering green with the power of the patron Fear that had chosen him as one of its vessels. Shit, he was actually attractive like this. No, he needed to focus. This was important, dammit!

"Fine! ...Fine." Manuela conceded finally, and Tim loosened his grip on her wrists as she gave in and he could safely assume she wouldn't lash out.

"I could have handled looking at it, you know! You saw how I managed her! The dark is nothing to someone who can literally control fire!"

"Tim, now is not the time--" Basira was fully prepared to lecture Tim about foolhardiness again, but they both heard Manuela scream, and hurried back into the room, where they found Jon collapsed to his knees, in the process of coming back to his senses again.

"Jon!" Tim and Basira both shouted, hurrying over to the man in question to help him up. Jon shook his head, though he accepted the help in getting to his feet. Then, Jon's flashlight, actually held by Basira now, also died with the sound of shattering glass as the bulb exploded. Basira let go of Jon, and Tim shoved him to the floor and covered him with his body as a human shield without even thinking about it. Two gunshots rang out as Basira fired at Manuela in the darkness.

"Stay here." She demanded, and ran out of the room after Manuela.

To light up the room better, Tim produced a small, candle-like flame with far more ease of control than the larger ones earlier. He hadn't realized what he'd done, but now that he could actually see and process his surroundings he realized he had Jon held to the ground, and their faces were about four inches away from each other. But neither of them moved to get up yet, still both catching their breath. A fleeting thought crossed Tim's mind that he could just kiss Jon right now, were he so inclined. He wasn't inclined to do so, at least he didn't think he was, but still didn't move.

After a tense moment, Jon cleared his throat and nudged Tim's chest with his hands. Tim gasped and sat up quickly, dropping the flame and sitting cross-legged on the floor. If his face was red, it was too dark to see it. A door opened, despite Basira not having shut any doors when she left in pursuit of Manuela Dominguez.

"Did you get her?" Jon asked, not paying attention to his surroundings on account of being rather distracted. Plus, the fogginess of having just stared directly into the not-even-proverbial abyss didn't help either.

"Yes." Helen responded, as if she was clearly the one Jon meant to talk to. Jon gasped and instinctively scrambled to hide behind Tim. Or rather, he was fairly certain he was behind Tim, though he refused to reach out to confirm. It was still quite dark in the room and he couldn't see clearly. Helen chuckled. "She needed a door."

"H-- How-- How did you--" Jon stuttered.

"Oh, finding this place was easy without the darkness." Helen said, stepping forward towards the two men still sitting on the ground. Tim stood and helped Jon up as well.

"Will she be coming back?" Jon asked Helen, who mused for the shortest of moments.

"No. This one, I think I'll keep." She spoke thoughtfully, but definitively.

"What are you doing here?" Tim practically stole the words from Jon's mouth. He had personal beef with The Distortion too, after all.

"I told you! I've decided to help. I thought you might like a way home?"

"Through your dingy corridors?" Tim was incredulous at best, but didn't exactly have a better idea.

"How rude! I wouldn't call them dingy!" Helen mocked offense. "Unless that was a no..."

"No, we'll take it." Jon said, elbowing Tim in the side and getting kicked in the ankle immediately after. He glared at Tim, and got a matching one right back.

"How was it?" Helen asked. Jon made a puzzled sound. "Looking upon the Dark."

"I thought I was going to die." Jon responded.

"You seem to think that a lot. I remember when you thought you were going to die at my threshold." Helen said, though she didn't argue with his thought.

"And on the boat."

"Tim, I am fairly certain you were about to kill me over that."

"I was, and you're very lucky Basira stopped me."

"As much as I love to see people flirt, would the lovely couple stop fighting long enough for us to get going?"

"We are not a couple." Jon said sternly, and Tim felt like he'd been punched for some reason. Helen shrugged.

"Whatever you say. Now go find your Basira. Then let's get the three of you home." Helen said, gesturing to the door of the room rather than just her door.

"Jon, can you, well, see where Basira is?"

"I'll manage. Come on, I need you for light."

"So you took her, then?" Basira was almost disappointed as she asked Helen to be sure. "And there is absolutely no chance she'll get out?"

"Oh, not if I have anything to say about it! She's as good as dead in there!" Helen was cheerful as she said that. It was disturbing. Basira sighed.

"Alright. Fine. Let's just go home."

"Finally." Tim groaned, watching as Helen opened that yellow door into the seemingly infinite, impossible corridors within The Distortion as a place. He hesitated even after Jon and Basira crossed the threshold, and after letting himself think it over for a moment he stepped forward as well. But as a last-moment sort of fuck you to this damned compound, The Church of The Divine Host, and just to the situation as a whole, he dragged a hand along a nearby wall as he walked. Sparks flew, cinders ignited, and a trail of crackling fire quickly followed in his wake. Just before the door shut, he turned to see how well the building would burn, and saw the ceiling start to catch. He grinned to himself, and continued on his way.

Chapter Text

"And you're sure this is a good idea?" Jon asked, him and Tim having listened to the tape of Arthur Nolan's statement to Gertrude regarding Agnes Montague. Tim was tense, but didn't show many signs of being ready to lash out, at least.

"Well I can guarantee you I'm not made of wax, if that's what you're worried about."

"Tim, you know that's not what I meant."

"I thought knowing was your deal."

"Tim." Jon sighed, giving the other man a long-suffering look. Tim shrugged. He was being cheeky, and he knew it, but also he was playing it off deadpan enough that it just made him a pain in the ass. He knew that, at this point, Jon wouldn't have it any other way. It spiced things up, made them just a little less serious at any given moment. "I just-- With everything you've been going through, I'm just concerned about you, okay?"

"That's sweet, but I can take care of myself. I don't need to be babied. And I might be able to give some insight to this one since I have a look into that-- That god of theirs now." Tim actually grimaced at calling the Fear that claimed him a god. Something about it just settled in his gut with a visceral level of discomfort, almost like some sort of vague queasiness. He sighed "I don't know if I'm aware of anything we need to know consciously, but if you can pull it out of me--"

"I thought you didn't want me to compel you?"

"If it'll help with the things we've been trying to stop, I'll let it slide." Tim sighed, relenting to the fact that the idea might just work, and might actually do some good.

"First, let's start with what we do know. I don't want to do that to you without putting together the things we already have first and seeing what that gives us."

"Fair enough. So what's that, then?"

"Well, the Lightless Flame seems willing to try again for a new messiah already, which means it's not unheard of for them to try and target other people, especially unwilling avatars."

"I think I managed to make an example of my ex over that, so we don't have to worry about her at least."

"You didn't kill her, did you?"

"No, but I'm pretty sure Jude might have. Haven't seen either of them since, and you'd think they'd be hanging around here trying to catch me unaware and have her begging me to take her back if she was still alive." Tim spun a pen between his fingers deftly, like a tiny baton. He kicked back in his chair, resting his heels on Jon's legs. Jon briefly shoved at Tim's feet, but Tim stayed put. Jon sighed as Tim kept talking. "Anything else?"

"Eugene Vanderstock disappeared in late 2009, and only left behind one thing: a lifelike statue of himself made of candle wax and sawdust, but missing its head."

"Sounds like he might still be alive, but the sawdust is keeping him in place."

"That's what I was thinking. Can't imagine how agonizing that has to be, though, frozen in place by razor-sharp particles mixed through what he chose in place of flesh like that."

"Any idea where the head went?"

"No, but I do know it desperately wants to scream." Jon thought for a moment, coming to an uncomfortable concept. "Maybe I can--"

There was a knock on the door. Tim and Jon looked up at said door as it opened, and Georgie poked her head in.

"Knock-knock!" Georgie intoned. Jon properly shoved Tim's feet out of his lap, almost knocking Tim out of his chair in the process.

"Oh! Georgie! Wha-- What are you--" Jon stammered as Georgie looked between him and Tim for a moment.

"Sorry, um... Is Melanie about?" Georgie asked, a touch sheepish.

"I think she's in the other office. We saw her a couple hours ago." Tim replied, not picking up on Georgie's mild embarrassment.

"I can show you there if you'd like--" Jon offered, but Melanie held up her hand to say she didn't need it.

"No, I'm sure I can find it on my own. Don't want to interrupt, um, whatever you two have going on here." She said with a weak chuckle. "Congrats, by the way. I would've thought you and Martin would have ended up together, Jon, but you and Tim make a pretty good-looking couple too!"

Tim choked on his own spit when he gasped in surprise, and went into a coughing fit. He ended up doubled over and thumping his chest with his fist in a frail attempt to be able to breathe again without feeling like he was drowning in his own saliva. Jon flailed his hands a little bit and fumbled his words as he tried to process how to correct Georgie.

"It's not like that! Tim and I aren't-- We're not dating! We're just close friends, and Tim has been getting kind of touchy-feely lately for some reason, which I've been trying to curb--"

"Oh, so I guess I should let Melanie know to lay off with that, then?"

"Yes! Yes, please do!" Jon quickly changed the subject as Tim managed to get in a few unbroken gasps of air amidst his coughing. "Why are you, uh, here, then? If-- If it's not too personal of a question."

l

"It is, a bit. It's not really my place to discuss it." Georgie danced around it, but Jon got a glimpse of the answer without meaning to.

"Ah! Oh, therapy! You're taking her to therapy!" Jon said. Meanwhile, Tim finally got himself to the point he was able to speak again, but spent his time trying to catch his breath instead.

"She told you, then?" Georgie asked, incredulous.

"Uh... Yes. Yeah." Jon lied through his teeth, but it was at least a believable thing for him to have been told about Melanie's therapy.

"Well, you don't need to sound quite so psyched about it." Georgie rolled her eyes. She could see through him, but decided not to mention it this time. "She gets... Nervous traveling there alone."

"I mean, with everything here, I don't blame her for it." Tim said, his voice still rough but at least he was breathing, albeit raggedly.

"I, um, keep forgetting you and Melanie know each other, ha." Jon let out a nervous laugh. If Tim didn't already know Georgie was Jon's ex-girlfriend, this conversation made it obvious.

"So..." Georgie rocked back on her heels a little, clapping her hands together. "Aside from... This --" She gestured between Jon and Tim, still implying there was something going on there despite being told otherwise. "How are you guys doing?"

"We're doing alright. Just, uh, trying to rest up a bit. Take it easy."

"Liar." Tim said without missing a beat.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure I just heard you talking about a screaming headless corpse." Georgie said, continuing Tim's call-out of the lie.

"W-- Were you listening?" Jon's signature paranoia was kicking in, and Tim kicked at his ankle to snap him out of it. Jon turned to glare at him.

"Oh, um. Didn't mean to, you know. These doors are not that thick."

Jon breathed a heavy sigh of relief, head in his hands as he did so.

"We're going through it." Tim spoke up instead of Jom, though he didn't really know Georgie very well yet and was still trying to get a read on her. "Had some close calls. Almost died a few times. Fought some monsters, mostly masquerading as people, you know how it is."

"Sorry to hear that." Georgie didn't even miss a beat, leading Tim to understand that she really didn't care how they were doing and was instead just making small talk. "You should look into therapy, too. Both of you."

"You wouldn't be willing to go with either of us, would you?" Jon asked, knowing damn well what the answer would be.

"...No." Georgie said, almost trying to ease into the answer, but not really. Tim watched some of the hope leave Jon's eyes, and it took everything in him not to go off on Georgie for being a frigid bitch.

"Yeah. I thought as much." Jon sounded like a kicked puppy, and it made Tim's chest ache.

"...So you said the other office?" Georgie asked. Tim gave her a sidelong glare, and waved her off.

"Yeah. Just go, alright?" Tim fought very hard to keep at least most of the bitterness out of his voice. Georgie visibly flinched, but nodded.

"Right. Thanks." She paused before leaving again. "Take care of each other, alright?"

"Easier to do without someone actively sabotaging it." Tim's statement was extremely pointed, and Georgie took that as her cue to buzz off. As soon as the door was shut, Tim clasped a hand on Jon's shoulder. "Hey. Look at me. Jon."

Jon glanced over to Tim. The thin man's shoulders were slumped, and if Tim didn't know any better he would've thought Jon was about to cry.

"What?" Jon barely spoke above a whisper.

"It's alright. She's just a frigid bitch. I've got you." Tim let go of Jon's shoulder, stood, and held his arms open as a gesture offering a hug. Jon, after a moment's hesitation, accepted the gesture, standing and practically throwing himself into Tim's arms. Tim rubbed the spot between Jon's shoulders with an open palm. "I've got you."

Okay, maybe there was something there. But Tim certainly didn't know how to go about finding out for sure.

Chapter Text

"Martin left a tape for us." Basira's voice was cold as she spoke to Jon. She, Daisy, Melanie, and Tim had all gotten him into a room for an intervention of sorts. Jon seemed confused at first as he walked into the room to all four standing there and looking at him like they'd very much like him to combust.

"And what exactly is on this ta--" Jon was cut short by Basira brandishing it at him, and after the unintentional glimpse of intuition into what was on it he sighed. Of course. "Oh."

"Yes." Melanie spoke next, arms crossed.

"How many?" Basira demanded.

"Basira, I--"

"You heard her, Jon. How many?" Tim reinforced the demand, an orange flicker barely visible in his eyes for a brief moment.

"Four."

"Jesus." Melanie sounded disgusted.

"Jon!" Tim gestured at him in disbelief.

"Including the one on the boat?" Basira clarified.

"Oh yeah, that one. Floyd, was it?" Tim nodded a little, but kept his accusatory glare at Jon. Jon hesitated in his response, almost in shame.

"Including Floyd? Five."

"Jesus, Jon!" Melanie was ready to slap him, judging by the tone in her voice. Tim couldn't blame her at this point.

"Jess Tyrell, the woman on the tape..." Jon combed his fingers through his hair anxiously. "She was the fourth. I-- I just tried to-- I was weak. R-- Ravenous, I-- I-- I-- didn't feel--" Jon had to calm himself from an impending panic attack at being cornered like this. "The first was a supermarket cleaner, um, ended up lost for a week in an endless warehouse."

Tim was keeping up with the guise of being disgusted by this, but the more Jon spoke and explained himself the more Tim realized he wasn't much better. Not that he'd be willing to admit it, but still. Jon continued.

"I didn't even-- I-- I just went in for some shopping, and he was there, and I just-- asked. " Another pause to gather himself. "The second was... it was after I got stabbed by Melanie."

"You are not putting this on me--"

"No, that's not what I meant!" Jon rapidly tried to defuse that specific time bomb of a statement. "I was walking the streets. I-- I thought I was trying to clear my head..."

"But you were hunting."

"Oh so that's where you went after I patched you up." Tim mused, mostly to himself.

"Apparently. I-- I found a woman who, every year on her birthday, wakes up in a fresh grave, just for her."

"And the third was after the coffin." Daisy said.

"A man rejected by all who knew him--" Another moment, but to chase off an even deeper discomfort. "Searching ever-darker places for love. When he told me his story, he started weeping maggots."

Well, that explained that last pause: memories of Jane Prentiss. That definitely didn't help poor Jon's anxieties about this, that was for sure.

"Enough." Basira snapped.

"I hope so." Jon still sounded ashamed, cornered. Tim felt even worse for him. He was still angry, but he sympathized.

"I can't take my eyes off of you for a minute, can I? These were all right after I had to patch you up as a direct result of your shitty decisions!" Tim exclaimed, voicing the source of his irritation.

"Why didn't you record them?" Melanie asked.

"Why do you think? Because he was ashamed." Basira responded in Jon's stead, much to Jon's displeasure.

"No! I-- I mean, I don't record anything anymore, not-- not really. I just sort of assume they'll turn on if it's important." Jon explained.

"Well, they didn't." Basira accused. Tim put up a hand then.

"Basira, you know what he means. I'm pretty sure it's about the statements themselves--"

"Shut up, Tim." Melanie snapped, and Tim shot her a malicious glare. She didn't even falter in the face of that look, much less back down. "You heard me, prettyboy. Quit playing devil's advocate."

"Well?" Basira goaded Jon with a nod of her head. "Did they, or did they not, record?"

"No. No, I suppose they didn't." Jon admitted. There was a long silence as everyone debated what to do or say next, or what was an appropriate consequence for Jon's actions, if anything. Melanie eventually broke the silence with a huff.

"So, what do we do now?" She asked, planting her hands on her hips.

"I-- I don't know." Jon relented, letting his shoulders sag and his eyes meet the floor. Tim was starting to think maybe this had gone a little too far, but then again if he was causing problems like he was then it wasn't actually too far.

"You're a danger, Jon. A monster--" Basira began.

"Now wait just a damn minute!" Tim finally interjected, not having that specific descriptor used for Jon. Basira growled at being interrupted. "There's got to be some other explanation than just 'oh no you're a monster, we'd better do something about it' here!"

"He's hurting innocent people, Tim!" Basira snapped.

"So did Daisy!" Jon argued to his defense, throwing Daisy directly under the bus in the process.

"Shut up. It's not the same thing at all!" Basira raised her voice louder in defense of her closest compatriot.

"No, Basira, he's got a point--" Daisy tried to defend Jon's point there, but Basira turned and pointed a finger at her.

"You didn't know what you were doing." Basira said. Daisy made an indecisive noise, ready to tell Basira that she did, in fact, to some degree completely know what she was doing. Basira interrupted her again. "And since you did, you've spent every waking hour resisting. He knows exactly what he's doing."

"It's a compulsion, Basira! God knows he had those before this whole avatar thing happened! No doubt the man has OCD!" Tim gestured broadly at Jon, who stammered in utter bewilderment at Tim calling him out on the OCD without ever having been told about it. But it still didn't feel right to just call it a compulsion. It felt more like--

"I don't-- It's not that simple, It-- It-- It feels--" Jon paused, flailing his hands as he struggled for purchase of his words again. "I don't know if I can control it. I don't know if it's even me doing it."

"So you say you're being controlled." Basira was incredulous, and fully ready to call him on his bull.

"I-- I don't know. Maybe. Th-- The Web, it--" Jon tried to give himself reasons in his head, connect dots that had no clear place between each other but made him feel a little less helpless to his own vices.

"What-- What was the name you said before? Annabelle Cane." Basira clarified.

"The spider lady?" Tim asked. There was no way it was her, right? It made no sense. "Jon, are you sure--"

"Jon, I don't think that's actually--" Melanie was in just as much disbelief as Tim, it seemed, as her voice overlapped with his. Basira interrupted them both.

"No. No, if he is being controlled, we need to know. And we need to know now. Do you know where she is?"

"N-- Not--  Not properly, I-- I... I think she has some connection to Hill Top Road." Jon continued to fumble his words out of just sheer anxiety.

"Then we go. Now. Unless, anyone has any objections?" Basira gave no room for argument despite her words. Jon spoke up after a moment.

"Not from me--"

"You don't get a vote."

"Like hell he doesn't--"

"Tim. Shut up." Basira was actually about to hit Tim if he didn't shut his trap, and that wasn't going to end well if it happened.

"Uh, okay, seriously-- I'm going to have to be the one to point out that this is a terrible idea." Melanie was really trying to avoid the spider house. Tim didn't blame her. He wasn't a fan of The Web any more than Jon was, and based on the evidence from previous statements he had a feeling that an agent of The Web wouldn't appreciate someone of The Desolation showing up at Hill Top Road again. But if they were going, he knew he'd be stuck going with them.

"Daisy?" Basira asked. It was clearly a loaded question. Daisy shrugged.

"Be better if we could prepare."

"I-- I just think that we shouldn't be exposing ourselves like this until we have a little bit more than a hunch." Melanie made her case. Jon was about to talk again, but Tim covered Jon's mouth with a hand to keep him from digging himself into a hole.

"Okay, fine, I'll go, then. I'll do some recon on my own, and update you." Basira said, getting herself gathered to leave.

"Basira, wait--" Melanie reached out a hand to try and stop her, but was brushed off.

"Basira..." Daisy also tried to stop her from just storming off like this. It also didn't work.

"I'll tell you all what I find. Don't let him eat anyone's brain while I'm gone."

"What, is he a zombie now?" Tim rolled his eyes. Basira bared her teeth at him, and left. Tim sighed, grabbing his coat from the nearby rack. "Fine, I'm following her. Up to you if you do too."

And Tim was hurrying out the door, pulling his jacket on as he did so. Damn spider house.

"You're sure you don't want one of these?" Daisy asked Tim, holding an unlit magnesium flare out to him. Tim shook his head, before snapping his fingers and producing a bright orange flame that didn't send off quite as many sparks as the vivid red light the flares would let off when lit.

"Need to learn to control this better, anyways. I've been figuring it out in my off time, and I think I have better control of it now."

"You'd better. Whatever was going on in Ny-Ålesund was dangerous, and not just because of Manuela." Basira turned to glance at Tim briefly, scowling at him. She was getting tired of dealing with avatars, especially Jon and Tim. As far as she was concerned, they were in cahoots and clearly a danger to everyone around them.

"...You know what? Just for that, I might find a reason not to keep control of it today." Tim spat. Jon, who was pretty solidly using Tim as a human shield and practically clinging to the back of his shirt, punched Tim between the shoulders. "Hey! Don't punch your meat shield!"

"You're not my meat shield!"

"Then why are you hiding behind me like a toddler hides behind his mum?"

"Because you're more likely to burn the cobwebs before they can touch me."

"You big baby." Tim scoffed, but he did smile a little. He passed a couple particularly dense patches of cobwebs, and now that Jon mentioned it... A few of them just happened to catch on fire as he passed them. They burned out as soon as the spider silk was gone, and didn't spread or leave any scorch marks on the walls or ceiling, but they still burned. Tim smiled even more at that, the sight invigorating to him. Jon seemed to be the only one who noticed, as the other three continued on their way.

"Are you sure these will work?" Basira asked.

"No idea, but John said the Web doesn't get on great with fire, and we don't exactly have a flamethrower, so--" Daisy started, lighting flares and handing them to Basira and Melanie before taking one for herself. She then disappeared through a door after motioning for the others to stay put.

"I mean, at least until we find the one Gertrude stocked up." Basira joked. Jon found himself actually laughing a little bit. Tim didn't find it particularly funny. "Right next to the nukes."

"I'm sure the flares will work fine." Jon said, scooting a little closer to Tim. "I mean, un-- unless it's all an elaborate plan to have us burn this place down again."

Tim perked up a little, grinning like a madman.

"So what if it is?" Basira asked. Jon furrowed his brows.

"I... I don't follow."

"I mean, anything we do could be part of the grand master plan. So, what, we do nothing? Just sit on our hands and hope that's not what the Spider wants?"

Jon was about to argue that it'd be a bad idea to do that when they literally had someone claimed by The Desolation among them, just because of how far into it Tim might end up if they weren't careful. However, Melanie was the one who spoke up.

"Right, sure, but it wouldn't hurt to have a bit more of a plan, would it?" Melanie was being the voice of reason for once, and Jon didn't know how he felt about it. But he did agree.

"Exactly." Jon said, motioning to her with an open palm.

"No, no, I like Basira's idea!" Tim interjected. He got yet another dangerous look from Basira.

"You want to come back later?" Basira asked. You know, as if it mattered.

"Yes! That's what I said, isn't it?" Melanie snapped at Basira more harshly than she ever had before. Jon sighed, heavy and resigned.

"Well, we're here now. Might as well push on." He said. It was clear he didn't want to be here. None of them did, but least of all Jon, what with his history with The Web.

"Famous last words." Melanie grumbled. Daisy emerged from the door she'd gone through before.

"Clear. Looks like nothing downstairs." She said, dusting a cobweb off of her shoulder and fluffing her hair to get any stray strands of silk out of there too.

"What about the basement?" Jon knew there had been a basement, so he figured he'd ask. But Daisy gave him a look of mild confusion in response.

"Didn't see one."

Jon looked over to Tim in fear and distress at that information, and Tim shrugged and pulled Jon a little closer by his shoulder. He then rubbed at that shoulder soothingly for a moment. Jon relaxed a little when he was pulled closer to Tim, his breathing evening out somewhat.

"You want me to take point?" Daisy offered. Jon shook his head.

"Uh... No. No, I've-- I've got it." Jon was unsure, but he'd gotten himself into this mess. He pulled away from Tim and started up the stairs, with Tim close behind and the rest trailing behind Tim. Jon's breaths were getting quicker, heavier with anxiety again, and it took every ounce of willpower for Tim to not reach up and take his hand. Tim cursed himself silently for that thought.

As they walked up the stairs, they heard a voice. But it was a familiar one, albeit hard to pinpoint.

"You hear that?" Jon asked. Basira shook her head.

"No, I don't hear--" She said, but Melanie quickly shushed her.

"Yes! Room to the left!" Melanie said. Jon turned and opened the door, and the voice behind the heavy oak became far clearer. It was his voice, recording the statement regarding The Anglerfish. The first one he'd recorded as Head Archivist.

"Is that--" Melanie was flabbergasted. Tim was ready to burn the tape, and the whole house with it, if anything untoward happened.

"Yes." Jon said, stepping into the room.

"Don't touch it." Basira warned. Jon shook his head.

"It's alright." Jon assured. He stooped down and, after hesitating, turned the tape off.

"Something's underneath it." Daisy said, pointing at the recorder that had been playing the tape.

"I see it. Hand me that brush?"

Tim saw the brush in question against the wall, and kicked it towards Jon. It skittered across the floor and came to rest next to Jon's leg. He got a little thumbs-up in gratitude.

"Is... Is that what I think it is?" Basira asked as Jon brushed off the papers before picking them up. Jon sighed as he looked them over

"Yep." He said, shaking off any extra... Were those spider legs? "Official Institute paper and everything."

"I don't want to know how she got ahold of the letterhead we use for statements." Tim said.

"Goddammit." Basira groaned. It seemed like Jon had a point about this whole situation after all, and he hated it.

"Statement of Annabelle Cane. She left it for us."

Chapter Text

Basira had just come back from a visitation with Elias, and she was mad. She stormed into the office where Jon and Tim were both currently sitting, agonizing over recent developments, and stood in the doorway with her back against the frame.

"Well?" Jon asked, hopeful. Basira scoffed.

"Just useless gloating. Like I said he would."

"You should have let me come with."

"Or maybe I could've come with you instead!" Tim grinned. "I would love to antagonize Elias with plenty of fire. Might even turn him into a little pile of ashes! Wouldn't that be nice?"

"No. Besides, he wouldn't have seen me if I had. Either of you." She pointed at Tim. "Especially you."

"I can't believe you've been seeing him all this time." Jon spoke almost like he had been betrayed.

"Oh, yeah. That's the terrible secret sabotaging the trust between us." Basira quipped. Jon thought for just a moment, and then looked over at Tim.

"Wait. Tim, was that why you were there in the first place?"

"Figured I'd take the opportunity when it was given to me." Tim shrugged. He sighed then, and his next words had a grim sort of tone to them. "You know how well that went, though."

"Right, sorry. Still a sore spot." Jon sounded sheepish, but changed the subject quickly. "...Did he mention it at all...? My, uh..."

"Oh, your new diet? Nothing useful. Didn't seem too fazed by it."

Tim groaned.

"Jon, why in god's name would he divulge anything about that? He knew damn well it was going to happen, and you know that."

"Right." Jon rested his elbow on the desk, and his head on his hand. His other hand traced the lines in the grain of the wood.

"What?" Basira asked, seeing the look on Jon's face. He had been anticipating something, and now he was sorely disappointed that it never actually happened.

"I don't know... I mean, we still don't really know what Elias actually is? I thought maybe if he was more like me than we realize..."

"He might have some advice?" Basira asked, and got a nod in response from Jon.

"Once again, I don't know why you thought he would give you any information that would actually help anything." Tim said, gesturing to Jon with an open hand.

"I know it's stupid, okay?"

"Yeah. John, We've been over this. The key is to not force people to feed you their trauma. You know, just don't do it?"

"Basira, you have no idea how this actually works--" Tim started to argue.

"It's really not that simple." Jon continued, his and Tim's statements overlapping each other.

"No. It is. Or I put you down."

Jon was quiet for a moment, and Tim could almost see what his thought process was. Then do it, he would likely want to say right now. But no. No, Tim was about to face the greatest betrayal of his life so far.

"At least I haven't been fueling myself with petty arson." Jon said, offhandedly. Tim squawked in indignation.

"It's only been dumpsters and abandoned buildings! Freeing up land, getting rid of trash, and giving the fire department something to do on off days!" Tim defended himself fervently. Basira was glaring at him.

"You lit the compound of The Church of The Divine Host on fire when we left! Burned it to rubble!"

"He did what?" Basira asked, walking toward Tim, who desperately rolled his office chair backwards away from her until he collided with a wall and had her towering over him. Shit. "Then it goes for both of you. You knock it off, or I put you down."

"It's not easy to just do that!" Tim argued. Basira grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and hauled him up from his chair. Jon appreciated it not being him in that position for once.

"Daisy's been managing. You can too. Got it?"

"Y-- Yes ma'am...!" Tim squeaked. He was dropped back in his chair hard.

"Did Elias say anything about Annabelle?" Jon asked, feeling bad about throwing Tim under the bus almost immediately and trying to change the subject. Basira shook her head.

"Not really. Sounds like he's not too worried, though. Says to just ignore her."

"Yeah, good luck with that." Jon rolled his eyes. Tim was fuming, glaring at Jon with just about every ounce of malice he could muster. Jon willfully ignored it for his own sanity. Or, well, what was left of it.

"Any luck finding her?" Basira asked, casting Tim a look of warning as she felt the temperature of the room go up just a little.

"I haven't really been trying. Doing that sort of thing consciously... It makes me hungry."

Basira shrugged. Not her problem unless he made it her problem by making it someone else's problem first.

"Oh, well find a statement to your tastes, and read it." She said with a horrific dryness, as if she didn't care if it might lead to Jon's death eventually from what essentially amounted to starvation. Granted, she didn't care about that, but she could at least pretend she did. Jon fiddled with the hem of his shirt, and sighed.

"Yes, yes, I know, thank you." He muttered. He considered his next thought for a brief time, and decided to say it. "...Basira?"

"Yeah?"

"I have been meaning to ask: the tape, the one of the uh… my victim." He said that word like it was pure poison, and uttering it was physically painful. Tim could see tears in his eyes. "You said Martin gave it to you."

"Yeah."

"How was he? How did he look-- was he--"

Tim huffed to himself. Of course he was asking about Martin. It was always Martin. Tim couldn't help the pang of intense jealousy he felt every damn time Jon pined over the man who had, as it seemed, gotten tired of waiting for him to come to his senses and fucked off to live his own life with his own goals.

"I don't know. I didn't see him. He just left it on my desk with a note." Basira's voice was less harsh then, and Tim could just hear the pity there. He scowled to himself. Everyone only cared about Martin, Martin, Martin. Nobody gave a damn about him anymore, not since he became a monster like this and it became clear what he was. No, Martin was precious. Martin could still be saved from this horrible, horrible fate! Why would anyone worry about the one who was in this hellscape against his own will, who had never even been consulted about this? He was a victim just as much as Martin! Hell, maybe even moreso! In his fuming, Tim lost track of time and before he knew it, Basira had left and Jon was giving him a look of concern and sadness.

"Tim?" Jon waved a hand in front of Tim in an attempt to catch his attention, and Tim snapped out of his haze with a low growl.

"What?"

"Sorry I, um... Sorry I threw you under the bus there. I-- I didn't actually really decide to do that, you know."

Tim took a deep breath.

"Know what? 'S fine." Tim said, leaning back in his chair. "Probably needed to happen anyways. Whatever."

"That doesn't sound fine--"

"I said it's fine, Jon." Tim snapped. "Don't push your damn luck."

"Alright. Sorry."

"I take it you're going to look a statement up now? Something to get you some nourishment, I guess you could call it?"

"I-- I was planning on it, yes. Care to come with me to document storage while I find one?"

Tim paused. Despite this, Jon still wanted him around for company. Maybe there was some hope there yet. He was just too obsessed with the idea of Martin to really be over him yet.

"...Alright. Come on, then." He stood from his chair, and held a hand to Jon then to help him up. Jon was already significantly weaker than Tim was, and Tim was going to help him as much as he could. Even though Jon might have just gotten Tim put on Basira's shitlist. Jon took Tim's hand, and Tim helped him up. Neither of them let go of the other's hand after Jon was standing. Tim squeezed Jon's fingers a little bit, and gave a tiny smile. "Hey, with any luck someone who dealt with one of my infernos and managed to see me do it will show up to give a statement about it. I'm sure it doesn't count if they consent, right?"

"I'll have to run it by Basira. Not taking any chances." Jon said. He was hopeful, but dejected. "Fair enough?"

"This is going to suck." Tim grumbled, leading Jon by the hand down to document storage.

"Yeah, you're telling me."

Chapter Text

"Right, fine. Just me on my lonesome for a while, then." Martin sighed, resting his head on the desk. "Could be worse. peaceful at least. I don't miss all the shouting, even if it would-- wait." He could hear someone outside, and got up to open the door and confront them. "Excuse me-- excuse me, this area is off-limits to the public."

"Sorry?" Georgie asked, baffled as Martin emerged from the room she was passing and spoke to her.

"You can't be here. It's not allowed."

"Oh, sorry, um, Melanie told me to wait for her here."

"Oh, you – you’re here for Melanie?"

"Yeah." She sort of rubbed the back of her arm awkwardly. "Georgie."

"I'm sorry-- sorry, I didn't realize. I'm-- I'm sure she's around here somewhere."

"You must be Martin." Georgie smiled. At least he was cute enough for Jon to gush about like she remembered. She understood a little better now.

"Yeah. Has Melanie been talking about me?"

"Oh, um... Jon used to go on about you a lot."

Martin blushed at that. Jon used to talk about him that much? Really? Martin was always under the impression that Jon hated him. As he spoke he made connections 

"Oh. Oh, wait-- wait, I thought Melanie -Georgie and Jon -Georgie were..."

"Same-- same Georgie."

"Oh. Ah, so you and Jon..."

"Aren't really talking anymore."

"Right." Martin paused. It made some sense, he'd heard they didn't break up on the best terms, but still he has to ask. "Why not?"

"Excuse me?"

"Why aren't you talking?"

"Because I think he's going to destroy himself, and anyone who lets him get too close. And I don't want that to include me or Melanie."

"Maybe he just needs some help." Martin defended Jon. He knew Jon was hurting, but he just felt so helpless to do anything about it right now. He had a role to play, and the fate of the world could be at stake.

"I did help him, as much as I safely could, but he just carried on anyway."

"Yeah, he'll do that."

"I realized if I kept trying it was gonna hurt me more than I was willing to accept."

"Well, sometimes the helping people hurts!"

"Sure, but that doesn’t mean everything painful helps." Georgie explained. She was certain she was in the right. She needed to protect herself, and protect Melanie too. "Sometimes people have problems that will wreck you long before you can make a dent in them,and some people don’t want help, they just want other people suffering with them."

"John doesn't want that." Martin snapped.

"Well judging by what Melanie's told me, he's dragged Tim down with him. So maybe he'll get that help eventually." Georgie's tone got icy. She was sick of defending the actions she took in self-preservation. "They claim they're not dating, but Christ, they're all over each other half the time!"

Martin got quiet for a moment. He was starting to see red as Georgie spoke.

"Either that, or they're going to drag each other down, and I don't want to be anywhere near them when they hit the bottom of whatever path they're headed down." She scoffed, hands on her hips. "Jon doesn't know what he wants. And from the sound of things, he's run out of time to figure it out."

Martin felt proverbially cornered in the argument. Georgie wasn't necessarily wrong, but she wasn't right either, and Martin was getting angrier and angrier about it.

"It's easy to pass judgment from the outside." Martin quipped.

"One more reason to stay on the outside and watch."

Martin actually laughed. It was a cruel one, so unlike him usually. "And- and you think Melanie's worth saving?"

"It's not about worth. But yeah, she’s actually trying to get well, so I’m gonna help her."

"This place isn't a sickness--!"

"No. I think it's worse."

"Look, we're all just trying to do the right thing!" Martin intended to defend himself, to defend Jon, until his dying breath if he needed to.

"Maybe. Look, life forces you to make hard decisions, but I can never trust someone who goes around looking for hard decisions to make." Georgie wasn't having Martin's playing of devil's advocate. Jon was dangerous, Georgie knew he was dangerous, and she wasn't involving herself in it.

"And what do you mean by that?" Martin asked through gritted teeth.

"Jumping on a grenade is only heroic if you weren’t the one who actually threw it."

"That’s not what’s happening!" Martin snapped. Also, with the situation surrounding Tim, that comparison was just plain in poor taste.

"Okay. It's still not something I want any part of."

"Well, lucky for you we're fully staffed, so--" Martin was interrupted by footsteps coming up the hall, and as Georgie turned to face Melanie, Martin literally disappeared. A slight smell of petrichor filled the air, and though the feeling of not being alone remained Georgie couldn't see anyone else there besides Melanie.

"Who were you talking to?" Melanie asked a very, very confused Georgie.

"I-- I thought I was talking to Martin, but I guess I was talking to no one?"

"Yeah, this place will do that to you."

"Has Martin been acting sort of... I dunno, bitchy lately?"

"Haven't talked to him myself, but I wouldn't be surprised. Why?" Melanie linked arms with Georgie, and they walked away together.

"What's his deal?"

"I dunno. Jealousy, maybe?" Melanie shrugged. "I think the thing with Jon and Tim has been getting to him. He's had it bad for Jon since they first met here. Kinda cute, but it's getting sad."

The voices of the two women faded as they walked away, and the door to the office shut. As soon as the door was closed, Martin reappeared again, walked to the desk, laid his arms on the desk, and rested his head on his arms. A quiet sob racked his body. This was going to be harder than anything he'd done before, and he hated it.

Chapter Text

"I told you, you don't have to follow me everywhere." Jon said, traversing the tunnels with Tim close behind him. Tim had insisted on coming with him, nearly to the point of the both of them ending up in yet another shouting match. They were both groggy and irritable, and more than once had been told off by Basira for being hangry at her. Tim had gone off on her for it every single time, and surprisingly enough had only been threatened with Basira's gun once out of the lot. Granted, that was mostly because when she did it, Tim immediately pulled the barrel to his forehead and demanded she pull the trigger, but nonetheless it only happened once. A win in his book.

"And I told you, I'm not letting you wander around isolating yourself like some sort of living ghost. Fuck off with that." Tim said. Genuinely, he cared about Jon. He had a funny way of showing it, but he did care. Jon rolled his eyes, and though Tim was behind Jon in the corridors below the Institute he could just tell that was the response he got. "What, trying to do the same thing Martin is doing, just hoping you'll get his attention by doing it?"

Jon spun on his heel and gave Tim a look full of absolute rage.

"You shut your mouth, Timothy Stoker."

"Ooh, pulling out the full name. I'm quaking in my boots." Tim deadpanned, not even phased by Jon's outburst. "Did I hit a sore spot? The fact that you've been so busy mooning over Martin that you've started mirroring him?"

"Shut. Up." Jon snapped. Tim scoffed, smirking coldly at him. If Jon cared to notice, he would've realized that maybe there was something behind the snark this time. "This has little to do with him and more to do with everything and every one else."

Tim let out a heavy sigh.

"I mean, I'll be the first to admit you haven't exactly been treated fairly by the others." Tim began. He did have to admit that Jon was right about that much. "But with the experience with other avatars, I don't think I blame them."

"You haven't had it much better, you know. Just less immediate distrust. It took time for them to decide to hate you equally."

"Sorry not everyone can be as overtly charming as I am."

"Is that what you call it?"

"I have managed to snog and shag enough information out of people at your behest that I think it counts as charm at this point."

"I never asked you to snog or shag anyone, thank you very much. I just asked for you to follow up on statements and gather information. You're the one who chose your methodology."

"Eh, same thing as far as I'm concerned."

"It really isn't."

"Why are we even down here, anyways?" Tim suddenly changed the subject when he recognized the rotted, worm-eaten bricks of the portion of the tunnels they were walking through.

"I'm investigating Prentiss's old hiding spot." Jon replied as they turned a corner and walked into the room with a large circle of rotten stone on the walls. Worm carcasses had long since been cleared out or decayed to just dirt on the floor. All that remained was that pitted, slime-coated circle of rot. "The last statement I read got me thinking about her, is all."

They both heard a door, and neither of them turned to face where the sound came from.

"Hello, John. Hello, Tim. Been a while since you've been down here." Helen spoke, letting the door close as she practically trotted across the floor.

"I didn't come here to see you." Jon said with a tone of deep impatience.

"And in my defense, I'm just making sure he doesn't do anything stupid."

"Oh, come now, Jon! I'm sure I'm more interesting company than the late Jane Prentiss." Helen followed behind the two men, grinning as always.

"It's all that's left of her now, apart from a jar of ashes in my desk. Just a circle of rotten stone on an otherwise unremarkable wall."

"More of a legacy than some people get."

"Am I the only one who finds it a little weird that Jon still keeps the worm lady's ashes in a desk drawer?" Tim asked, finally looking over and up at Helen, who just shrugged.

"I'm not one to judge someone's neuroses, really."

"It helps, okay?" Jon snapped, defending the compulsion to keep the jar of cremains in his desk. It was a little weird, but having the jar helped him know that she was still gone. Not that she was the most dangerous thing he'd dealt with at this point anymore. He traced his fingers over the stone where there were pits but no slime, and sighed. "This was supposed to be a gate, I think. A hole that she rotted into the Corruption itself. Maybe the start of a ritual?"

"Not exactly impressive, is it?" Helen asked, looking at Tim.

"Better than trying to baby-trap someone with your new messiah." Tim grumbled. He looked up at the rotted circle, and at the way Jon almost seemed to admire it, in a way.

"Less complex, certainly. But I think that’s the thing about... What did Elias call it?" Jon briefly wracked his brain to remember the term Elias had used. "Filth. I don’t think it really plans much. It just starts to grow wherever it can get a foothold, and, if no one stamps it out in time..."

"Then you're wholly screwed." Tim said, finishing Jon's thought.

"I was going to say game over, to put it a little more succinctly." Jon responded.

"You two really have gotten on the same wavelength, haven't you?" Helen teased. Tim glared at her.

"Going through hell with someone can do that, yeah." Tim said, quickly cutting off any implications Helen was trying to make. She frowned. Tim was no fun. Jon didn't even seem to notice.

"I've been wondering what they were doing down here. The worms must have been down here for... Weeks, months maybe, spreading, growing. They could have spread all the way through these tunnels, but they didn't. They didn't find Leitner down here, didn't find Getrude’s body, didn't find... Whatever else is here."

Tim walked over to Jon and put a hand on his shoulder to bring him back to reality. Jon jolted a little bit, startled. That iridescent green flicker that appeared in his eyes whenever he used his powers as an avatar flickered and faded like a dying flame, as if he couldn't get them to work. That worried Tim.

"It is a maze. One of the reasons I like it." Helen said, smirking and eyeing Jon as Tim tried to get his attention. She relished in the fact that he seemed just as lost down here as everyone else.

"I... I can’t See things properly here. I thought it was just me, something interfering with my connection to the Eye, but... I'm wondering: maybe it affects everything else? Like this place is some kind of... Universal blind spot."

"Elias can't see things going on down here either." Tim added. "So I know it's not just you."

"What a fascinating idea." Helen crooned, walking right up close to the other two. "Although... Some of us are always lost, in a sense."

"Are you saying you can navigate it?" Jon asked, nearly mesmerized.

"There is no way." Tim said, moving to stand between Jon and Helen. He didn't trust her.

"Tim is correct. I can't quite navigate it exactly. But my door has been a part of these tunnels for quite some time now."

"Wha--" Jon sputtered, pushing Tim out of the way to confront Helen. "What's in the middle of the tunnels, then? What are they hiding?"

"A delightful surprise!" Helen started laughing like a madwoman, for long enough that echoes of Michael Shelley could be heard in it. No matter whose face the entity took, it was still The Distortion. Tim bared his teeth, and tried to warn her with a flame though it sparked and died out far too quickly with his exhaustion. Helen stopped laughing, and smiled wide at Jon and Tim. "But that's not why you're down here, is it?"

"Are you just going to be deliberately obtuse or are you ever going to cooperate for once?" Tim asked. His tone was flat and unimpressed. He didn't like the games that the Distortion wanted to play, whether that was Michael or Helen, but at least Michael had always made his, albeit incredibly antagonistic, intentions clear. Helen liked to toy with them, pretending to be helpful, like bait in a very clearly marked trap. He just didn't know when the trap would shut, and he didn't want to be caught in it when it did. Helen laughed again, just briefly, but then gave him a dead-eyed stare despite the sharky smile on her lips. "I'll take that as the former, then."

"You, I'm choosing to ignore now." Helen said, nearly tapping Tim on the nose if not for the very real threat of her fingertip being bitten off if she tried. So she pulled her finger back just enough that the snap Tim made at her didn't connect. Tim wasn't usually the kind of person to try and bite people as self-defense, but someone touching his face when he didn't want them to was plenty of cause to get bit. Helen did, true to her word, ignore him after that. "As for you, Archivist, why did you come down here? Just to muse about something?"

Jon sighed. His head was starting to hurt, his ears were ringing, and his legs constantly felt weak and like his knees might buckle under him from sheer exhaustion. The grilling for his thoughts wasn't helping, but he spilled the words she wanted to hear relatively easily.

"I've been thinking a lot about Jane. She was the first, you know. The first I actually encountered like..." He paused, and let out a single note of a laugh, dry and miserable. He glanced over at Tim, and looked back at Helen again. "Like us. She seemed so... So inhuman. Like everything she used to be had been stripped away."

"And now?" Helen's grin widened, seeming to nearly split her face. It was unpleasant at best to look at.

"I wonder how much of her was still in there. How much did she choose to be what she was? I read her statement, she was..." Jon took a measured breath, in which Tim could practically feel him grappling with his own humanity. "She was scared. I assumed she'd been possessed completely against her will, but now I'm not even sure that's possible."

"It is astounding the sort of thing you're willing to choose, given an unpleasant enough alternative, isn't it?" Helen cast an extremely expecting look in Tim's direction then, and Tim felt like his entire being was overtaken with terror. Not a terror of Helen, but of what she was implying of him. He didn't like those implications. He would've never chosen to be like this. Jon, maybe, Tim wouldn't put it past him to be wholly terrified of death, but he had been ready to die. Tim had squeezed the trigger on that detonator with the full intention of not making it out alive. By all accounts, even down to the mindset, it had been a suicide. If becoming an avatar was down to a matter of choice in devotion, why had he become an avatar? Tim's head was swimming, anxiety twirling about in a dizzying fractal of confusion and self-loathing. Where had his choice been made? Had it been the moment he pulled the trigger, with the agony of being unmade tearing him apart? Had it been the moments before, in the lack of hesitation in the pure destruction he knew he would bring? Had it been in the weeks prior, in the commitment to burning every bridge he could set alight? Had it been the pure, uninhibited bloodlust as he tore his way through mannequins, taxidermies, and waxworks while still disoriented and afraid like a trapped animal?

His mind brought forth a memory he hadn't thought back to since he first awoke from that five month coma: a memory of Jon casting his abilities to him to make him see the torn scraps of reality around for what they truly were at that time. The fleeting realizations of what had been lost between the two of them, the friendship turned sour by anger and paranoia, by mistrust and fear. The connection they could have had if not for the taint of everything put into place by Elias Bouchard. The reality of his choice hit him like a freight train.

He had made his choice at the exact moment he had fallen in love with Jonathan motherfucking Sims.

He thought back to the hospital, waking up and learning Jon was there too. Seeing just how much damage had been done by him, but that they had been given a second chance anyways. The pleas to keep Jon alive for just a little longer. He thought back to the ways Jon had gone out of his way to look after him once he was well enough to do so. Even thinking to now, with Jon's attempts to drive others away from him and acting without thinking, and how Tim hadn't been pushed away quite so hard as the rest. How Jon looked at him with something somehow between reverence and pity whenever his newfound powers flared out of control.

How much time he had lost track of in his spiral, he didn't know. He just knew he came back to reality slumped to the ground against the stone wall in the tunnels, knees tucked to his chest, and Jon was knelt in front of him desperately trying to get him to snap out of the haze of terror he had sunk into. Thin wisps of steam partially obscured his vision, tears on his cheeks turning to vapor like a summer's rain on asphalt once the sun emerged again. Still, he recognized the pity there in the way Jon looked at him, and the relief when he finally saw that Tim had noticed him there. Tim felt the urge to grab him by the collar, to drag him into a kiss and tell him he was a bastard for making him fall for him like this. Hesitation wracked him for a moment, and before Jon could even ask if he was okay Tim was pulling him into a bone-crushing hug and quietly sobbing into his shoulder.

"Thank you." Tim whispered, and Jon shifted to make the hug a little bit more comfortable and less likely to snap his spine. After a quiet moment, Jon pulled back from the hug and gave Tim a look of further concern.

"For what?" Jon asked, baffled about where this came from. He didn't even think to try and compel an answer out of Tim. Tim's expression was softer than Jon had seen from him in a long time, graced with a tearful smile and almost no malice in any way. Tim didn't give his full answer, of course, but he still felt like he needed to give Jon something of a reason.

"For giving me my choice."

Chapter Text

"Yeah, I think, um-- I think you should probably get down here--" Jon's strained voice had said before the line cut off. Tim had been chatting with Daisy, lamenting to her about how awful he felt, when Jon's distress signal came through the intercom. The two took off as fast as they could, knowing it meant an intruder. Daisy had a bad feeling about it, and that meant Tim did too. Daisy's instincts were second to none, after all.

They sprinted down the hall, Tim slid down the banister to get down the stairs quicker (thank the gods for his shenanigans with his brother as kids, because he knew how to do that without busting his ass down the stairs), and they could hear the offenders as they got downstairs and neared Jon's office. Daisy sprinted ahead of him with surprising speed. Tim was starting to feel out of shape around her, and that was saying a lot.

"Shit." Daisy hissed under her breath, knowing exactly who was in there now that she could hear them. "It's the old tramp and the serial killer's kid."

"I don't know who the hell you're talking about--" Tim said, sliding to a halt near the door when Daisy held a hand up to stop him before he charged in like a foolhardy idiot. She stepped through the door, squared her shoulders, with Tim close behind her and ready to spark a flame as soon as he needed to, and spoke up to the people actively threatening Jon. The old man had a knife to Jon's throat. Tim didn't like the look of that.

"Get away from him." Daisy commanded, catching the attention of the old man and the younger woman in the room. Jon had a brief look of relief in his eyes before the old man pulled the knife a little tighter to Jon's throat. It drew a rivulet of blood. Tim's eyes flickered orange, and the air around his body heated up.

"Oh, who's this? You got yourself a watchdog?" The old man, Scottish by the sound of him, teased. Jon struggled barely in his grasp. With the lack of proper sustenance from statements, Jon wasn't strong enough to put up a fight. "And it looks like she brought some human kindlin' with her, eh?"

"More like a lapdog. Scrawny, isn't she?" The woman responded. "Hell, both of 'em are. Look at the other one!"

"I said get back." Daisy snapped, taking a step forward. Tim snarled quietly, widening his footing and clenching his fists. He was protective over Jon, yes, but now these two chucklefucks had called him scrawny, and that was just plain insulting.

"Malnourished I'd say. How long since you last tasted blood?" The old man goaded, his smile wicked and the blade of his hunting knife drawing a few more thin beads of blood to the surface of Jon's neck for emphasis on the mention of it.

"Think you can take us both?" The woman continued the man's goading, clearly ready for a fight. Tim was ready to spring into action, but Daisy's posture relaxed. Tim got a good look at her, and saw the barest of smiles on Daisy's face. He kept his guard up, though.

"I'd enjoy it." Daisy began. "I'll start with you, old bastard, you're slower and don't guard your neck. And you worry about him too much, don't you? I go for him, you get sloppy. Predictable." She spat. She gestured to Tim then. "And this one would burn you both to ashes before you'd even bled out."

"Sure. Or I can slit your little bookworm's throat." The woman snarled. Tim was seeing red, and took a step forward despite Daisy's body language warning him not to.

"Do it. It'll give me a chance to finish off your dad, and give him --" She pointed to Tim again. "A reason to burn you alive."

"I'm not her father." The old man argued. Something about the way he argued it sounded like he took some genuine offense to the statement.

"...Not by blood, maybe--" Jon quipped, voice strained. The man dragged the blade against Jon's flesh a minute amount, letting loose a bright crimson stream down the side of Jon's neck.

"Shut it." The woman commanded. She looked to the old man, who seemed to think about their predicament for a moment before pulling back the knife.

"Come on, Julia." The old man said. The woman, Julia apparently, dropped her arms to her sides in utter bafflement.

"What?" She asked. The old man stood and stepped away from Jon despite the fact that Tim was eyeing him like a hawk with a flare for pyrotechnics.

"There's no rush." The old man said, and laughed a little. "We've got all the time in the world. Besides, this place is just full of monsters. She can't guard 'em all."

"Fine." Julia snapped, and followed the old man out of the room. Tim moved to chase them down, and Daisy grabbed Tim's shirt and let out a growl of warning to both him and the fleeing duo. Best to leave it alone. The door slammed behind the attackers, and Daisy slumped against the desk. With the adrenaline gone, the build-up of heat from Tim disappeared quickly, and Tim sank into a nearby chair in exhaustion. Actually, he passed out for a moment as he collapsed, but he came back quickly enough that he didn't worry about it too much. But the way Jon was looking at both him and Daisy when he opened his eyes again said maybe he needed to be more worried than he actually was.

"--Tim? Tim!" Jon said, his voice echoing in Tim's head like he was underwater. Okay, maybe this was worse than he was letting on. "Tim, are you awake!?"

"...'m fine." Tim grumbled. His head was pounding. "Just a little dizzy."

"You've been unconscious for three minutes!" Jon said. As Tim's vision righted itself he could see that Jon's neck was still bleeding pretty heavily. Tim tried to sit up, but Jon shoved him back down by his shoulder. "No. Stop that. You're both starving to death. Without the Hunt and the Desolation fueling you, you're--"

"We're fine, Jon." Daisy argued. "Tim even slid down the banister to get here. We're both strong enough."

"Ignoring every violation of safety precautions there--" Jon realized he sounded ridiculous, but sliding down a banister was further than he was willing to push safety, even in what was essentially a den of monsters with a flashing neon sign advertising it at this point. "You're clearly not okay!"

"They're not gone yet. We could still get them." Daisy started to say. Jon shook his head.

"Daisy, no. It's like you say. Don't listen to the blood." Jon argued. Daisy sighed.

"Listen to the quiet." She said, defeated. Once again, Tim tried to sit up and got forced back into the chair with a dangerous glare of warning from Jon. Or, it would be a dangerous glare if Jon wasn't so bone-deep tired.

"But still, if it's having this much of an effect-- On-- On the both of you--"

"I'm not going back. I can't let it win again." Daisy said. She glanced at Tim, who shook his head.

"But it--" Jon hesitated before continuing his thought. "What if it kills you?"

Daisy let out a humorless laugh.

"I always said I was dedicated to justice."

"And I've had a death wish ever since that thing took Danny." Tim interjected.

"You can't think like that...!" Jon tried to argue, but he got cut off by Daisy.

"Jon." Daisy said, firm and with no room for argument whatsoever. "Do you have any idea how much damage you can do if you're a police officer who wants to hurt people? How much the system will protect you?" Daisy asked. Tim kept his mouth shut for once. He knew better than to say what he wanted to about that particular subject.

"And do you know how easy it is to get away with burning down abandoned buildings when most firemen are pyromaniacs anyways?" Tim asked, weakly gesturing an arm.

"Exactly." Daisy said. "I managed to keep most of it from Basira, but--"

"It wasn't you. It was the Hunt."

"We were the same."

"You'd never known anything different!" Jon said. He looked back at Tim then. "At least Tim had some time to be a normal person before the Desolation chose him!"

"I mean..." Tim wavered a little, thinking of the ants burned by magnifying glasses when he was a kid, and the amount of times he got told off for playing with lit candles or dipping his fingers in the hot wax. Even the fireplace at his parents' house had been something he constantly wanted to toy with. Maybe he'd been claimed by this longer than he thought he had? He wasn't sure, and he didn't want to think about it for very long or he might make his headache worse.

"I never wanted to know anything different. All that time trapped was good for one thing: thinking. And I did a lot of it. I've made my choice."

"And you, Tim?" Jon's voice was laden with trepidation, and it made Tim's chest ache.

"I've found out that candles and incense help a little, and even cigarettes." Tim said with a shake of his head. "It's not much, but it's enough to keep me from dying. I'll be fine."

"Can't you find something like that, Daisy?" Jon was pleading now, terrified to lose someone else. It was heartbreaking to hear, but Tim kept a straight face as much as he could. "I've got older statements to read, and Tim has candles and cigarettes. You've got to have something!"

"Enough." Daisy said, and Jon sighed in defeat. "I'm not feeding it, even a little."

"Fine." Jon muttered. "So what do we do when they come back?"

"The crazy old tramp and his surrogate daughter?" Tim asked. Jon nodded.

"I don't know." Daisy said.

"Come on, then. We'd better go tell Basira." Jon said, moving to head toward the door. His sleeve was grabbed by Tim to keep him there.

"At least bandage your neck first, you idiot."

"...Right."

Chapter Text

"Well if you won't do it, I know who will!" Jon was hurrying through the archives, with Tim rushing after him.

"Jon, it's just that I don't know if I would need to do that anymore, with--" Tim argued, trying his damnedest to talk Jon down from what he had gotten into his head this time. Jon had no right being this quick on his feet when he was on a mission. Tim was actually having a hard time keeping up. "Slow down, dammit!"

Jon stopped to face Tim, a determined sort of brightness in his eyes. For someone who was nearing some degree of omniscience, he had to know that there was no way in hell Martin was going to agree to gouge his eyes out and run away together at this point, right? This was an exercise in futility, and Tim knew it was just going to end in Jon getting hurt.

"Tim." Jon began. "If you don't think you would need to blind yourself, would you come with us? Me and Martin, I mean."

Tim's heart skipped a beat. He knew it wasn't a confession... Or was it? He hoped Jon didn't notice the way his cheeks darkened a little.

"For what?"

"We'll need someone to help take care of us while we recover. And you-- You're the only person besides Martin I can trust that much."

Tim hesitated. The idea of letting Jon and Martin blind themselves and elope like a young couple, and himself being the one taking care of them, was horrific to even consider. And yet, the fact that he'd been asked in the first place was so incredibly endearing that he couldn't help but be flattered. And the next words that came out of his mouth were completely involuntary:

"Anything for you, Jon. I mean it."

Jon grabbed Tim by the shoulders, seemed to be fighting with himself for a split second, and pulled Tim into a tight hug. Tim reciprocated, and after a moment Jon pulled back again and hurried back down the hallway to the office where Martin had been spending the vast majority of his time. Tim sank down against the wall with his hand in his hair, wondering just what he had gotten himself into with that promise.

Jon trudged back to Tim's spot in the hallway with absolutely no hurry in his step. His expression was that of nothing short of misery, and Tim knew that only meant one thing: rejection. And with what he'd heard about Martin lately, it had been harsh rejection. Tim moved to stand as he saw Jon's legs wobble as his knees got ready to give out from under him. He darted over to him, catching him readily but falling to his own knees and skinning them on the linoleum. But Jon was safe, at least physically, and that was what mattered. Jon was an absolute deadweight in Tim's arms, just slumped onto him miserably. Tim sat back down on the floor, pulling Jon into his lap, and after a moment Jon shifted to cling to him ever so slightly. Thin fingers dug into the fabric of Tim's shirt, and Jon's face was buried in his shoulder. Tim nearly spoke, until he felt the familiar shake of a sob from Jon. He held the other man tighter, rocking side to side a little bit in an attempt to comfort him.

"I tried to tell you before you ran in there, Jon." Tim said, as softly and gently as he could manage. Jon shook his head even with his face buried in Tim's shoulder. Tim hated seeing him like this. "He's too deep in Lukas's bullshit. You weren't going to be able to get through to him, no matter how much we both wish you could."

"Why's it matter?" Jon whimpered. He was barely audible, and his voice was broken apart by sniffles and hiccups. He broke into sobs again, and Tim shushed him. A hand moved to comb through dark, graying curls gently. "Why should I get out of here if I can't have him with me when I do?

Okay, that hurt. Tim was starting to realize he was a second option, just someone on standby for when things went wrong. But he needed to stay here, with Jon. He knew he did. But he couldn't help but resent Martin over all of this now. Over how much hurt he was causing Jon, and how much Jon had been fawning over him this entire time with nothing to show for it. The man had clear obsessive-compulsive tendencies, and couldn't seem to give up on him if he tried. But Tim wanted to see if he could manage it. Maybe, with time, the closure would help him.

"Jon, don't talk like that. You've got me, remember? Me, and Daisy, and I'm sure Basira will warm up to us eventually now that Daisy gets along with both of us."

Jon didn't reply. He just clung to Tim more firmly, and hiccupped again a few more times. Tim rested his chin on Jon's head, enjoying the closeness even under the circumstances. He continued the careful rocking motions, and tracing the gray streaks throughout the curls of Jon's hair. After about ten quiet minutes only punctuated by the sounds of crying, Jon pulled back from Tim by a few inches.

"Why is it always me, Tim?" Jon asked. His voice lacked any and all of the rich liveliness it had ever carried. Even in the midst of exhaustion from not being able to take live statements, his voice had managed to hold a sort of deep life to it, and now he sounded like he had become an emotional zombie. It was further than exhaustion, instead directly falling into the realm of Jon having completely given up.

"Maybe you're just one of those people the universe at large just loves to screw over." Tim replied. It was a sympathetic sort of statement, but still held a sort of dig to it. He knew it was because Jon just made objectively terrible decisions at every opportunity, but he didn't have the heart to say that right now. Not while Jon was this broken up. "It's okay, though. I am, too."

He saw the tiniest smile from Jon at that, but it was joyless and only graced his lips rather than showing on his cheeks and making it to his eyes. A placid sort of gesture in an attempt to make Tim feel less awful about not being able to make him feel better. A gesture that wasn't working.

"I guess I'm not totally alone, at least." Jon said, resting his forehead on Tim's shoulder again.

"Nice to at least have someone, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

And there they stayed for no less than three hours. Neither of them had the desire to move, thinking the other needed it more than them. And in a way, they were both right.

Chapter Text

Tim honestly should've gotten used to Jon practically breaking down the door to his office by now. He should have started expecting those neuroses of his to manifest at any possible moment and for Jon to suddenly barge in unannounced like he was about to die if he didn't get information out of his system at that exact moment. But every single damn time, Tim just about jumped out of his skin. And this time, Tim was dozing off at his desk and ended up on the floor with a startled yelp.

"Jesus, Jon!" Tim gasped, hand on his lower back as he processed the pain of having jammed his tailbone with the fall.

"Tim, Martin is gone." Jon started. And he didn't stop there. "He-- He-- He left a statement and a tape on my desk, something about a new power emerging, the statement called it The Extinction. I don't think he believes it, or maybe it was Annabelle Cane trying to get me to act, or Peter Lucas trying to goad me, but he and Martin are getting ready to head toward the center of the tunnels, and we need to save him, Tim!"

Tim blinked a few times. Jon was talking so fast it was hard to understand him, and Tim was just trying to grasp what he was saying.

"Jon," Tim began, before letting out a grunt as he tried to stand using the desk as leverage. He managed to get to his feet, and continued. "Slow down. Are you saying that Martin is headed with Peter Lucas to the middle of the tunnels?"

"Yes, and-- and-- and if the-- the tape is anything to go by then we don't have time to slow down! If he goes down there, and does whatever Peter is planning, he's not coming back out!"

"Fucking hell..." Tim groaned, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Alright. What do we need to do?"

"We need help. We need more people against him, and whatever is in the tunnels. I think-- I think the thing that took Sasha is still down there, and I don't know if it can get back out somehow--" Jon was working himself into an absolute frenzy over this, and Tim wasn't going to get anywhere with him if he didn't calm down.

"Stop." Tim said, holding up a hand. He looked at Jon, who was shaking like an anxious chihuahua. Tim swore under his breath, and stepped towards him. "Let's go. You can explain everything on the way to finding help. Just slow down with the explaining, for fuck's sake. I can't work with this mile-a-minute thing you have going on."

"...Right. Sorry." Jon muttered, almost ashamed of himself. Shit, Tim had struck a nerve. He patted Jon's back and ushered him forward.

"Come on, let's see who'll help."

"You really should've known they'd be no help." Tim said after they left Georgie's flat. Melanie was pretty newly blinded by her own hand, Georgie wasn't happy about that, and realistically neither of them had been likely to be much help right now anyways. For once, Tim couldn't blame either of them.

Jon was taking a brief breather outside the building to get himself calmed down. He was on the verge of tears again, and Tim was trying to do damage control and get Jon not to do anything rash. Not that it had stopped him before, but it was the thought that counted.

"Shut up." Jon snapped, and Tim raised his hands in defeat. Jon sighed. "I-- Sorry. No-- No, you're right. I should have known better. I guess I just needed some-- some confirmation."

"It's alright, Jon." Tim said, pulling Jon into a brief hug. "Where to next, boss?"

"It pains me to say it, but Helen."

"Is that really a good idea?"

"What other option is there?" Jon asked. "She may be awful, but she knows the tunnels."

"I'm just... Not particularly keen on her after last time." Tim said, though he had to admit at least to himself that Jon was right and she was probably their best option. It was just that the only good things Helen had ever done were get them home from the Arctic circle, and force Tim to realize he'd fallen head-over-heels for Jon.

"Believe me, I don't trust her as far as I could throw her."

"Well you throw like a toddler anyways, so that's not exactly a fair comparison."

"...Anyways, I'm no happier about this than you are. But she's our only real option to get to them quickly. Basira and Daisy can be our backup, but we need Helen for navigation."

"If you insist. Lead the way, Archivist. Let your pure, uninhibited vision guide us." Tim tried to lighten the mood a little, but seemed to just fail miserably, judging by the unimpressed look Jon gave him. Once again, fair enough.

"Don't call me that."

Jon knocked on the large, yellow door with the side of his fist. The knob turned from the other side, and Helen soon emerged.

"Helen." Jon said, excessively formal.

"Jonathan, Timothy." Helen returned the favor.

"I need-- you said before you knew the tunnels, right? That you'd been a... A part of them?" Jon asked, completely breaking the mock bravado he'd been trying to put on.

"Not my exact words, but close enough." Helen shrugged. She knew something was going on. Jon never came to her willingly. This must have been dire. She delighted in it, really.

"I need to know what's in there. What's at the center?" Jon asked, getting more and more frantic by the second. "It-- It's important. Martin, he-- I need to know."

Helen smiled, all teeth and the saccharine cruelty that lies behind the seeds of chaos.

"That's a shame, because I'm afraid I'm not going to tell you!"

"What!?" Tim exclaimed. He shoved past Jon and jabbed a finger at Helen's stomach, which was admittedly the closest thing to his height with how tall and spindly she was. His eyes were alight with fury. "And why the hell not, then!?"

"Because I have a good enough sense of what's going on to know that it will be much more fun without my involvement!" Helen began to laugh after that, an unhinged, manic sort of sound. Both Jon and Tim hated that laugh.

"Who the hell do you think you are--" Tim began to argue.

"I thought you said you were going to help!"

"I am helping!"

"I don’t have time for this." Jon snapped. His eyes flashed green, and the space around the three people crackled with power. "What is at the cen--"

In the blink of an eye, Helen's fingertips were sharp as honed glass, and she was grabbing Tim by the throat and lifting him off the ground, being careful to not cut into the flesh yet . Jon stopped dead in his tracks at that, heart lurching into his throat. Tim struggled in Helen's grasp, the panic from being strangled making him unable to defend himself with his own powers. His eyes were screwed shut, tears of exertion dripping down his face as he made choking sounds and thrashed increasingly weakly.

"No. We're not playing your game." Helen warned. "Now don't forget how sharp I can be, Archivist. Perhaps here, now, you're powerful enough to learn what you want from me, but if you try, I promise you I will resist. And I will make sure to take him with me." She tightened her grip just a little then for emphasis, fingers digging into the flesh of Tim's neck and drawing thick streams of blood that stained the collar and shoulders of his shirt crimson. Jon backed down, and Helen let go of Tim very abruptly, dropping him to the ground where he was left to cough and gasp for breath, grasping at his throat desperately. Jon rushed to Tim's side, concernedly touching the spaces around the wounds in his neck. He hesitated once more, and asked her one more question:

"Can you take us to the center?"

"I honestly don't know. But, I'm not inclined to risk it."

"Damn you!"

"Run home, you two. Find a couple victims on the way." Helen ducked into her door again as she spoke, grinning wildly again. "Chaos is coming, and I think you'd best be ready."

"Just tell me what's going on! Please!" Jon begged. The response he got from Helen was absolutely delighted, not that he expected much else at this point.

"Bad things, Archivist. Really bad things."

She laughed, and her door swung shut again and disappeared. Jon swore under his breath, and went back to checking on Tim.

"Are you alright?"

Tim nodded a little, wincing as the wounds on his neck were aggravated by the motion. After another moment of catching his breath, he spoke again.

"I'll be fine. Let's just-- just go. We need to find Basira and Daisy."

"We should get you patched up first. Come on, I have a new roll of bandages in my office."

"Of course you do."

Chapter Text

"So he just left?" Tim was in utter disbelief at the news Basira had just given him and Jon. "As in just walked out of his cell, and the building, completely unhindered?"

"Couple of guards on duty vanished too." Basira responded. Jon stomped a foot in frustration.

"Vanished how!?" Jon demanded.

"They also just left. Best we can tell, he had some dirt on them." Basira was a little annoyed by Jon's outburst, but at least didn't seem to blame him this time around.

"Old friend at the prison let us know." Daisy clarified.

"What, and no one thought of that?" Jon asked, clearly getting more and more agitated as the conversation continued. Tim put a hand on Jon's shoulder but was swatted away quickly.

"So the prick could've just up and buggered off at any time?" Tim asked too, running a hand through his hair a little.

"Yep, and he just sat there laughing at us." Basira said. "Every bit of abuse he took from guards or officers was something he chose to endure. Because he knew."

Jon tugged hard at his own hair with both hands and let out a distressed sound. At this point he was pacing back and forth anxiously. His face was red, and his breathing was getting erratic.

"No, no, this-- This cannot be a coincidence."  Jon said, paranoia and terror creeping in again. He had tried keeping a level head, but hearing Elias had up and broken out of prison with zero resistance right when Peter Lukas took Martin down into the tunnels for whatever nefarious purposes he had planned made it all come back tenfold.

"Coincidence with what?" Basira asked. Tim gritted his teeth. That was the question that was going to send Jon off the deep end, he was sure of it.

"Martin, or-- or someone, left me a tape. Him and Peter Lukas are looking for something down in the tunnels." Jon explained, still pacing.

"Do you know what?"

Jon shook his head in response to Basira's question.

"No. Just called it a device."

"When?"

"Now, apparently." Tim responded to Basira this time. He put out a hand to try and stop Jon's pacing before he wore himself out too much, but got aggressively shoved out of the way by the man in question.

"They could-- It cannot be a coincidence that this is when Elias chooses to make a break for it." Jon rambled.

"You think he's coming here?"

That was what got Jon to stop in his tracks. He gave Basira a look of annoyance.

"You don't?"

"Let's go." Daisy interjected, gesturing down the hallway toward the entrance to the tunnels under the Institute. Jon sighed, though it was hard to gauge whether it was from relief or irritation.

"I'll get the key." Jon said.

"So the bastard has been Jonah Magnus all along?" Tim was about to throw a tape recorder against the wall. He was getting sick of the twists and turns, and honestly just the way everything around here functioned in general at this point.

"He's been body-hopping like whatever was in Raynor." Basira said with a heavy, tired sigh. At least Tim could agree with her on being sick of this bullshit.

"So is he going to help Peter or stop him?" Jon was back to pacing again. To be fair, this turn of events was getting baffling all at once.

"Lukas is planning to take over the panopticon." Basira began. Tim interrupted her before she could continue.

"There is no way in hell Elias-- no, Jonah, is going to let that happen."

"But--" Jon wracked his brain for reasoning. "He put Lukas in charge! That doesn't make any--" He noticed Daisy had frozen like a dog that could hear a predator in the distance. "Daisy, what are you--"

Daisy shushed him harshly. The sound of heavy, uneven footsteps could be heard, like they were from a creature whose anatomy wasn't correct. Tim could feel the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. This was bad, he could already tell.

"Oh no." Jon whimpered. He seemed to recognize the uneven gait immediately, and Tim didn't like that.

"Stay here, all of you. I'll check it out." Basira said, quietly opening the door. She stepped out, snuck down the hall until she could see whatever was going on, and snuck back as silently as she could.

"Well?" Daisy asked in nervous anticipation.

"Looks like two people. An old guy and--"

"A woman with a scar." Daisy interrupted, straightening herself. She knew those two hadn't left the archives. She just hadn't been able to find them.

"Oh, God, now? Why now?!" Jon asked in a panic, once again pulling at his hair and shaking like a chihuahua on three shots of espresso.

"It's probably not a coincidence. From what I saw they've been toying with the rest of the Institute, but it won't be long until they're all dead or escaped."

"And then they're coming here." Daisy gritted her teeth a little as she spoke. Jon grumbled something under his breath.

"Set up by the door. Try and take them when they break through." Basira said. Tim nodded, and sidled up next to the door. That familiar flicker of orange in his eyes appeared, like smokeless flames dancing against a blue sky. Jon caught a glimpse of him and for just a moment Tim saw that he looked absolutely captivated with him. He gave Jon a sly wink, his heart fluttering in his chest despite his desire to stop getting flustered like a schoolgirl whenever Jon recognized him in a positive way. Jon blushed and quickly changed the subject.

"Do I get a gun?" Jon asked Basira. She smirked.

"You've fired one?" Basira asked. Jon scowled indignantly.

"You never taught me!" Jon argued. Basira grinned wider, loving the chance to pick on Jon.

"You never asked. Besides, we've got problems enough without--"

The door was slammed open with a loud crash, the impact leaving cracks in the wall. Tim barely dodged being hit by the door, thankful he was paying attention to the lumbering footsteps outside the door and how they'd stopped just outside. Otherwise he would've been smashed into a pulp between the door and wall. He got a good look at the thing that slammed the door open as the dust settled, and his blood ran cold as he heard its voice. He knew that voice far too well.

"Hello, Jon." It said as it locked eyes with Jon. Jon locked up almost immediately, knees wobbling underneath him. Tim was ready to catch Jon, but also knew that in his fight-or-flight he was likely to burn Jon if it came to that.

"Oh shit." Basira said, pulling out her pistol in a panic and aiming it at the barely-human monster that towered in the doorway. Jon's logic finally caught up to his instinct, and he stepped backwards away from the thing.

"You've got to be fucking kidding--" Jon was interrupted by Basira pulling the trigger and firing the gun at the monster in front of them all. The monster, quicker than it needed to be, dodged the bullets fired at it at even point-blank, giving just enough breadth to let the four of them through the door if they moved quickly.

"Go!" Basira yelled, and the four all sprinted as fast as they could out the door and down the hallway. More voices rang out behind them.

"Oh Jonny-boy!" Trevor Herbert intoned from down the hallway, and cackled.

"We want to make a statement!" Julia Montauk taunted. The four ran down the hallway, with Jon leading the way and letting the Eye guide him even through the panic. They stopped to catch their breath as they got far enough away to feel some degree of safe for even just a fleeting moment.

"Oh, hello! What's happening here? New friends?" The creature also apparently hunting Jon asked from the same direction. Gunshots were fired, likely from a weapon one of the two lunatics had now. "Not new friends? Even better."

"What the hell is that thing?" Daisy asked, having never been exposed to the monster they were facing, unlike she had with Herbert and Julia. Jon had his eyes shut, focusing on the distance and picturing in his mind where the hunters and the monster all were. They were about five corridors down at this point, not too far from the office they'd all sprinted from. Jon knew where they were headed, the best path to get there, and any other alternatives to that path if one was blocked off somehow.

"You remember what happened to Sasha?" Jon asked. At the mention of Sasha, Tim felt the uncontrollable urge to sprint down the hall and torch the whole place just to take out that thing.

"That's the thing that took her." Basira said. She was uneasy, knowing how dangerous the Not Them was. The area was uncomfortably hot, the floor under Tim's feet was starting to smoke and scorch, and the wallpaper near him was beginning to crack and curl from the heat. But Tim didn't speak.

"It was trapped in the tunnels. It-- Martin. Something's happening down there." Jon said, the situation settling in and rising panic in his throat about Martin's safety.

"If he's down there with Peter, or Elias... Dammit, we need to get down there." Basira growled. One of them had let out the Not Them to stall them all, or at least stall Jon.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Trevor called from closer to them than any of the four would've liked. "Can you smell 'em?" He asked, probably to Julia.

"Ugh. Hard to tell over the stink of that thing!" Julia sounded disgusted in her response to Trevor.

"They'll follow us... goddammit." Basira snapped. "Jon, Tim, go, we'll keep them busy."

"What? No! I--" Jon tried to argue.

"Basira, I'm not leaving you behind to deal with the thing that took Sasha--" Tim's argument overlapped with Jon's, and Basira glared at both of them.

"Don't argue, just go!" Basira demanded.

"Oh, Jon!" The Not Them called, and Tim bristled a little bit at the sound. He wanted to fight that thing. For Sasha. But he knew that if he didn't go with Jon, he might never see him again, depending on how this turned out. And it was likely to turn out very, very badly. If he was going to die, and Jon was going to die, Tim wanted them to be together when it happened.

"Fine. Just don't die." Jon demanded. Basira rolled her eyes.

"Just go."

Tim and Jon nodded to each other and sprinted back down the hall. They got to the door that led to the tunnels, and Tim could hear a monsterous snarling from down the hall, overlapped with a voice that was unmistakably Daisy Tonner. Shit, this was dire then.

"Where are you going, Jon?" The Not Them crooned as Jon fumbled to unlock the door, far too close for comfort. Fuck, she must've gotten past Daisy and Basira while they were dealing with Trevor and Julia.

"Jon, I think this might be it for us--" Tim said, only to turn and realize that Jon was missing. He ducked his head into the door and could only hear footprints echoing down the brick and stone of the tunnels, with no way for Tim to know what way Jon had gone. Jon had gone into a panic and ran ahead of him. Tim had been left behind. His mind clouded with white-hot rage and betrayal, and soon his breath produced cinders, smoke, and the warped light of rising heat. Fine, if that was how this was going to be then Tim was going to go all-out against that thing. He walked back out of the room, and the Not Them was lumbering down the hallway toward him.

"Tim! Oh, it's so good to see you! Don't you remember me? Don't you remember your Sasha?" It called to him. How dare it keep trying to toy with him now? Tim gritted his teeth. He was running on pure instinct, and his instincts were telling him to destroy. He let out a scream, a battlecry, and sprinted full-tilt towards the gangly monster, leaving behind a smoldering, smoking, occasionally even flaming footprints as he ran. "Oh, you're still feisty! Mommy likes that!"

Tim produced a fireball, and cast it in the monster's direction. As he saw it hit the monster's chest and portions of it deflect and catch parts of the wallpaper on fire, reality burned like a photo under a flame.

Without something to ground him, Timothy Stoker had been fully taken by The Desolation.

Chapter Text

"Jon, I really don't like the look of this place." Martin said, uneasy as he and Jon approached what looked like a large maze of some sort, with an open top but incredibly tall sides. Wisps of smoke rose from various places inside.

"You've said that about half the domains we've gone through so far." Jon replied, though he did pull Martin a little closer. "There are some shorter ways around it, but I wouldn't feel right not going through here."

"Jon, you've never said that about any of these places, and you've never taken us the long way. What's going on?"

"This is where Tim is."

Martin was quiet for a moment, just taking that in.

"This maze." He began. "This huge, bleak-looking maze is where Tim is."

"Yes."

"Oh god, who's the one in charge of this one? He's got to be going through hell, Jon, we have to save him--"

"He is."

Martin was struck dumb by that. He'd completely forgotten that Tim was an avatar too, but even then the idea of him having his own domain just felt wrong.

"Tim is..."

"He's the avatar of this domain, yes. It's something between the Desolation, the Spiral, the Stranger, and the Lonely." Jon replied, before Martin could even ask the question. He got a glare in response for accidentally reading Martin's mind without asking. "Sorry."

"Does that mean he's too far gone, then?" Martin asked after taking about thirty seconds to think about the implications.

"I... I don't know." Jon admitted. "I just know he's here, I haven't been able to pry much into his status without getting essentially kicked in the head by his subconscious."

"Stubborn ass." Martin muttered. He sighed, and looked at the entrance to the maze. "I guess the only way to figure it out is to find him and see for ourselves?"

"Appears that way." Jon said, and nodded his head toward the maze. "Come on, I know how to get through there without getting too lost. The corridors will shift though, and some might close off suddenly, so stay close."

"Got it."

They moved forward, and once they crossed the threshold of the domain they both felt like they had been punched in the chest. Emotions welled up for them both, smoke swirling around them and obscuring their view of each other at least partially, but their hands held tight onto one another so they couldn't get separated and lose track of each other. Jon had already lost track of Martin in a domain of The Lonely once not long ago, he wasn't letting it happen again. Especially not already. Martin tugged Jon toward the floor, stopping down to examine a textured patch surrounded by normal .

"It's made of... Matchbook striker?" Martin asked, running his fingers along it. It didn't feel quite rough enough, but the pattern was like that of the strip on the side of a book of matches.

"Not quite." Jon replied. "It's made of what's on the head of the matches themselves. Only in a few spots though. Be careful, and don't drag your feet when you cross them."

"Jesus, whatever is going on with Tim's psyche is deeper than I thought." Martin said, gingerly touching a wall where a shifting portrait was hung in a frame with very well-charred wood and cracked glass. The person in the portrait was hauntingly familiar, but in a way Martin didn't recognize. Like he should have known who they were, but had forgotten them somehow. It dug the same hollow pit in him that the foggy, uncomfortable house he had just left did.

"That, um... That might be at least partially my fault--" Jon said, sheepishly. Suddenly, as if on cue, he felt that uncomfortable itch in the back of his mind. Martin was about to ask what Jon had meant by being at fault for Tim's psyche, but was interrupted by Jon's response to a statement coming on. "Oh-- I, um--"

"Really?" Martin asked. "We just crossed into this domain, and it's giving you a statement already?"

Jon nodded a little. He had a sort of ache about having to convey a statement about this place, knowing someone he cared deeply about was directly responsible for it.

"Trust me, if I didn't have to do it, I wouldn't. Especially not here."

"Can we find a place to stop for it, at least? Is there time for that?"

"I-- Yeah, I think so. This place has some rooms, like a sprawling manor. We can find one of them."

"They won't be occupied?"

"None of the victims here can perceive each other. Even just passing through, we won't be able to see any of them outwardly. I just know they're here." Jon explained. "It's part of the Lonely and the Spiral's influences on this place."

"Oh god..."

Jon and Martin continued down corridors, Jon leading the way instinctively and guiding Martin by the hand as they walked. Every now and then he would have to pause as he felt hallways shift or close themselves off from one another, occasionally even having to double back around as a formerly open hallway became a sudden dead end further down the path than he or Martin could.physically see through the smoke. Eventually they made their way to what looked like a surprisingly comfortable living room. It was hazy with smoke, but otherwise mostly untouched. Almost as if it was waiting for them.

"Are you alright sticking around this time?" Jon asked. Martin took a deep breath, coughing a little as he inhaled the smoke in the room, and nodded.

"Is it safe to sit in any of the chairs?"

"Should be." Jon took a moment, and continued for clarification. "Just stay near me, okay? I don't want to lose track of you again. Especially not somewhere connected to the Lonely."

"Wasn't planning on wandering off. In fact, I was planning on sitting right--" Martin plopped down in a nearby loveseat, surprised by how genuinely comfy it was, and involuntarily sank down into it with a sigh. "Here. You can sit next to me if you want. I... I think I need to be able to hear the statement if it's from Tim's domain. Might help us figure out how to help him, yeah?"

"I wouldn't get my hopes up, but yes. It might."

 

He knew he hadn't been here long. He couldn't have, right? The clocks were all broken, second hand on any of them reliably twitching unreliably somewhere between where three and four should have been. Or was it seven and eight? Eleven and twelve? It didn't matter, he couldn't tell the time with them anyways. The miserable sky above the ceilingless corridors with impossibly high walls never changed either. The sun never revealed itself, but it never rose or set. It simply remained a dull greenish-gray of rotting stagnation.

He hadn't been here long. But he grew up here, didn't he? The portraits on the wall, they were his family, his friends. His... Older brother? His father? Maybe even a cousin? He couldn't recognize them anymore. Faces shifted every time he saw them again, far more familiar to him out of the corner of his eye but when he shifted his gaze directly on them he didn't see anyone he knew. But he did know them, didn't he? He had to, he wouldn't have pictures of them otherwise.

He ran down the corridor, shoes tapping against the wood, echoing impossibly for the shape of the walls. He stumbled as the floor grew rough, sparks kicking up and catching a portrait of... His mother, maybe? Her face was warped, eyes missing and smile sporting far too many teeth. Were her limbs always that long? Did her joints always look like that of an old porcelain doll? The frame caught alight instantly, and the image warped further, into grief and anguish. This was his fault. He had done this to her. Had he? He didn't remember. But the crackling of flames spreading up the wall whispered to him, telling him he burned his bridges a long time ago, that it was his fault his life was like this. That his personal hell had been his own making. He ran down the hall, away from the fire that seemed to recognize his fear and follow him. He reached a dead end, and pleaded with the walls to let him out. He turned around, and the flames Had disappeared, though the thick, acrid smoke from them still suffocated him. He ran without thinking into the room he could see beyond the smoke.

He could see figures through the gray. People he knew he loved. He sprinted toward them, but they disappeared like mirages taunting him with whispers of malice and hatred.

"You could have told me not to go. You killed me."

He fell to his hands and knees, coughing up soot from blackened lungs that had been in this house far longer than he thought. This house where he was certain he had always lived. But how long had "always" even been? He heard the crackling of flames, but he couldn't see their glow, couldn't smell the cinders closing in. But the heat, the heat was oppressive. It felt like his skin was starting to singe from the flesh, the flesh from the bone, the heat searing his insides the longer he stayed in the room. Where was he? He needed to find a way out of here, there had to be someone trapped who he could help. He staggered back to his feet and into the hall.

He couldn't have been here long, right? His eyes watered from the smoke, and he couldn't see clearly. That portrait on the wall, who was that? His uncle? Grandfather? No, neither of them smiled that wide. He heard silent scolding of how he should recognize his own family members, and found himself whimpering desperate apologies to a picture that couldn't have possibly spoken to him. His chest was burning, he coughed up blood from a raw throat ravaged by soot and smoke. A wrong step kicked up more sparks, and the portrait that couldn't have been disappointed in him burned to ashes with a curse of his stupidity. He ran, and found a room for respite from the fire.

How long had he been here? It couldn't have been long, but the clocks were all broken, the second hand twitching--

Jon suddenly doubled over in agony as the statement was outright ripped from his mind's eye. His vision clouded and swirled in patchy black and fluorescent green and day glow orange, and he pitched forward off the loveseat before Martin could catch him. His elbows wobbled as he struggled to hold himself up on his hands and knees. His chest heaved with deep coughs and difficult breaths as if he were having an asthma attack. Tears of exertion streaked down his face.

"Shit! Jon, are you okay!?" Martin panicked, dropping off of the edge of the loveseat and trying to help Jon up. Jon shook his head, still reeling in pain. "What happened?"

"He snapped me out of it." Came a voice from the doorway into the room. The hair on the back of Martin's neck stood on end, and he turned to face the newcomer. He couldn't see much through the smoke, which was far thicker than before, but what he could see was unsettling through the otherwise obscuring haze. Bright orange diffused through the smoke, taking the shape of two eyes and a mouth. Sparks kicked up from the ground with every step the approaching man took. "I should've known you'd both show up eventually. Hell, maybe I did know. I don't remember half the shit that happens around here."

"Tim?" Martin asked, voice breaking and barely audible. "What happened to you...?"

"He let The Desolation take him." Jon said, coming back out of the attack of horrific pain of having a statement cut off from him. He was still dizzy, and his head still hurt badly, but he was starting to recover enough to be aware of his surroundings again at least.

"I wouldn't have had to if you weren't a liar and a bastard, Jon!" Tim snapped, stepping forward. The smoke cleared around him somewhat, and Martin got a slightly better view of him. He looked like hell, disheveled and angry, with tear streaks cutting through layers of soot on his face. Martin could barely see the way steam rose through the smoke, cutting through it in curling wisps. Tim was still crying. Martin immediately felt awful for him, even worse than before, even. He stood up and stepped between Tim and where Jon was still kneeling on the floor, and Tim scowled at him. "What, going to play devil's advocate for your boy toy? He left me behind to deal with that thing that took Sasha! He was so fucking worried about Martin, Martin, Martin that he didn't give a damn what happened to me!"

Martin glanced back at Jon in shock.

"Jon, is that true?" Martin asked. Jon looked ashamed of himself as he sat on the ground, and with a sigh he nodded.

"I told you this was my fault--"

"Can it, Sims." Tim snapped. The doorway was suddenly blocked with raging tongues of flame, and the blast of heat from the inferno had Martin struggling to breathe through it. It burned in his throat, ached in his lungs, but he stayed standing exactly where he was. Tim snarled viciously at him. "Do you know how long I had been trying to come to terms with falling in love with him, Martin? Do you know what it's like to fight every urge to kiss someone because you know they're completely stricken with someone else?"

"Tim, I--"

"Do you know how much it hurts to know you lost your humanity because you fell for someone so completely that you subconsciously cheated death in hopes of being with them!?"

"Tim, would you--!"

"Do you know what it's like to be left behind to face something that stole the memories of someone else you loved!?"

Tim stomped his foot, sparks flying from the impac, and his voice was choked out by a sob. Martin could see the glimmer of orange reflected in Tim's tears, and decided that the danger was worth what he was going to do next. Jon saw Martin step toward Tim, and before he could speak up to warn him, Martin had grabbed Tim and yanked him into a tight hug. Jon could hear the skin of Martin's arms sizzle, could feel the flesh blistering under impossibly hot touch. He heard the cry of pain Martin let out even as he chose to hold Tim tighter despite the burns being left on him. Jon was ready to leap into action, to pull Martin and Tim apart from each other and smite Tim to keep him from going back for more.

At least, until he watched the glow of Tim's eyes and the furnace-like flickering from behind his teeth and down his throat die out. Tim's shoulders dropped, and with shaking hands he clung to Martin and let out a soul-wrenching sob into Martin's shoulder.

"I'm so sorry..." Tim whispered as Martin gently rocked him back and forth on his feet.

"Tim, I--" Jon stammered, fumbling for purchase on his words for a moment before just giving up and staying where he was sitting on the floor with a sigh. Martin glanced over to him, and if looks could kill then Jon would have been a dead man.

Well, here technically looks could kill, but that didn't exactly affect him like that, and a nasty look from his boyfriend definitely wouldn't be able to do the trick to begin with.

"Tim, it's okay..." Martin cooed, trying his best to ignore what were almost definitely third degree burns on his arms.

"But you're hurt now because of me!" Tim argued, stepping back and gesturing at the burns Martin was very much trying to pretend didn't exist. Martin shrugged a little, flinching as he put his arms back down. The air against his arms wasn't helping the wounds to not hurt like crazy, that was for sure. But it was okay, he was used to it at this point.

"It's fine, they'll heal." Martin assured, looking at the wounds. They'd have to be bandaged, but he had plenty of those in his backpack anyways.

"Martin." Jon warned, and got another downright threatening look from Martin. He clammed up immediately.

"Jon, you're the one who's been going on about how the other avatars can't kill us, or whatever." Martin said, voice still harsher than particularly necessary. "It's. Fine."

"A-- A-- Actually, since Tim was able to hurt you he could actually very much kill both of us if he wanted to." Jon stuttered out against his better judgment. He covered his mouth with both hands as soon as he said it, and Martin groaned and rolled his eyes.

"Jon, I wouldn't, I swear--" Tim said, holding his hands up in surrender and stepping back a few steps. He stumbled and fell backwards onto his ass. That was when Jon noticed the look in Tim's eyes: the pure terror of a domain's victim. Those eyes flickered with orange again in an overwhelming surge of Tim's emotions. "Please, Jon, believe me, I--"

"You're just as much a victim of this place as the ones who aren't avatars." Jon said. He was almost in disbelief. "That statement was yours."

Tim was silent for a moment then, refusing to make eye contact. He had that look of unmistakable terror in his eyes still, and Jon stood up to approach him. He held out a hand for Tim, and only then did Tim actually look up at him.

"Tim, I'm-- I'm sorry for leaving you behind when I ran into the tunnels." Jon said. "I didn't realize you weren't behind me until it was too late. I heard the Not-Them, and I took off running in a panic. I thought you had followed me."

Tim took hold of Jon's hand, and Jon didn't get the burn to his palm that he expected like he had from Jude what felt like an eternity ago now. Jon helped Tim to his feet.

"I didn't realize you'd gotten the door open already." Tim said, looking back down at his hand held in Jon's. "I thought we were done for. That thing was going to tear one of us to shreds and pretend to be the other one until it got figured out by Jonah and he took care of it."

"I'm still sorry. I should've checked behind me before running off. Maybe then we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with." Jon said, and hugged Tim for a good, long while. When he pulled back again, he looked Tim in the eyes. "And I should've noticed the signs. You weren't subtle, but then again neither was Martin, and look how long it took me with him."

Tim let out a deep, exhausted breath, a few dying cinders escaping his lips like they would from the maw of a furnace.

"No, I should've said something. You were just so taken with Martin at that point that I thought it'd be a rejection immediately." Tim looked at Jon, and then at Martin, and back again. He smiled sadly. "Guess you made your choice, though."

Jon and Martin exchanged glances, a silent exchange that Tim couldn't quite decipher. Tim looked at the door to the room, and was lost in thought for a moment.

"You want to leave this place, don't you?" Martin asked, gently placing a hand on Tim's shoulder and rubbing at the skin there. Tim nodded. Martin glanced at Jon. "Can he leave?"

"I don't know. Since he's somehow a victim and the overseer, it's a little more complicated." Jon said. "Tim, if you can't leave, would you rather stay here, or would you rather I kill you?"

Tim furrowed his brows and gave Jon a look of concern and confusion.

"Kill me? You can do that?"

"Oh, uh-- Yeah. I can." Jon had forgotten that wasn't very common knowledge yet. "I, um, cast the Eye's full attention to an avatar, make them feel every bit of fear they've inflicted on others, and they just sort of... Dissolve from reality."

"...Does it hurt?" Tim asked hesitantly.

"It's agonizing." Jon replied. "Already did it to the Not-Them, and to Jude Perry. They begged for their lives."

"Of course you get to kill both of those fuckers when I'm not even there to enjoy watching it." Tim half-joked. "Guess that's why I can remember Sasha's face again sometimes. Her real face, not the mockery of her the Not-Them or whatever came up with." Jon walked to his other side and put a hand on his other shoulder. Tim seemed to relax a little bit, comforted by the two people standing with him. He felt tears on his cheeks again, and hiccupped softly. With Jon and Martin with him, the way this place clouded his vision cleared, and he could remember her face as vividly as the day he met her. "She wore glasses. Bright red cat eye frames. They suited the shape of her face perfectly." He said, almost to himself. He sniffled and rubbed the tears from his eyes. "I always loved those glasses on her."

"It's nice to remember again, isn't it?" Jon asked with a sad smile. "Bittersweet, but nice."

"I still miss her." Tim said. His voice was quiet. He thought for a moment, and bit the bullet, answering the question he'd been asked. "I... Jon, if I can't leave, I want you to kill me."

"That, I can do." Jon said. "I promise. But let's try to get you out of here, first. I know the way out."

"Of course you do, all-seeing prick."

"Glad to see you haven't changed a bit, Tim." Martin said. He got a smile from Tim at that, and was frankly a little proud of it.

They tried for hours to get out of the maze of hallways, but every time they would try to pass over a threshold with Tim, a wall would materialize or a mass of flames would spring to life just before they could manage.

"God damn it!" Tim roared, punching the wall that had materialized just before they could get to it. It left a singed crater, but not much else in terms of damage. Tim sank to his knees in front of the wall, hands against the wallpapered plaster. He beat the side of his fist into the wall once he hit the floor, pleading unintelligibly to be allowed to be let free.

"Tim..." Jon started to speak cautiously, like the words pained him to say. "We might not have another choice here."

"Fine." Tim said, with surprisingly little hesitation.

"Wait-- You're sure?" Jon asked, taken aback by how ready Tim was to be wiped from existence.

"Maybe there'll be an afterlife, where I can see my damn brother again. Maybe I'll even see Sasha there." He said. He laughed bitterly then. "She never loved me either, but at least we had some chemistry."

"Maybe it'd be a mercy at this point?" Martin asked Jon, trying to be quiet so Tim wouldn't hear him. "I mean, really. Look at him. He's miserable."

Jon sighed defeatedly. He didn't want to do this. He wanted to let Tim know his feelings weren't one-sided, run away from this place with him and Martin, and go through the rest of this hellscape to take down Jonah Magnus and (hopefully) set the world right.

"Tim, this is going to hurt." Jon warned.

"I don't care. Just get it over with."

"Fine." Jon conceded, closing his eyes as he took a deep breath. His eyes snapped open wide, glowing bright green in their entirety, missing even a pupil. His myriad of scars tore open to reveal more eyes that all tried to fix their gaze on Tim. Tim looked up to see this sight, and fell a little further in love with him even in what he was sure would be his final, painful moments. "Ceaseless watcher, cast your gaze upon this miserable creature. Feel his sorrow, cast your--" He faltered, the glow of his eyes flickering and his scars starting to seal back together painfully. "Cast your-- Your pity on what he's become--"

His powers faltered entirely. Tim was grimacing in horrendous pain, and Jon couldn't continue when he saw it. He stammered, unsure what to make of his own inability to do the one thing he promised Tim he would do, and tried again. His eyes glowed again, but only his scleras. His scars tore open once more, but the eyes under his flesh failed to focus on Tim.

"Ceaseless watcher, cast your gaze upon-- Upon this..."

His powers failed entirely again as he saw Tim's expression contort in the agony of the Eye beginning to attempt to tear him from himself. He couldn't do it. Jon's hands shook, and Tim's breathing was heavy as every part of his body felt the pain of the attempts to rip his who from his what and cast them both to oblivion. Jon's legs nearly buckled, and Martin nudged him toward Tim. Jon looked at Martin pitifully, and Martin looked determined.

"Kiss him." Martin said softly, so Tim couldn't hear him. Jon looked at him like he had grown an extra head. "Maybe it'll help? You know I have no issue with you two as long as I get to have you too. We talked about that as a hypothetical in the cabin."

Jon looked at the way Tim was curled in the fetal position sitting on the ground as he recovered from the agony Jon had inflicted on him without being able to finish the job. He looked back at Martin, nodded, and knelt down in front of Tim. He could feel the rising temperature around Tim, and hoped this wouldn't go like it had between Jack Barnabas and Agnes Montague. He waited for Tim to look up at him finally, and when he did Jon grabbed Tim's shirt and closed the gap between them swiftly to press their lips together. Tim seemed to freeze for a moment, the shock cutting off his conscious, and even subconscious, use of his powers for a moment as he processed what was happening. He returned the kiss, a hand on the side of Jon's neck, thumb grazing over the scar on Jon's throat that Daisy had left while he was still on the run from her and she was assuming he had killed Leitner. Flames nearby that had crept along baseboards and trapped them in a dead end died out, and a cracking sound could be heard as the wall that had been cast up to keep Tim inside the domain fractured and crumbled out of reality. Neither Tim nor Jon noticed until Martin nudged Jon's back with his knee.

"Jon. Jon, it worked!" Martin exclaimed, excited. Jon and Tim parted from the kiss and looked up in confusion. Ahead of them, beyond what had been a solid wall, was the open nightmare-scape beyond the domain. Jon's expression brightened, and he stood up, hauling Tim with him. "Hurry, let's get out of here before this place changes its mind!"

And finally, Tim stepped past the threshold out of his personal hell and didn't look back.