Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It happens on a Monday.

Tim wakes, groggy and head pounding with the after effects of Ill-advised weekend drinking, mouth a clogged dry that has his first breaths coming out as coughs. For all Timothy Stoker, socially described pretty play boy- though not exactly accurate - likes to party, it is the after that is always the worst.

He always liked parties, and social events, and pretty people, and alcohol, but he wasn't always as into it as he is. Or, primarily, was for a particular amount of time. But, in that space before the institute, all he had were questions he couldn't answer, a burning hot, shameful rage, and a fear like nothing else. What better way to cope than not think about it, no matter how much his parents sneered in their own grief at his careless behavior, distancing themselves as to hurt less for when they lose another son.

Good, Tim had thought then. Good, he wouldn't care about him either, wouldn't want them to.

He's "better" these days, though. He has a way to focus that grief, and though likely not healthy- not that Tim could really care- it makes Tim feel better sometimes.

That is to say, Tim doesn't hate work, but fuck he doesn't want to go in today.

As Tim begrudgingly gets up, makes unsteady way to the bathroom and practically snatches his toothbrush, grumbling to no one in particular, squeezing toothpaste onto the bristles, he can picture it now.

Jon, all secretly smug looking, as if Tim couldn't see the subtle upturn to his lips, chiding Tim for drinking so heavily on a Sunday. And Sasha- he spits out the foam and turns the faucet on, angling his head to catch water in his mouth, swishing it about - oh Sasha. Sasha would not hide her snickering, looking composed as ever despite the fact she was his company the night prior, more a stomach for alcohol in her somewhat petite frame compared to Tim's. She knows it too, her tolerance, something that runs in her family, she's said. Tim doesn't believe it.

He spits out the water, wipes at his mouth, and goes through the motions of brushing his hair. moving with louder groans to open air, tugging on a shirt, stumbling into pants, and fiddling with the belt of his pants, phone stuffed into his pocket.

He cannot stand the two, sometimes.

It is with the thought of his friends future, playful smugness, and swallowing down some painkiller he nicked from the cabinet, does he open the door adjacent from his bed.

It is only after opening does he realize, that isn't right.

The flat he moved into some time after Danny was an odd one, in its layout. Nothing unusual, per-say, but just slightly off from the average. It’s part of what drew Tim to it in the first place, Smirke a constant thought in the back his brain, though it wound up having no such connection.

The hallways, always a little short, the bathroom, a bit oddly sizable, the doors, a bit low. The door to his bedroom was one such thing, nestled into the very left corner of the room, so close to the bathroom’s door that he can't have both doors open at once without them jamming against each other. Tim had made the mistake in the first week, and he knew if he were a bigger man, he would not have been able to squeeze through the gap of the ajar door.

The door, is not center in the wall, so why had he stepped that way, and why did a doorknob twist open under his hand?

A, sharp, feeling, hits him in a sudden rush, and he gasps, breathless, once groggy squinted eyes flying open, assaulted by a flash of colors. So many colors, so dizzying, that he feels he cannot see at all. Each breath feels seizure-ious, wound so tight so suddenly, that he cannot move at all.

"W- Wha-"

Stutters out his mouth, gone dryer with a sudden panic that laces full awareness up his spine and to his brain, making him turn suddenly on his heel in a sudden pop of tension, to face the door he just entered through- just in time to see it slam shut.

He rushes to it like an animal gone feral, slamming bodily into what he can now see as yellow wood, knuckles white in their grip on the knob that jingles protest-ingly under his efforts to open it.

"So, this is what you look like. The memory was always a bit blurry."

A voice startles him around, the sound of it grating, like a note off key or nails on chalkboard, shuddered down his spine as his eyes meet, something. Something tall, a woman, almost, hair a curled bob, a suite top and a pencil skirt framing her unnatural figure that Tim can almost identify as- some shade of purple? Amongst the shades that blind him.

A hand raises in a playful wave, the fingers bend where there would not be joints, ending in knife like points, and so large Tim's mind races to the thought of them closing around his head in a vice akin to an iron maiden.

"What-"

Is all he can manage, hackles raised as if he could fight this monster off- another monster, just like Grimaldi- before it shushes him, long finger pressed to its upturned lips, a smile with too many teeth. Watching it gives Tim a headache, vision a red and blue blur around the edges.

"No questions, that would ruin the surprise."

The creature says cheerily, before stepping to another yellow door with the clicking of heels- the hallway stretches on so long, there are so many doors- and leans down, gesturing in something akin to a magician presenting the thing they intend to make disappear, laughing. It is a horrible sound.

"Now, off you pop!"

It doesn't make sense, Tim's eyes dart to the presented door, the creak it makes as it opens echoing in Tim's very bones. He cannot see what is out the door. He knows he should be able to, but even with his squinting, it is nothing but a formless blob in his eyes.

Swallowing thick, taking a breath and trying to present a bravery he did not have the day Danny died, he forces his eyes onto the thing, no matter how it pains him, glaring. It feels like staring at the sun, or a hologram, or something so- beyond- that the edges of it cannot stop shifting and glitching and turning, like a spiral. There is no readable intent, in the eyes he is sure he is meeting, yet Tim knows.

It wants him to go in the door.

"And why should I?"

The thing laughs, it hurts more than the last.

"I'll kill you if you don’t."

It's a simple threat, said plainly, as if the thing imitating a woman before him had no real opinions on the very existence of Tim. He's just something that can be discarded, just like Danny. It means it, though. It means it, and Tim doesn't know what's happening. His hands shake.

He wants to run, to attack it, to do something. Long fingers twitch almost idle in the air, and they sound like breaking bones, like gun shots in his ears.

"How do I know you won't already?"

He dares with a composure beyond his thoughts. The thing only grins all the wider, the skin of its face stretching to meet the length of its smile till it disappears into the curls of its hair. It does not crease, nor wrinkle. It is clean, smooth, like wax, or porcelain. Or, perhaps it isn’t, perhaps it is torn open for the space. Perhaps it is not smiling at all.

"You don't."

Tim, doesn't understand.

He looks back to the door he came from, to the thing before him, hand gestured and the door opened invitingly. Danny is gone, Tim is not. Tim, is the only one who knows. Tim, is the only one who could make that circus pay. He, cannot, die, yet.

"Fuck."

He grits his teeth, and runs into the open door.

The world of colors and hallway, and doors, cut into something more, normal. Almost disgustingly normal, and the whiplash of it makes Tim want to be sick, hands braced on his knees and throat squeezed in a dry heave of breath, as the door slams shut behind him. He looks back, but there is no door, not like the one he went through, anyway. Simply, a trapdoor. Plain, anomalous, he looks to the rest of the room, and finds much the same.

It's an office, file cabinets, a desk strewn with envelopes and papers, and, as he stumbles to his feet and down the presented hall, desks, all empty in a fashion that reads as abandoned, rather than new and unused. It all feels, familiar, in a sense he can't quite place. The general decor of it, the paintings on walls he does not linger his gaze on and the floor that creaks occasionally under his steps, old. He doesn't know what to do, whether he should call out for potential help, or stay quiet in case of potential threat.

Of course, he doesn't have much the time to consider it, as the decision is made for him.

Steps register sudden in his ears, a distinctly nervous sounding gait, with some hurry to it, somewhat quickly approaching his location, and Tim has no time to try and duck behind the corner to even try and hide, before a familiar voice greets his ears. It's, soft, fearful, hesitant. It is a tone he has never heard from it before, but despite the concern that would usually lace his core at the trepidation, for the briefest of moments he only feels relief.

"Tim?"

It makes him sigh with his relief, the adrenaline just slightly ebbing, and turn.

"Fuck- Jon-"

Tim starts, but of course stops short, for the absolutely terrified face that greets him, while Jon's, is distinctly wrong. It isn't the scars Tim notices first, no instead it's Jon's hair. It's much longer, streaked with more grey than Tim could remember the man having, despite Tim's teasing on the matter. It hangs in a somewhat greasy, surely tangled mess, over Jon's shoulders, few strands in his face and before his eyes, not framed by his glasses. Jon hates having hair in his face. He gets headaches without his glasses.

Jon's eyes are not green.

Sometimes, they look it, in certain lighting, it's something Tim admittedly found attractive about the man, even if he never intends to be anything but Jon's friend. But, the practically glowing hue of green that greets Tim now, makes Tim recoil with a horrible seen feeling. It is only natural Tim's eyes trail to the myriad of puck mark scars that cover Jon's face, then to the sheen of burned flesh hand that reaches so delicately towards Tim.

"You're not Jon."

Tim growls, now out the colors, having the sense to let a hot anger bubble up in him. A fake Jon, just like- his mind reels, it dares to look stricken, the thing with Jon's face.

"I- I am- Tim- Tim please- just- I need to just - I ah-"

It looks almost as lost as Tim feels. He almost pities it, and perhaps that feeling solidifies into something more real at the genuine, raw devastation on its face, as it looks at him. It stares at him, and it feels like being picked apart, it makes him want to claw his skin off, only refraining for the fact that would only give it more to look at. Those eyes are too deep, too sharp, too hungry.

"You're not- you don't even look like him! What the fuck are you?! Where am I?!"

He backs up, back towards the room he came from, till his back meets a wall with a soft thump, eyes darting around for any weapon he could use, any way out. It is only in that brief second does he notice a desk in that room, and, atop it, a letter opener. The thing seems to realize what he's going to do before he does it, but Tim is already running for it, and apparently, he's faster than it.

“Tim! Please!-“

The letter opener sits odd in his hands, and though no knife, the sound the false Jon makes as it swipes across it’s cheek is, almost, satisfying. It's satisfying in a way that makes him feel so, sick. A hot coil in his stomach that tells him- no, this is wrong, there is more. He wishes Sasha were here, she'd understand She’s smarter than him, more rational. He doesn’t have that level-headedness, preferring to bare his teeth and snap at anything that comes near him in moments of alarm.

"Tim!"

A hand grabs at his wrist, trying to wrestle the now crimson tipped letter opener, and his back presses to the desk he stole it from. The grip is so, weak, by comparison, the fingers skeletal, and easy to throw off and pin to the nearest wall. The Jon under him gasps.

The Jon before him, is panting, trembling, ragged looking even beyond the scars and what he now sees as deep eye bags. Physically gaunt, ribs sure to be visible underneath the clothes that may as well hang off him.

Tears, mix with the crimson across Jon’s cheek, and drip onto the floor.

Tim has never seen Jon cry. Sometimes, Tim worries about the prickly man who he’s barged his way into being his friend. Sometimes, he finds himself just waiting for the man to have a nervous breakdown or something. Still, he’s never seen Jon cry.

Would a monster cry?

Can, a monster cry?

It's an instinctual feeling, that tells Tim he's wrong, the panic dying under the wide pleading gaze and the yearning, loving, pained, whisper that greets his ears in nothing but Jon's voice.

"Tim."

Jon has never said- anything- so softly or pleadingly. The Jon squirms where Tim has him pinned, but doesn’t truly fight. The wrist under his hand is so skinny, it feels like he could break it like a twig. Tim opens his mouth to reply, finding his fingers once more trembling, a guilt burnt hot in his chest. And, perhaps, it is a trick. A ploy by something non-human, not Jon.

Either way, Tim has no time to say anything, before the door to the room slams open with a force that rattles the wall and with a growl that rattles his teeth. An unfamiliar voice growls words just as fiercely.

"Get off 'im."

Tim gets the distinct impression he’s made a mistake.

Chapter Text

Jonathan Sims has never been a lucky man.

Perhaps this string of bad fortune can be stemmed all the way to the day his parents died. He doesn't remember them, of course. The faces that stared back at him in family photos remained wholly unfamiliar in his memories and often times the baby-faced toddler they had between them was just as much a stranger.

He thinks they were kind, or at least he likes to believe they were. A car crash, an unfortunate accident, something to be sorry for, His poor grandmother, they would whisper, having to take him in, have to raise yet another child, defiant and unruly. He finds he feels great sympathy for the woman these days. He was nothing but an irritating child, always asking questions, and never satisfied with the answers.

Sometimes, he'd spout half-true facts he could not yet explore more into with confidence, just to seem smart, amongst his peers, to feel special. Only to be firmly incorrect in the ones his grandmother caught.

It is no wonder she never believed him.

He remembers stumbling home in something of a daze. The sky had turned an almost inky black to his understanding then, and the moment he was upon the driveway, the door had slammed open to reveal his grandmother, fuming with irritation. She had not looked at him proper, when she had grabbed him by the ear and practically dragged him through the door, yelling in that just controlled tone about having almost called the cops again, and how she could not tolerate this. He barely heard her, could barely feel it.

It is only at the hiccupping, whimpering sob that finally passed his lips, did she look down.

The blood was too obvious.

He cannot remember how he got it to cover him to such an extent. Cannot remember his skin tearing under a wood of a door no longer fit for entry, sobbing screams for the return of someone he could no longer remember the name of. He could not remember dropping to his knees in a pool of it. The human body did not produce that much blood, the other boy had been eaten whole, surely.

Jon doubts Mr. Spider would spare a drop.

His grandmother had not believed him. His grandmother thought he had imagined it in the place of something - to her- more realistically terrible. She put him in therapy for a week, saw he was sticking to his sentiment, unyielding to any of the therapist’s prodding, pulled him out of therapy, and never spoke about it with him again.

It is that day, that has drawn him here. Pulled by forces surely not his own, now monstrous in his existence. Daisy had known that once, he can remember the sheer terror of being pinned against harsh bark, all alone, with a knife carving into his throat.

It is perhaps because of that, that this feels underwhelming in comparison.

Not Tim being the one, no, that certainly is striking him deep with a devastation that he cannot even fully understand. He knows it's Tim. He can see it, see that unblemished face caught in a more familiar sneer, but where once the anger was so bitter and spiteful, this one reads as terrified, confused.

"Get away from 'im."

Ironically enough it is Daisy who comes as his savor.

"Daisy-"

He- warns? - a bit nervously, taking in the deep tension in her shoulders and the huffed breathes, near sniffing at the air. Tim has since faltered, hands trembling in Jon's periphery and stepping back. The grip on his wrists releases, and Jon cannot keep himself from half collapsing, legs bent at their knees. The tears that trail his cheeks, silent, unlike his youth. He feels them, wet against his scarred skin, but it is far too muted, and does not prevent any of his staring at a man he thought dead.

Tim looks between them wide eyed, and Jon goes to say something - anything, but Daisy is already advancing.

The time between Tim being stood there, somewhat gaping, to Tim being pinned to the nearest wall is something Jon struggles to even track.

Tim coughs, head slamming against the nearest wall with an audible thump, eyes bulging out their sockets. Daisy growls, low under her breath, all rasped but warning, and it is that sound that has Jon springing up sudden with all the coordination of a freshly born fawn.

"Daisy don't-"

"What are you?"

Daisy sneers, lips pulling back in an even louder snarl. Jon can watch Tim's eyes track her, as he's sure Daisy can as well. Daisy is a similar gaunt to him these days, though it hardly makes her hit with any less strength. Jon can see it, though. See the tension in her legs, wishing to buckle, wound so tight he knows she will have to hide the stumble in the aftermath. She is not fit for hunting anymore, not like she was. A dog with a limp, trailed toward the back of the pack, even if just as apt to bare her teeth.

Tim, still, does not answer, gaping and pupils blown.

Daisy presses on Tim harder, the man grunts, bracing a hand on the arm pressed to his throat, the letter opener long since fallen to the floor.

"Fuck- I- I'm me? I’m- who the fuck are you?!- Jon?-"

The man gasps and spits, ending with an almost fearfully hesitant question, trying to move his head to see past Daisy's shoulder, and meet Jon's eyes. Daisy, of course, does not allow it, teeth bared to further question with a hunger he can sympathize with. Jon takes this as his que, stepping up and, very hesitantly, setting a hand in her shoulder.

"Daisy- "

She whips her head at him with another growl like sound, and he cannot repress his flinch. She blinks, a little guilty, but remains silent for him to speak. As does Tim, watching the exchange wide eyed. He at least seems to have the sense that keeping quiet is for the best right now. He never really did appreciate how smart Tim could be, even if staying quiet in a situation like this isn't high grade mathematics. Jon didn’t appreciate a lot of things, when he had them.

"He's Tim."

Jon croaks emphatically, bringing a somewhat trembling hand of his own to wipe at the tears spilt down his face, fingers coming back bloody from the slash mark. The pain feels muted. He cannot tell if it's from adrenaline, or if he's just used to worse things.

"Stoker's dead."

Tim flinches, and Jon can see his pupils blow even wider, dropping that silence to croak.

"I'm not-"

Daisy presses on his throat, giving the man a glare. Jon shakes his head, trying to meet Tim's eyes and signal him to stay quiet. He doubts it'll work.

"Daisy, this is Tim."

She stares, then, subtly, settles. It is likely not visible to the average person, not used to Daisy, but he can see the slight slump of her shoulders. He knows what she looks like, relaxed. A privilege he long ago would have thought he’d never be witness to.

"You sure?"

Jon does not hesitate, even through his teary disposition.

"Yes.”

Daisy looks to him, then Tim, then back again.

"He hurt you."

Daisy points out, and Jon's face, darkens a little, at the protectiveness in that tone. He clears his throat, once more wiping at what remains of his tears with a shuddered breath, but only smearing more blood, likely not helping his image.

"There have been worse things."

Daisy's eyes dart to his throat, he swallows against the gaze. Daisy watches the scar, so subtly, bob. Then, she sighs, as if disappointed - she is, oh Jon knows she is- more so tired, and drops Tim. Tim lands in a heap on the ground with a yell, looking a bit affronted. Daisy turns to him, looking Jon over once, back to Tim, then returning with a nod.

"I'll get 'sira."

A pause. Daisy gestures to his face.

"'An somethin' for that."

Jon simply nods in return, and Daisy wastes no time turning, and leaving the room with all the huffing of an angered bull. He looks down at Tim. Tim looks so, young.

There are no scars that cover him, the hunch to his shoulders does not feel as heavy in their weight, his eyes look brighter. The confusion - and bit of fear- written plain on Tim's face, feels more innocent in origin. Tim looks, untouched, by comparison. Jon can see the stranger's so obviously now, but the eyes that meet his own do not hate him. Through his shock and internal panicking, he cannot help but say.

"I'm sorry about her."

Tim blinks at him, assessing him. They track each scar, each imperfection, each difference. They track his tears, sliding a false languid down his face, dying out at the edges with each blink, forced into something approximately more calm.

"Jon."

The man starts slow, not fully believing but doing so if just for a sense of security.

"What the fuck?!"

The yell is expected. Jon sighs, and answers with a forced indifference. He wants to run to Tim, to break down and hug him and tell him how sorry he is, how much he regrets what happened. He wants to apologize, apologize for it all, even before the circuses and the worms and the archive. Instead, he says.

"Yes, I could ask the same thing."

If possible, Tim gapes at him further, and Jon simply watches as the man so unsteady nurses his throat, the place where Daisy had not so kindly held him in place. The expression on Tim's face turns to nothing but hysterical.

"You're really Jon- aren't you?"

All grinning, too wide, almost awed

“You're - this is- Who was she? I- I know you're skeptic but- I opened a door and there were all these colors- and I woke up here- and you're..."
Tim begins, voice trembling, too much energy confined into small space, before it trails, voice now audibly thick in his throat. Jon swallows around empty air. "You're.....What the fuck happened to you?"

Is this what concern, sounds like? Jon wonders. A real, genuine concern.

No fear, no anger, no annoyance in the fact there is a problem at all. None of that stern look his grandmother would give him when the constant tap of her pen meeting wood would get so painfully grating. ‘It's just a sound, Jonathan, good lord.’ None of that withering glare he got, brought home by the harsh hands of a police officer. Wandered too far, they said. No one ever asked why, he knows well it's his own fault.

Not even that pity Georgie would give him, years and years later. All diluted sympathy as he squirmed and pushed her away with another excuse of, ‘not tonight’, when he knew that night would never come. No frustration, at his lack of willingness to even speak to her, about anything, to not even tell her the truth.

He had genuine concern, once, didn't he? All along, he had it. Sasha, he can't remember her, as her. Thinking on it now he still feels so helpless, because all he can picture is a stranger's face. But, he knew it twisted in concern. He knew it would pinch and heeled steps would echo to his desk and they would remind him to take a lunch break before departing. Just as softer ones would, in a not so far future, set steaming tea on his desk, and stutter soft words and fumble apologies for things not even their fault. All just to please him. So worried, so concerned.

There is a cold absence, in it's place, and the tea can never taste quite as good. He knows.

Tim was there, too. Arm slung over Jon's shoulders, even at his protests, and a grin all too wide with that subtle mischief. Like a man apt less to poke a bear, but more so a highly disgruntled cat, uncaring if it were to scratch him, just wanting to be its friend.

Jon wishes, so desperately these days, that he would have let himself. Were they friends? Perhaps, in research. How long has it been now? It feels centuries. It's almost hard to remember. To remember those disappointed looks as he turned down yet another invitation to drink, to those hesitant conversations in the break room, to those smiles he received in return, just for showing up. Jon was cared about, and Jon threw it away.

"A lot of things."

Tim, through all his panic, looks annoyed. That feels more correct.

"Don't be all ominously vague right now."

Jon splutters, indignant, mouth open to correct the other before Tim cuts him off.

"Yes, you are now what-"

Tim starts, clearly about to go on another questioning tirade Jon can more than sympathize with and wish highly to share. It is then, though, that static buzzes in Jon's ears, loud and grating, like a disturbed tape, and he turns instinctually to face a new door, that slowly creaks open to reveal a smiling face.

"Hello, Helen."

Jon drawls, feeling his body sag with exhaustion, meanwhile Tim- who's since stood- stumbles back once more to hit the adjacent wall, gaze locked on the unwelcome guest.

“Hello archivist. How do you like the surprise?”

Never a dull moment, really.

One can suppose that's a side effect of bad luck.

Jon will tell himself that, at least.

Chapter Text

Tim doesn't know what the fuck is going on.

He feels breathless, a sort of insidious pinch to his chest, heart lurched to his throat and batted around like a hapless mouse to a cat's delight. It is certainly with a similar feeling, that string out imitation of a woman stares at him with. Tim never did appreciate getting stared at, but it is something he had to become accustomed to, with his looks.

The Jon before him, so gaunt and so disturbingly scared it makes him look like some final girl, horror movie victim come to life. The type you'd see wailing in some cheap Saw rip off, or some barely disguised snuff film where the- certainly male writer- thinks he's so creative.

He watches those with Sasha sometimes, during the Halloween months. They do it like a game, taking a shot each time a girl loses their top or the camera pans in an all too sexual way, in what should, be a horrific scene. They disturb Tim, sometimes, and it was with a great sense of embarrassment he had to ask Sasha if they could stop watching Invasion of the body snatchers. Sasha hadn’t said anything, then, neither did he. He didn’t need to, after all. Sasha knew well why.

It feels, wrong, to be able to compare Jon to anything of the sort. But, looking at him now, it fills Tim with that specific kind of deep revolution, but, further than that. It's not too hard to picture after all, taking those pock scars marred in the other's skin and turning them to holes.

Then, turning that into muscle, as the top layer is so quickly pulled off and away. Like a tablecloth, by the swift hands of a seasoned magician, and Jon the subject.

It's the sort of thought he has to physically shake off, but simply can't, once more starring at that monster of swirling colors, a pitch rung so loud in his ears he feels he'll go deaf. A pressure, in his head, like horrible turbulence, ears not yet willing to pop.

"You did this?" The Jon in front of Tim demands with the sort of irritation he'd take when October would come around and he'd be slid a pile of things to research, which he'd thoroughly tear to pieces like they personally offended him. Which, Tim over time grew to believe as much.

Yet, also spliced with such a deep and visceral grief, it strikes Tim like his own. Because, apparently, he's dead.

He's clearly not, as he's breathing right now, he's standing, and watching, and braced against the wall. He is alive. And yet, Tim can’t help but think.

If that really is Jon, if somehow, this is all not some fucked up, hungover dream he's having in some back alley right now. Then, well, it means- what? That he's a ghost?

Even Tim finds that laughable, he's certain Sasha would laugh in his face at the mere thought, and the Jon he's used to would be absolutely affronted at his apparent idiocy. He cannot be dead.

"Maybeee." The creature before him croons, looking wholly unabashed in it's Chesire grin, extending the “e” sound like a smug child.

"Do you like it?" It follows, almost genuine, yet, just as grating to every nerve and cell in Tim's body, it's very voice, offensive to Tim's ears.

"Why did you do this? Why Tim?" The Jon before him once more demands, though his voice trails to a soft and fragile sort of tenor. Tim finds himself still in a daze, back pressed against the wall like it’s all that is keeping him up, lightheaded from the pressure, so out of control of a situation he just doesn’t understand. Again, he isn’t a ghost, but in the moment, it certainly feels like he is, without how, not acknowledged, he is.

"Well, I was bored, and I saw him and well- he is rather pretty. I thought it'd be fun!” Jon looks horribly unimpressed, Tim wants to laugh something hysterical at the familiar casualness of that expression and the pure vitriolic disgust that rolls in his gut at being called pretty by something like- that. Tim, at least, doesn’t seem to be alone in his disgust, with all weird Jon’s scowling.

“You-” Jon starts, but is swiftly cut off.

“I don't see the problem, Jon, he's your friend, isn't he?" The monster asks like a threat, Tim wants to scream. His mouth won’t move.

"....How did you even do this?” Jon seems to almost hazard, after a long and telling bout of silence. Tim hates it even more.

“I didn't know that this was something you could do." Jon throws an arm halfway out in what seems to be exasperation, Tim braces his hand flat against the wall, taking a long breath at the laugh the monster replies with, feeling his bones vibrate with the sound.

"Oh, and you hate that, don't you?” It- teases?- stepping forward, pointing a long and spindly knife of a finger towards Jon, as if to press it under his chin and tilt his head up. Despite how thoroughly frozen he is, Tim finds himself inching forward, hands half reached out to make a grab for what he’s mostly sure is Jon. Jon, at least, though, shares some of Tim’s hesitance, and steps back and out of reach before it can, gave twisted in frustration and pained strain. Of what kind, Tim can only guess, between the redness of his eyes and the cut Tim gave him.

“Well, truthfully......I don't know!" The monster says, clapping it’s hands happily together Jon tenses, teeth visibly grit. "What do you mean you don't know?" Jon splutters.

"Exactly what I said, archivist. I do not always understand myself, it is against my nature. " Tim doesn’t understand what that means. Jon looks at him, then back to the creature, then back again, hopelessly. Tim’s words feel lodged in his throat. It isn’t fear, at least he doesn’t think so. He knows he’s angry, he can feel that. His very being, though, feels so horribly wrong. Like, he’s not supposed to be here, like gravity is too strong bearing down on his shoulders, like his blood is pulsing. He wants to say something.

"Well- can you send him back?” Jon asks with that same helplessness, after once again, a long moment of silence, the man’s voice breaking mid sentence, so quiet Tim would almost struggle to hear it at all.

"Hmmm, yes, but you don't want that, do you?” It challenges, Tim hates the smile, he hates it so much. Jon falters further, and he hates that more. “You'd rather he stay here, because you're.... lonely."

Tim feels at his limit, Jon seems to as well, as with those words, he steps forward, teeth all bared and eyes blazing. Looking at them feels just as bad at looking at that smile, and Tim has to resist shutting his eyes as Jon shouts.

“Get out!”

It feels almost electric, the pulse that runs down his spine and through his bones, similar to those spiraling and nauseating colors, spread through his teeth and up to his skull, pulling taught at his brain. The creature too, stills, that grin seeming to, crack, at the sides, with what Tim could only try to guess as displeasure.

“So rude, even after I brought you a friend. Oh well, I suppose it’s just the way you are. If you insist. Have fun now!” It says, chipper, waving one of it’s strung out hands in a farewell. Jon blinks, seeming to realize himself, and begins to splutter, but the thing only cackles, a sound that once more rattles his skull. It is only as it is slinking back towards the wall, towards a door that wasn’t there before, does Tim finally seem to get some hold of himself.

“Hey! What-” Jon turns to him in surprise, his voice cracked and rough with his nauseated anger. He can see the man’s gut- punched expression clear in his periphery. He locks eyes with the thing, as the door creaks open, it impossibly fits through, like an octopus squeezing out it’s aquarium, and flashes him a large and cheery smile, as the door slams shut, and is gone.

“What the fuck was that!?” Tim can’t help but immediately whirl back onto Jon, even more confused, unsettled and sick than he was before, practically stomping up to the twig of a man despite all his cautious sympathies.

Jon looks to the wall, where the door once was, then back to him again, just as he did earlier, gaping up at Tim like a fish. Tim finds himself believing more and more that this is Jon, and it only upsets him further. The feeling isn’t aided in the way Jon shrinks back, either.

“What was that thing?” He forces himself to repeat with only slightly more measured of a tone. Jon continues to gape, an “um” sound spurned deep from his throat. “What happened to you?” Tim tries again, Jon seems apt to repeat himself too, this time. Tim shakes his head. “ Who was that- before?” A pause, before Jon seems to realize, looking to the door- the right door- as of looking for someone, The blond did say she was going to come back, Tim thinks. It’s hard, to remember in this moment.

“That- um, was Daisy.” Jon had said that name, hadn’t he? Tim shakes his head, breaths growing further and further erratic, shutting his eyes as he takes a step back, just trying to steady himself, to make things make sense. Fingers just graze his arm, hesitant, almost fearful, in their weak attempt of comfort, when the most pressing and soul deep, dread inducing question, crawls successfully up his throat and pass his lips.

“Why did she say I was dead?”

Jon stares at him, pupils wide.

“And why-”

They’re so, dark, so blown. Deep, still pits, something churning underneath them, something that wants to eat him, framed by red irritated whites and deep eyebags. A face, gaunt and scared and a stranger to the man he’s used to prodding at for fun, and unsuccessfully getting to go out for drinks. So stricken, so, grief filled.

“Why are you looking at me like that?”

Tim knows that look well, he’s seen himself in the mirror, after all. He din’t want to look at himself, in the months following Danny’s funeral. They looked too alike, him and Danny, and when he looked, he could only see his brother. His brother, disheveled, a mess, in pain, ruined.

Jon’s expression, if possible, crumbles further, before he looks away, lips thinned in a new expression Tim can’t quite place.

“Daisy and Basira- another..” Jon pauses. “Friend. Will be here soon. I know you’re confused, I’m- you’ll be fine. We’ll figure this out. I’ll- answer your questions, just-” Jon’s hands hover in open air, stuck in a half vague gesture, too lost to even move beyond that. Tim feels bad, really, but it doesn’t sooth him in the slightest.

“I’m not dead, Jon. I know I’m not dead, and I know you’re not supposed to look like that.” It’s like he hit him, the way Jon jolts, a full body, restrained flinch.

“I’m, not, dead.” Tim repeats, firm despite the way his entire being seems to waver. Jon looks, guilty. He shouldn’t look guilty. None of this is right. It must be a prank, Tim wants to tell himself that, but he knows it’s not. That monster was just as real as the one who killed Danny, and now Jon is seriously acting like he’s dead. He’s looking at him, like he’s dead. He’s looking at him like he’s the one who shouldn’t be here, is the one who’s wrong. And, maybe, he is.

Maybe he is dead, Maybe, he failed Danny. Maybe he got a bit too drunk or had a quick fling with serial killer or got mundanely hit by a car.

“You’re.... Tim. You’re Tim. I need to-” It’s too vague, too confused, t doesn’t help Tim in the slightest, and he wants to scream at the constant redirects. Wants to pull the feeling under his skin, deep in his gut, out, and shake it off, like a dog just out of water. Wants to give himself a clarity he never could in these situations. And, it is with a heigh strained, hysterical annoyance, are they interrupted once again. Two people, walk in, making both himself and Jon turn.

Tim recognizes the blond from before, gaunt but clearly strong. He can still feel his throat almost ache from the pressure of her arm under it, as if it were going to bruise. The other, though, he doesn’t. A woman- or at least he can assume- short, though taller than Jon, having a firm and natural sort of authoritative stance, eyes sharp and lips drawn to what he can’t quite call a sneer, like “Daisy”, wears, but close.

The new woman in question- Basira? Was it?- stops to look at him immediately, eyes blowing a bit wider in some sort of shock. Tim hates it, hates a a lot of things, if he hasn’t thought it enough. She looks at him the way Jon has, though maybe less grief filled. It makes that feeling, deep and neigh instinctual, sink deeper.

“So, this is really him?” Basira asks, wasting no time as she side steps around Jon and towards Tim. Jon opens his mouth to speak, but is cut off as Daisy grabs at his face, making him still, as a wipe is swabbed over the cut to his face. Tim wants to laugh- again, again- at the sight of Jon being almost coddled like a disgruntled toddler through splutters, a bandage firmly pressed to the cut, before Daisy steps back silent, arms crossed. Jon flushes, embarrassed, clearing his throat with a cough.

“Yes.” Basira raises a brow at Tim, poking his chest. “Hey-” “You know?” Basira asks, turning away from Tim, ignoring him. Tim scowls.

“You know, know” She emphasizes, and Jon swallows, visible with nervous demeanor as he too steps closer, Daisy trailing idle behind him like some sort of guard dog.

“Yes!” Jon nearly snaps. “He looks different, are you sure?.” Basira replies, almost bland, pulling back from Tim. “Yes, I- I know. I just need to- He's-” Jon stutters, seeming at a loss for words, before an odd look crosses his face. A pause to his expression, and Tim meets his- friend's?- eyes. They look at him so strangely, even beyond him being- they study him, look at him, look through him, read him like a stray piece of parcel paper. Tim stands taller under it, despite finding himself wanting to shrink backwards, as the air seems to fuzz in his ears.

“A different, time. A different time. He’s Tim- he's just-” Jon suddenly gasps, looking at Tim, and around, with a new sense of clarity Tim wishes he could share. “A different time.” Jon seriously can’t mean, the statement strikes him with high hysteria. The thought is ridiculous, absolutely so, and the Jon Tim knows would tear it to pieces. Basira, though, beats him to it.

“Time travel, seriously?” Basira drones, almost unimpressed. It’s enough to make Tim finally laugh aloud, albeit an almost small sound, as he speaks. “No. No you’re fucking kidding, Be fucking serious. Jon. This is some sort of joke, isn’t it? You are not going to sit there and say I'm what, from the past or some shit?” Tim- what, demands? What can he even say?- Jon winces, Basira sighs a long and exhausted sound.

“Time travel?” Basira asks again, ignoring Tim. It sends a hot rush of panicky rage through his veins, and the blond from before meets his eyes almost warningly, as Tim clenches his hands into fists.

Jon looks between him and Basira, before taking a long, sighing breath of his own. “Yes.” He confirms, solemn.

“Great.” Basira supplies dry, pinching his nose bridge between her fingers, rubbing, as if to sooth an oncoming headache. Tim, at least, can understand that feeling, with the way his own skull pounds.

“So, can we get him back? This won’t cause a paradox or something?” Basira drones, Jon seems to consider, brows furrowed, shutting his eyes for a moment in what Tim can only assume as concentration, breath held. Before, it releases, with disappointment.

“It won’t, cause a paradox, I don’t think. And- maybe? I- Helen brought him here-” “Where is she?” Basira cuts Jon off. Helen, the thing that brought Tim here. It’s such, a mundane name, for that imitation of a person.

“Oh- she.... left, already. I, asked, but she said she doesn’t know how she did this either, which I sincerely doubt,” Jon sounds almost grumpy, Tim huffs an almost laugh, Daisy looks at him oddly.

“Right, well, watch him, make sure he doesn’t mess up the timeline or something.” Basira snaps, waving a dismissive hand in Tim’s direction, turning without another word and walking out the door. Daisy looks between them, silent, for a moment, before grunting non-communally, and following.

“Right.” Jon sighs, blowing a long breath through his teeth, putting a hand to his head. He steps back, half collapsing against the wall, a dusty, peeling thing, the rest of the room just as. Tim laughs, breathless and high pitched, the sound scraping roughly against the lining of his throat. The woman- Basira- had said it like he was some dangerous thing meant to be baby sat, then left this, fucked up looking Jon, to “handle” him. Tim is sure he could break the other in two, even beyond from that fight, just looking at him. He’s so skinny, so sickly seeming.

And yet, it’s Jon.

Tim breathes deep, and manages to make himself walk to the desk, take the overturned chair upwards, and collapse into it, feeling absolutely exhausted. Maybe, it’s the hangover. Maybe, it’s whatever that monster did to him. Maybe, he’s still in that hallway, and this is all some weird, fucked up hallucination. Maybe, it’s a lot of things.

“Time travel? I mean, really?” He can’t help but ask again, emphasized through nearly grit teeth. Jon sighs, leaning his head back to meet the wall with a soft thunk, nodding. “Yes, really.”

“How do you know?” Jon turns away, body ridged, as he shakes his head, almost desperate. “Tim, not yet.”

It grates further at his trembling nerve, and Tim can’t help but groan loud, annoyed and tired and too confused to comprehend his own emotions. "What do you mean not yet!? No one has explained anything!” Jon flinches, all guilty and sickeningly small.

“I mean that you knowing that right now, would only make things worse. So please, not yet.” It feels insulting, in a way. As if Jon knows better than him, that prickly sort of pride born of fear of incompetence that the Jon Tim knows touts around every day, high and mighty and nothing more than a prick. Yet, in this case, Jon, does know better. He knows better, and for one reason or another, Tim cares about the man. Tim doesn’t agree, but he doesn’t say anything, for that long bout of time.

Tim runs it all through his brain like a mental check list, one thing after another. From waking up hungover, to stumbling his way out the wrong door, to that colorful hallway. To that monster, that fake, knife fingered person. To this Jon, to Diasy and Basira. He wants to call Sasha. It strikes him sudden and deep seated. Sasha, in many ways, has become a safe space for him. He’s a social person, he makes friends, he has flings, he parties. It was easier to do than think about it, for a long time. It was better. But now that he’s settling, that he’s finally working to avenge Danny is any form, he’s slowed down. He’s slowed down, and he found Sasha.

They’re just friends. It worked out better that way, that’s what they agreed on any way. But, she’s always there, these days. To movie nights, and drunken cries, the time with her has let Tim let go in a way he didn’t even know he needed. It’s different, then parties and flings and getting shit faced. Sasha, is diferent. She’s smart, capable, strong. She understands him in a way he’s never had before. And, in this moment, he finds that’s all he wants, is to have her here, to say something smart, to explain everything that’s happened and is happening to him. Because, she could. But.

“Am I really dead?”

The air feels so still. Tim doesn’t look at Jon, doesn’t want to, and though Tim is sure Jon isn’t looking at him, he feels eyes all the same.

“.....Yes.”

He sounds so sad about it. Tim wonders how the Jon he knows would feel, if he was suddenly gone one day. He thinks about Sasha. Did he have a nice funeral? Did Jon and Sasha go? Tim can’t imagine Sasha crying over him like that. But, maybe, he just doesn’t want to, selfishly and sick. Would his parents have come? He wonders how they all are now. Jon looks awful. Is Sasha that scared? Are his parents living their lives, happy and away from him like they’ve been for so long? Is he with Danny?

“Oh.”

Tim doesn’t understand it, doesn’t know how he died. Yet, he feels like a failure, all the same.

Chapter Text

Tim is dead.

The failure weighs thick on his shoulders, gluing him to the seat. a sort of, pulsing ache originating through his head and through his bones. His mouth feels dry, horribly so, and the cold sweat that he simply just didn’t have time to wash off before work, due to his late awaking, makes him feel slimy. Like a thick ooze, perhaps ink, or far, or even rot. Like the flesh clung to his muscle, clung to his bones, could so easily slosh off if he were to move too quickly.

The look Jon is giving him is nothing but worn sympathy.

The pure acceptance of this situation Jon is presenting makes Tim almost feel sick- not that it isn't well established that he does already. His mouth, which was stuck some open with his last spoken “oh”, and hung there, snaps shut with a force that has Tim hearing the audible click of his teeth reverberated through the bone of his jaw.

“So- uh-” Tim breaks the somewhat awkward silence with. It’s almost comical the fact it could be awkward at all, right now. Tim stood in a shock stuck place, and Jon shifting in his own, waffling about in his words and fidgeting with his body, like someone who’s lost all purpose. Tim is honestly used to things being awkward with Jon, at least on Jon’s end. He always seemed like the kind of guy that got bullied a lot in high school. Sometimes, it made Tim feel bad, because if Jon was, it was probably by guys like him. Not that he’d do that. It’s funny, how far away and mundane those thoughts feel now. Even when he’d bat concern for people he knew, and paying his bills against the unfathomable horror of Danny’s death, even that feels dwarfed by the pure metaphysical reality he now faces.

He’d much rather have this happen a thousand times over than what happened to Danny, of course. But, it’s so, unbelievable, and yet it sinks so deeply real and current with his own failure.

“How did I die?”

Jon balks at him, pupils comically wide, like he were just slapped by a gentlemen’s glove and challenged to a duel, all while the perpetrator spat on his shoes. Tim isn’t sure why he asked, I would really be a mercy not to know. That’s what most people think, at least, and he knows well if Danny could have been told how he’d die, unable to change it, Tim would do everything he could for him not to hear. Like when they were children, and Tim would groan loud and long deep in his throat, when he found his brother to be “too annoying”. It pissed Danny off more than anything, and Tim once reveled in that.

He just, has to know. He wants to know, regardless if he can change it. He has to know how badly he failed Danny, if he died as stupidly as he lived. If he- what? Drunk himself to death? Veered his car off a bridge? Slipped on some soap? Got himself skinned alive, taken over by some fake person, in some fake place, dancing on a tightrope and bowing his head for an audience of no one?

“Tim.” Jon emphasizes, seeming to shake himself out of his shock, Tim following at that feeble voice, all cracked and strained. Jon clears his throat, shaking his head again, as he seems to consider, then slowly walk forward. He approaches Tim like he’s a wild animal, apt to leap at him any moment.

“What? Was it something stupid?” Tim can’t help but bark back, teeth pulled back in a defensive sneer, aimed at no one but himself. Jon hesitates in his steps, a hand brought out to hover over Tim’s shoulder, before seeming to think better of it.

Jon’s expression pinches in a way that tells Tim it was absolutely stupid, and Tim tosses his head back in a bitter and equally hysterical laugh, now free to escape the confines of his throat without the presence of entirely unfamiliar company.

“God- what did I do? Choke to death on my sandwich?” Jon looks appalled, for a moment, and for a second Tim almost thinks he got it right, before the reality crashes down on him. Like a stone, dropped to the burning oil pit of his gut. Perhaps, his joking isn’t appreciated by the friend? Who’s known him to be dead for- some amount of time. The, friend, who looks like he was put through a wood chipper.

Jon waves his hands, shaking his head as he blurts out his words with a near physical force. “No- No- you didn’t- ugh-” Before he pulls back, groaning all tired and done with Tim in a way Tim can find comforting in its familiarity.

“You went out in a... blaze of glory, if it’s any consultation.” Jon explains slow, like he’s restraining himself, but also recalling something painful. He’d feel more guilty for it- for a lot of things- if he had the sense for it right now. Tim’s brows raise, shoulders slacking some of their tension in surprise.

It isn’t exactly hope, not in the slightest. No, that inherent and full sense of failure is biting at him, teeth ground into his throat where Daisy’s arm once laid, hooking around his vocal chords for a moment, leaving him with yet another small and strangled response.

“Cool.”

Jon looks at him like he just kicked a baby. Then, he sighs again. Tim wants to laugh, so he does, even if it’s quieter than the last. It does well, to push the gnawing and burning pit in his stomach aside.

“Listen, if you’re not going to tell me anything-” Jon opens his mouth to cut Tim off, Tim silences the man with a look, brows raised and daring. Jon, for all the pretentious bastard Tim knew him as, doesn’t take the bait. It’s too numb, yet also too heavy, as he throws an arm over the back of the chair he feels if he were to try and stand from, he’d fold in on himself immediately.

“Or explain anything. Can you at least tell me what we’re going to do? I mean- what the fuck am I supposed to do, Jon?!” Tim yells, unable to help himself, It’s beginning to feel repetitive, going through a loop of confusion, and guilt and hurt, to bursting outward in just a small fraction of what he both does and doesn’t feel, feeling as f he’s being batted around in his own brain.

Jon sighs, seeming just as quickly worn as Tim does. “I don’t know, Tim!” The man yells back, and that much is a bit refreshing. Before Jon takes a breath, closing his eyes with furrowed brows. He seems to focus, for a moment, before stepping back.

“Basira and Melanie-” Jon starts, and Tim holds his tongue on the fact he doesn’t know the second name. _Will be working on getting Helen... cooperative. In the meantime, it best you stay here with me.”

“Why? Because Basira told you to babysit me?” Tim gives, snide. Jon looks like he wants to roll his eyes.

“No, because you don’t have a house anymore, and it wouldn’t be safe for you to leave the institute right now.”

“Why?” Tim asks, finding himself feeling like a curious toddler who won’t stop asking, only further validated by Jon’s miffed expression.

“Because, there are... monsters.” Jon says it with a great hesitance, but also a similar causality when speaking with the fake woman before that Tim finds more than unnerving. He looks too at place with them, too used to them, as if Lovecraftian horror were a natural part of human life, being able to be as annoyed by them as you would a dick-ish coworker. “There’s a cot, in the back, that you can use, in the meantime.”

“Right. Thanks.” Tim says, terse. Jon sighs, the sound just as tired as Tim is sure to feel once that residual adrenaline leaves him high and dry. “Listen, if it’s any- comfort- you won’t be alone. I’ll be here too, and when this is over you can forget any of this happened.”

Tim wants to scoff, but holds the breath thickly in his throat. Right. As if he could forget any of this, just as he could forget any of what’s happened to him. As if he does not clamp those memories in his fists and swing wild and non-judgmental in his aim. He settles on rolling his eyes, though.

“What? Forget my death” Jon smiles, uneasy and fake in it’s odd stretch over his haggard features, silent for a long moment.

“.....Yes.”

Tim is almost impressed at Jon’s commitment. “Fine, sure, right.”

Jon shifts towards the door, not yet urging Tim forward, but silently gesturing. Tm sighs, and presses his palms to the chair he’s glued himself too, and with far too much effort, pushes to stand. It is only while doing this, does a thought strike him.

“If it’s- dangerous because there are monsters- is the rest of your, friends, staying too? Like some- big sleepover.” Tim drones, incredulous, dusting his sweaty palms off onto his rumpled pants, stepping towards Jon.

“What? Oh- no, just me,” Jon replies, giving Tim a wide berth. “Why, then? Don’t you have a house?” Tim snaps a little, not for the first nor last time. He can’t decide what emotion to settle on, in the midst of all this, and Jon is left as the recipient for whichever one makes itself known.

Jon stills, and Tim rises a little in surprise. “Wait, do you not have a house?” It feels ridiculous, that detail added onto everything else. Tim doesn’t have a home anymore, not here, not being dead. But Jon, no matter how haggard looking, is hard to imagine huddled up in the institute like a sleep deprived rat.

“Listen- that doesn’t matter right now. Let me show you where you can sleep.” Jon dismisses, waving a mangled hand- skin all raised and burned in a way that Tim can’t help but mentally compare to tree bark- before stepping out the door, holding it open for Tim to follow. Tim sighs, and does so, Jon’s living situation the least of his current concerns.

Despite it all, walking out of the makeshift study, half parts file compartment, and into what Tim can assume is the main area, comes as some surprise. It’s an office bullpen, just as depressing as any other, yet far from the one Tim is familiar with.

The institute is more colorful than the last office he had worked in, but t didn’t change the way research was still depressing dull tones of old wood built centuries ago, and odd wallpaper printed walls that Tim is still shocked haven't come down in on themselves from age alone. This area is a bit more complex, from the wallpaper to the paintings, to the wood beams, to the desks. All, seeming to have more care put in their designs, old and long in place, which makes the wheeled office chairs in front of few look all the more jarring.

This isn’t research, it certainly is too cold for that, and it is only looking around does Tim finally feel the temperature.

“Are we in the archives?” Tim can’t help but voice aloud. He’s heard descriptions of what it looked like, heard how it cold it was at times, how- eerie- it felt. It’s the sense of presence, that creeps up Tim’s spine and rests on the crest of his head, as they step past the bullpen and to an office door. That full and strong sense of there-ness. Something is there, and something has always been there, and it’d do more harm to notice it than not, and Tim can no longer blind himself to it’s existence.

It leaves him vulnerable.

“Yes.” Jon sighs, sounding as disappointed as he almost does possessive, and Tim blinks, finding his thoughts null with shooken off feeling.

“Why? Research not fancy enough?” Tim teases, yet also asks. Jon thus far has proved ineffective of answering direct questions, but setting an easier grin on his face and making playful jabs has often served Tim better in gathering information, even if the information is of little importance at the time.

“No, Tim, I work here now.” Jon drawls, pushing open the office door and stepping inside. Tim’s eyes, locked onto the floorboards, do not miss the scratch marks carved into them, as he steps in after.

“Really?” Tim can’t help but express some genuine intrigue. Perhaps it is just coping, in the knowledge of his own death, to feel so numb in the new’s aftermath.

“Aw- wait- did Sasha finally get that promotion and drag us with her like she promised?”

It feels likely, Sasha had been speaking to him about it recently, saying Gertrude seemed on her way out. It would be no shock to Tim if that old buzzard of a woman had fallen dead by now, felt even more unlikely for her to still be alive- however far in the future he apparently is. Tim would try to chide Sasha for her playful callousness, but he couldn’t help but laugh with her. Getrude seemed to favor Sasha as well, which made the woman’s likely hood of success all the higher. If Tim weren’t so worn, he’d perhaps feel warm with his own thoughts.

Jon turns to him, expression slack. He looks almost gutted, in the audible swallow, his Adam’s apple bobbing as he sighs a shaking breath.

"Ah- no- I'm - well I'm, the archivist." Jon says, expression twisted in all the guilty displeasure of biting into a lemon not his. He knows well what Tim is going to say even before he says it, for they both knew Jon was never qualified for the position. In fact, it is that under qualification, paired with that need to prove himself, to work himself to exhaustion, that made him such a perfect fit. The perfect choice, for Elias.

Sasha would have never fallen for those smiling little platitudes, never would have been so idiotic and reckless.

"What? You? I mean, you're posh sounding enough to fit in with all the old bags in those sorts of positions, but really?” Tim says, all disbelieving and in a tone Jon knows that the man means not to offend. Tim can’t help his surprise, no matter how mild by this point, stuck between points of caring about nothing, then caring about everything. Jon as the archivist though, it feels wrong. The Jon Tim knew never wanted that position, never would have even thought to go for it beyond the pay raise.

"Yes." Is Jon gives in return, not even bristling at Tim’s subtle jab. Instead, turning his back to the man, and opening what looks to be a sort of closet door, kneeling down to pull out a box between filing cabinets.

"Why not someone like Sasha, though?" Tim asks, almost like an insistent child. Beyond Tim’s knowledge, Jon can’t help but think.

That had brought such a tension to their tentative little friendship. Even if Jon had not pushed them all away in some vein, feeble little game of pretend professionalism, that served as a proverbial little nail in the coffin. He had stolen a position that was meant for Sasha, and had the gall to act like he ever deserved it in the first place. His fate, of course, is not one he'd wish on Sasha. Jon never could wish that on her, on the distorted memory of her. But, often times when he dares, he wonders if anyone besides himself would still be alive, in his position. If Sasha would still be alive, if it were her. If Tm would still be alive, if it were her.

“I suppose Elias is just sexist.” And the boldness, and plainest to Jon’s tone is enough to break that thin wire tension, as Tim can’t help but laugh. It’s a complaint Tim had long gotten used to hearing from Sasha. It’s one Tim had no doubts was true. To hear it from Jon, the Jon in his brain, all stuffy and professional and seemingly terrified to utter a bad word about any of their employers, makes him laugh in a bursting, winded feeling.

He’s so, dizzy, from this all.

Jon sighs, and opens the box, standing with a sleeping bag in his arms. He turns to Tim, looking down at it almost longingly, for reasons Tim has no concept of knowing. He holds it out from him, and Tim takes it with wornly incredulous expression.

“I thought you said there was a cot?" Tim drawls, looking down at the sleeping bag. A nice blue, a bit light in tone, dusty either from lack of use, or the amount of dust that seems to naturally congregate in buildings this old.

“I may have exaggerated.” Jon offers, smile still just as uneasy. The banter is little more than feeble attempts at some form of comfortability, and a far cry from genuine. “Of course you did.” Tim entertains it still, though, with what remains of his energy.

Jon steps aside, and peering into the closet like space, Tim can see where he can lay the sleeping bag out. He does so a bit quickly, the mere thought of sleeping making hs steps that much more uneven, even as Jon speaks behind him. “Do you... want something to eat?”

Tim can’t help but laugh, turning to look at Jon with a too toothy grin. “Fuck no! I'm going back to sleep and pray I wake up at home, and this was all some drunken- or drugged, fever dream.”

Jon laughs. It sounds the most genuine thus far. Tim would not know how much Jon has come to miss Tim, to miss these moments. Even when at odds, and mean spirited, Tim’s joking and snappy nature was a constant. Now, without Martin, without any of them, it’s so quiet. So, lonely. Jon would loathe to admit Helen was right, so he won’t. Instead, Jon shakes his head, and the smile he gives Tim almost, makes Tim feel, a little better.

“Well.... Get some rest, then.” Jon retreats to the office door. Tim sits down so heavily he may as well have fallen, calling out after the man. “I won’t!” Jon just laughs again, at Tim’s false, yet real, misery. No matter what Tim said, as he lsays his head down onto the pillowing of the sleeping bag, unable to be bothered to climb into it, his eyes lid with exhaustion.

“I’m sure you will.”

Tim has failed. He has failed, in some form, and he has died, and he is now in a place he is not meant to be. Jon is here, but he is not familiar. Sasha is- somewhere? And what about those new people? Those monsters? Tim should have asked more, should have kept pressing, no matter this odd Jon’s resistance. He could blame it on the hangover, on the pounding in his skull and the burn of un-spilled bile scorched into the back of his throat. He could blame it on the acute guilt, nestled into his ribcage. Tim could do plenty of his things, but letting his eyes shut, and swallowing around the bruises of his throat, feels more preferable.

Avoidance, above lashing out, was always one of the easier options.

“Goodnight, Tim.”

Perhaps, naively, he just hopes he’ll be waking up at home, where things make sense, and none of this happened.

As the door clicks shut, and numbness escapes into a purer nothing, Tim is certain, he won’t.

Chapter Text

Jon breathes deeply, letting the air settle scathingly in his lungs, and sighs with a great exertion.

A miserable feeling has settled in the crease between his brows, drawing them closer with a grimace so tight lipped it locks all the apologies he'd spit out with the proficiency of a toddler learning to speak.

He locks his gaze downward, at the kettle set in the sink, lid pushed to the side, venting the steam of the boiling water within. Jon is alone.

Pour it on yourself, Jon's traitorous mind whispers.

He could picture doing so, laying his left arm out and bathing it in a shower of scalding water. It would certainly not be his worst burn, and he doubts anyone would particularly care to notice even if there were scarring. It's the sort of thought Jude Perry would likely love to hear he had, and the physical reminder of her he bares, and thusly the limb attached to it, trembles, as he reaches towards the kettles handle.

It's, unnecessary

He has learned well that indulging in these self satisfying bad habits get him into trouble. Be it going for a smoke, only to return to a corpse. To dismissing Georgie's questions and concerns. To feeding off people like a greedy parasite, to becoming a monster all for what? His own self satisfaction? To wander around like some sort of vulture, plucking the meat off anyone he sees as a worthy target and leaving cleaned off bones behind to rot in the sands of their terror.

Daisy can do it, a voice much like Basira’s says firm in his head. Daisy can resist her own hunger. Daisy, is fine. Daisy, isn't hurting people anymore. She's not dead, she's not dying, she doesn't hunt. She is surviving this way, while Jon feels ready to keel over at a particularly strong gust of wind. It's his own fault, for being so weak.

Jon finds himself compared to Daisy often these days. Neither would mention how thin the other has become.

Jon grits his teeth, and grabs the kettle. The liquid that pours out looks nothing less than unappealing. A too clear, steamy mess, where he looks within the kettle to see all of what would have been the flavor practically plastered at the bottom in a thick sediment comparable to moss on the bottom of a river.

Martin would be appalled.

The thought alone makes him slam the kettle down with a thunk loud enough to make even himself flinch. He takes his cup of hot water and presses it firmly between his hands, ignoring the way he feels his skin prickle with the heat.

Tim has not woken just yet, and Jon cannot help but be entirely grateful of the fact.

The mix of grief, self deprecating anger and raw rage at Helen snaps at his insides like all the dog Daisy used to be, snarling and maw primed for his throat. He brings the cup to his lips, and the taste of steamed water scalding his tongue and slipping down his throat tastes just as miserable as he is. His grandmother would scold him for all his self pitying and moping, and in a moment like this he almost craves that cold veneer from a woman who never wanted to raise yet another child. Especially, one as disobedient as himself.

Jon sighs, setting the cup down on the table with a clink, staring down into the vaguely murky waters, wishing for it to just consume him.

Tim is alive. Tim, is displaced. The look Tim gave him, that concern, that care. How could Jon have ever thrown that away? Why did he dismiss it so easily? Why did he let himself fall so deep in paranoia? Irritational, prick- ish paranoia? A paranoia directed at the wrong people of all things. Perhaps, if he had been a better person, Sasha would be alive, and then Tim would have perhaps had more reason not to sacrifice himself. Perhaps...

“Jon.”

A scathing, sharp voice laced with heavy disapproval breaks Jon from his spiral- Helen would laugh at the choice of wording- and flinches, only able to be grateful to the fact he was not holding the cup of tea in his hands, as he whirls around to face Melanie.

The woman still favors a leg in her stance, perhaps instinctually at this point, no matter how far into healing it has gotten. Her arms are crossed, rumpling the sleeves of her “What The Ghost?” hoodie that Jon knows acutely came from Georgie. He does not need The Eye to know the obvious, clear affection between them, and once upon a time he was the one borrowing hoodies, merchandised or otherwise. Her glare is a withering one, and Jon finds himself, as he often does, wanting to shrink back at the mere accusatory nature of it.

He swallows thickly, though it makes his mouth feel no less like sandpaper, and taste even more so like guilt.

“Yes?” Jon hazards, gentle in a way he can tell Melanie takes as patronizing. She doesn’t immediately yell as she would have before, though. Selfishly, Jon has been more at ease with her calmer nature now uninfected. He’d never dare voice that aloud.

“Is it real, then? Stoker being alive?” Jon represses a flinch, instead shoving the reaction through a shar exhale of air out his nose.

“Yes. Helen- ah- decided to bring him here.” Jon replies, his distaste at the warped avatar thick in his tone. Melanie, at least, seems to take amusement in that fact, lips curling upward in a sharp smile, tight lipped and without teeth. Melanie is similar to Daisy, in many ways, wielding a ferocity like a knife. But, it does not come from the same hunger, even when she was infected. Rather, it’s defensive, all bristled fur and feral clawing from an animal that does not naturally have the fangs to defend itself.

Jon knows they are similar. But, he doubts that's something she’d want to hear. Much less, something she doesn’t already know and despise.

“Yeah- Basira told me, hard to believe it though.” Melanie drones, Jon cannot tell if she is unimpressed or not, but that sneer on her lips remains. If anything, he’d be unnerved to find it missing.

Jon shifts, turning his back to the counter, finding something more solid in his sense of self at the press against his spine. It is a mild discomfort, entirely mundane from poor posture, and not from something as odd as what he’s become.

“So you came to me?” Jon drawls, unable to help the disbelief that tugs his tone, nor the smile that pulls at his lips. It is not happy, the emotion anomalous to him in his senses currently.

“Don’t be daft,” Melanie shoots immediately, waving a dismissive hand, disregarding what may have been a tease. The motion waves the sleeve of the large hoodie Melanie is wearing, making her seem far less intimidating for the moment. Jon knows not to comment. “I just wanted to see if you’d try lying to me.”

“Why would I do that?” Jon asks, and the moment the words leave his own mouth, he is keenly aware of the fact that he has made a mistake.

The conversation, as limited and stilted as it has been thus far, was not necessarily aggression. Terse, perhaps, in the way Jon has grown used to with largely anyone besides Daisy on a regular basis. But, even sneering, there was a subtle ease to Melanie’s posture she has not had around him since the surgery incident.

And with those words, Jon renders it all undone, Melanie’s shoulders hiking with such a bitter scoff of laughter Jon can almost taste it in the air the way he does fear.

“Wouldn’t be new.”

Melanie bites, and Jon is keenly aware of the fact she means it.

“Melanie- “ Jon begins, clumsy with his words despite his job, moreover his current state of existence. It is perhaps the irony of it all, that he fumbles and splutters when it matters most. “Listen- I’m-”

“Nope.” Melanie replies, swift and precise in her denial, confident in the way she shifts. Arms crossed, favoring a leg and back straight to make herself seem just that bit taller.

Guilt stands bare is his somewhat hunched disposition, as does, annoyance. It boarders on anger, but the guilt tampers it down to something more akin to a disgruntled, defensive cat. He can sport that same ferocity, not in that way, and certainly not anymore. He was always quiet, yet snippy when actually speaking. Now, it is drawn to mere pathetic-ness. “Please- I-” Melanie scoffs, cutting Jon off.

“I don’t want to hear another word out your mouth. You can’t make me stay and listen to your excuses-” Another scoffing, scathing laugh, bubbles past Melanie’s lips. “Unless you’ve gone and gotten more freaky powers.”

Jon grits his teeth, squaring his jaw and forcing himself to stay put like a scolded child. “...No- no I haven't.”

“You haven't been praying on people either?” Melanie questions, incredulous and brow raised, expecting the worst of him. Of course she would. She has plenty reason to. This is all things he knows. But, it does not serve to make him feel any better.

“No Melanie.” Jon emphasizes, lips pulled to a taught strain, attempting not to sneer. It is not well hidden, though, and Melanie seems to bristles under his gaze, hands clenched against the fabric of her hoodie.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Melanie sneers, waving a near dismissive, almost disgusted hand in Jon’s direction. “it’s hard not to notice the way you drool when you see someone with trauma.”

“I don’t-” Jon tries to insist, if only for his fragile dignity.

“Nope- you don’t get to act like you’re not starving right now.” Melanie laughs, gaze straying from Jon and past the entrance to the kitchen in a glance. “Bet Stoker looked like a tasty steak for you.” Jon can’t help but bristles himself a bit, at that. “Only reason Basira even let you be left with him-” Melanie nearly growls, stepping closer to Jon, pointing an accusatory finger in his direction. "-is cause he’s good as dead anyways.”

Jon can’t help the way he gapes at that, all pleasant and grit teeth pretenses dropped for a quick and fiery outrage that rises in his throat, even if it is dim in comparison to Melanie’s vitriol. The words are said just to hurt him, entirely insensitive and purposeful.

“He’s not!-” Jon begins, stepping forward himself, as if he’d win a physical confrontation.

“Oh please- you know what’ll happen!” Melanie steps that much closer, now poking her accusatorially pointing finger into his chest. Jon tries not to stumble or waver at the force, spit flying from the woman’s mouth as she yells. “Stop acting like you even cared about him! About anyone!”

“I did care!” Jon yells, nearly screams, with a desperate sort of volume that surprises himself, and seemingly Melanie. “I did care Melanie! I didn’t want him to die!”

Melanie seems to steel herself, standing her ground, whether the fact that she’s correct or not. unimportant. This is not a true argument over a point, and more so just a shouting match to hurt each other. One defensive, and the other just angry.

“Then why did he die, huh?! Why did you get to live when he died?!”

Jon knows. Knows if, he were human, he’d be just as dead. It’s been hard, to convince himself that, that’s a good thing. That, him being alive, is a good thing. They need him, don’t they? He can help. He saved Daisy, he stopped rituals. He has use, and he can still do good things. He isn’t still alive just to hurt people. He has to try and believe that.

“I don’t know!”

It’s not like Jon could do anything about his life if he tried. His finger healed too quickly to cut off. That much, is indicator enough.

“Yes you do! You know everything, remember?! Sticking your nose in places, you don’t, belong!” Jon swallows, built up salvia tasting as disgustingly bland, yet bitterly tinged as his poor attempt at tea. Unable to help himself, his eyes glance downwards, and set on Melanie’s leg. It is hard not to, so, reminded, by the words thrown and spat in his face. The physical transgression, the way he hurt Melanie. Glances down at Melanie’s leg, Melanie notices it too, likely had the same thought Jon did.

Disgust overwrites Melanie’s features, as if Jon had violated her, and in many ways Jon did that day, and pushes Jon against the counter, and to the floor.

Jon can feel the tension rise, that steady incline where he is very aware that in the end of this incline, one of them will leave more hurt than the other. After all Jon has done, not just to Melanie, but the people around her, to the very strangers he fed from, he will not allow himself to be the one to lash out. He is tampering himself down, to stay in place on the ground, letting Melanie have this outlet, rage flung at a deserving target. He has hurt her, and she may hurt him in return. It is, karmatic, in that sense, and Jon almost wants to revel in it, as if there is a pride in being insulted this way.

“You make me fucking sick you know that!?” Still, Jon grunts, eyes briefly shut into a wince, sprawled out on the ground, looking up at Melanie. Another useless apology sits on his tongue, and his lips part in perhaps another attempt. Before the stare down between them is broke with a long, and awkward-

“Uhhhh.....”

Tim stands in the doorway, looking, frazzled. The under of his eyes are stained a bit purple and red, hair messed from a restless sleep, looking between the two with confusion, tense.

“Bad time?”

Tim asks, smiling.

Jon can’t help but, somewhat fondly, wish to smack Tim upside the head.

Chapter Text

Tim is almost surprised by the fact he wakes up at all.

Shockingly, he does actually fall asleep for some time. Tim would blame it on pure, dizzy exhaustion, as in these sorts of situations- as if this were normal- Tim is the type to be rather restless. Sleep never came easy as a child, and unsurprisingly a dose of standard adult stress, paired with supernatural traumas did him no favors. It wasn’t a comfortable sleep, of course, but it was sleep. In many ways, Tim could compare it to the day Danny died, if he’d dare to let his brain stray there, so shell shocked he had just, went home, and flopped face first onto his bed, only waking to his alarm clock blaring in his ears like some violent offender telling him it all was real at all.

Waking up, groggy and blinking, it’s a bleary, jumbled mess of thoughts. For more than a few seconds, he’s just confused why he’s not in bed. Why his back hurts, why the ground underneath him feels so hard when he should be cuddled up under his average sheets, in his largely shitty flat, listening to birds annoyingly sing as they are perched on the tree that just so happened to grow by his flat’s window.

Tim sits up, groaning at the pulsing ache that runs through his back at the action, rolling tension out his neck and shoulders as they creak and protest, and feel no better afterwards. It’s mundanely dull for Tim, looking down at the dusty sleeping bag he’s sat on, and the even dustier room he’s in.

Things, unfortunately, return with a gasp of dread as the chill of the room seems to sweep through him, paired with the weight of something Tim just can’t name.

Tim is somewhere he should not be, and, technically, he is dead.

Tim smacks the heels of his palms to his eyes, breathing the stale air in deeply, teeth grit in a pressure he can feel in his scrunched nose bridge, traveled to the backs of his eyes in a headache.

“Fuuuuuuuuck.”

Tim smashes the heels of his palms against his screwed shut eyes, as if he could will away the information plays through, the situation sinking in his gut, rocking back on his bottom till his head thunks against old, creaky, filing cabinets. A scorned hiss spills from Tim’s lips, as he has to force himself to take measured breaths before he punches a hole through the wall and adds onto his list of problems.

The last thing Tim needs in his life right now, is to be bitched at by Jonathan Sims. Not that, the man Tim has met seems the type to exactly do that anymore.

That much brings him some sense of clarity, as he pulls his hands away from his face, and blinks the sleep and red and blue splotched from the pressure he applied, out them, and looks around. There is no familiarity to it, despite the fact he knows he went to sleep here. This isn’t a place he even knows, not even in his time. And, isn’t that a wild thought.

“Jesus Christ...” Tim mutters, groaning and pushing up to kneel, then stand, hand braced on his knee, then a filing cabinet, as the world so briefly spins on it’s axis, feeling as if his stomach will lurch itself out his body and hit the floor with a wet splatter. A debatably bitter scoff pushes out his lips at the thought, gritting his teeth as he rides the waves of sudden nausea and lack of balance. There’s a buzz in the back of his mouth, as odd a descriptor as it feels to him, and aimlessly he blames that monster woman, wising he could do something to the thing to express his disapproval at his new situation.

“Alright. Alright, Tim...” Tim mutters to no one, steeling himself as the feeling becomes more manageable.

He really doesn’t want to go out there- wherever he’s supposed to go.

Jon didn’t exactly say, Tim thinks, though he also can’t say he was paying the most attention at the time. That he even could have, payed the most attention at the time. Even now he feels, caught. Not numb, but coasting on a general odd acceptance he surely wouldn’t have had before, well, everything. Though apparently that “everything” would get much worse with monsters just, roaming about, and snatching him up to the future. Leaving him to, coast, feeling stronger emotions and senses in large bursts.

It is through this coasting with a general sort of curiosity he meanders through the room.

He snoops a little, of course. It makes him, feel better? Being nosey. It’s certainly more of Sasha’s thing – he's not password breaking people’s computers for fun after all – but gossip was something that brought them together. Sasha typically reserved the more slanderous statements when drunk, and would deny them sober, but they both knew.

For all the difference, though, it’s all horribly mundane. A lot of tape recorders, perhaps. A, lot, of paper that, even glancing at Tim can recognize as statements, piled high and notably not in a folder, something Tim knows would have annoyed the Jon he’s familiar with to an endless degree.

“.....What the fuck?”

But, pulling one drawer open, and staring down at a jar of what looks like ashes, and a bone, Tim really considers how well he knows his Jonathan Sims, and if, this Jon, isn’t that different actually.

Tim somewhat slams the drawer shut with all the nonchalance there is physically possible for him to achieve after something like that, and turns sharply, making his way for the office do, muttering under his breath.

“None of that, not right now. Timothy Stoker you will not ask about whatever that was. You will get a sandwich or something, maybe some coffee, and sit down.”

Sasha would laugh at something like that- or more likely be intrigued. The sort of thing her bone collecting cousin or whatever would be into. Turning the office door’s knob somewhat hesitantly, nervous at the possibility of some other endless and mind bending hallway, he can’t help but yearn for the woman’s company, fingers near itching for his phone sat cold in his pocket, if just to text her something stupid and inane to feel normal again.

Walking out into a thankfully- not normal- but not reality breaking hallway, he even entertains the idea, hand slipping into his pocket and smoothing over the phone screen, having even forgotten it was there. He wonders if it’s died from time travel or something, if the clock and date would bet set back to when and where he came from. Before he can check, though, shouting, catches his ears.

He’s certain it’s shouting, loud, a little shrill, and certainly aggressive. Not deadly aggressive, probably – later he will loathe the fact he has to consider that a possibility- and creeping towards the sound like a fur bristling cat, he tries to further mentally steel himself.

”Yes you do! You know everything, remember?! Sticking your nose in places, you don’t, belong!” Is the first thing Tim hears, distant from the area of the bullpen, but loud enough to be heard. Tim braces himself further as much as he’s able, teeth grit as he lets his eyes only slide over the empty desk’s and general abandoned feel of it all, following the yells till they become more clear, and more understandable.

“You make me fucking sick you know that!?” Is the last thing Tim hears, before he rounds the corner to the breakroom, in the doorway of some sort of almost vintage, but small kitchen, stepping into the scene.

Even before seeing, it sounded very personal, the sort of things Tim is – and never was- the best at mediating, and said by a voice he doesn’t recognize. That much is confirmed as he first sees a woman, short tip dyed hair and wearing a hoodie to large for her. Then, Jon, sprawled on the ground and looking like a teenager being picked on in high school.

“Uhhhh.....”

Briefly, Tim’s anger is redirected to that, fists balling even as he smiles and says.

“Bad time?”

---------------------------------------

Jon looks at him with pure exasperation, as if he could throttle him with his skinny little hands then and there. Tim tries to take pride in that, smile sharp in a way the woman seems to notice.

The woman steps back from Jon, seeming to try and calm herself, to take deep breaths and relax. But, her agitation is obvious. But, before Tim can maybe feel, just a little, bad, She screams, throwing her hands up in the air.

“I’m sick of this!” She yells, and Jon sighs – as if this is the standard- and it very well may be, pushing himself up a little shakily to stand. Tim watches the whole thing, as the woman practically growls, glaring daggers at Jon, and stepping towards the smaller man in a somewhat threatening manor.

Tim takes that as his que to step forward, hands raised, but the urge to ball them into fists a constant.

“Woah! Woah- woah- hey lady! Cool it!” Tim asserts, and the woman whips her head back at him. She doesn’t look at him the same way Jon did, not even close, so Tim can safely hazard this wasn’t some future friend of his. Still, she seems to almost be taking him in as if he were a ghost, even if it lacks the grief that would usually come with such a thing. Sympathetic or pitying, maybe, as angry as she seems, but nothing more.

“Tim-” Jon begins, as if trying to ward Tim off- as if he were the threat. Whatever Jon was about to say afterwards, though, is cut off as the woman laughs sharply.

“Well shit- there he is huh? Bet he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.” The woman sneers, and Jon’s eyes go visibly wide. “Melanie.” Jon says, gravely and nervous about something Tim, very frustratingly, doesn’t know.

Tim, at least, has a name for the woman now.

Melanie rolls her eyes at the serious tone, scoffing. “What? Scared?” She asks, and though it seems entirely mocking to Tim- awkwardly standing there, more so just acting a third wheel if Melanie decides to apparently push Jon again since he has no idea what this is about, even as he’s spoken about like he isn’t there endlessly angers him- but Jon seems to take the question, genuinely. Stood still, hand slipping from where it was braced on the counter to clasp his other, shoulders slumped with resignation, as he nods, just slightly. “...Yes, Melanie, I am.” Jon admits.

“Just... please?” Tim wants to scream in his own frustration at how small it sounds. He hasn’t even had a day to adjust, and the differences are a constant thrown in his face. Jon looks up, almost pleading, like a cat, left in the rain.

Melanie is, silent. She’s glaring, yes. But, most of all in that moment, even to Tim, she just seems tired.

“I hate you, Jon.” She states, like a well worn fact. “I really hate you.”

Jon shows no surprise by the words. It’s all almost, melancholic. Not mourning, no past friendship or even chance of one, but exhaustion from hate. Gone beyond rage and slowly falling into quiet spite.

Though Jon doesn’t look offended, Tim still can’t help but feel it for him, expression indignant as he tries to cut in. “Hey-” Before Jon finishes it for him, a glance being all Tim is given.

“I know.” Is all Jon says, and Melanie seems to take the time to consider how angry she wants to be.

In the end, she just shakes her head. “Good.”

Tim wants to say something, but, doesn’t, even as Melanie walks out, one leg a little dragged behind her, but posture stiff as if it were a stomp.

Tim immediately turns to Jon once he’s sure Melanie isn’t in ear shot. “What the hell was her problem?” Tim asks, stepped up to Jon’s side- as if the smaller man were about to fall over or something- eyeing the door frame in which Melanie emotionally stomped out, and physically limped out through.

“It’s complicated- and-” Jon cuts off midway to sigh, brushing back a few strands of stray, grey streaked hair, frizzy with lack of care. “Things between us haven’t been- the best.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” Tim scoffs, looking Jon over. So, different. Looking so much weaker and frailer than the Jon Tim knew ever had. And that much has sunk in now, the reality of that. Well, partially. Tim would likely have to be here for over a month for it to stop being a surprise even so casually, and that is the last thing he wants. Almost already homesick, for an entirely different time.

Sighing, Tim attempts some sort of courtesy. “I guess... are you okay?” Jon looks surprised by that, huffing a breath, before shaking his head dismissively.

“Fine- I’m fine, Tim, thank you.” Tim doubts that, but in all honesty, as much as he cares, getting the brick wall that is Jonathan Sims to open up, isn’t his highest concern.

The silence seems to stretch into tense awkwardness so quickly, and Jon seems intent to not reach that point at least yet, clearing his throat. “Ah- would you like some...” Jon looks up at a clock, hung on the wall, it’s ticking surprisingly silent. “Dinner?”

Tim looks up at it, finding himself surprised by the time- a joke could be made here- but nods. “Sure,” Tim half-heartedly exclaims with no real energy, hands raised as he walks to a rickety looking “dining table” stationed in the off center left of the kitchen. “I'll sit and eat like this makes any sense.”

Jon winces at that, but nods, offering a smile as he begins to rummage through the office fridge for something edible.

“How does pre-maid sandwiches sound?” Jon offers lightly.

Tim raises a brow, sitting down in the “dining table” chair, feeling the wood of the rungs press against his spine. “The shitty ones?”

Jon hesitates. Tim stares.

“The shitty ones.” Jon repeats.

“Ah, perfect, give ‘em.” Tim drawls, smiling a bit genuinely for at least this moment, stretching out a hand in a “give” gesture.

Jon sighs a little fondly, handing one to Tim’s outstretched hand and setting the other on the table in front of him. Tim sighs, unwraps it, and takes a bite. The bread is spongy, and the taste is as bland as cardboard. Despite this, he tears into them ravenously. He doesn’t feel hungry as much as he knows he should be, and the sensation gives him something other than his own thoughts.

“I will.... see if Basira can get better options. If you are here for much longer- that is-” Jon explains, stepping back from the table. Tim swallows a bland bite, sighing as he forces himself just to breathe.

“Yeah- so- time travel.” Tim begins, Tim a forced measured, “I’m, dead is, the case?” Tim drones, brow raised, and Jon is silent for a long moment, the air tenser.

“.... Yes.”

Tim groans, leaning back in the uncomfortable chair, sandwich abandoned half wrapped and set on the table.

“See- this is what you’re giving me to work with here.” Tim almost jokes, as if dismissive even as his mind runs a bit wild. It feels ridiculous, of course it all does, and it won’t stop feeling so any time soon. But, the mere idea of those monsters- skin stealing, brother killing monsters- just wandering about, sets Tim’s nerves a blaze with angry anxiety.

Jon can seem to tell that much, as he apologetically stutters. “I know, Tim. I’m- I’m sorry- this was all just so sudden-”

“No shit-” Tim scoffs, Jon stills, almost glaring at Tim, before continuing.

“And I don’t- I don’t know what to say...” Jon finally says with a heavy sigh.

Tim would usually- in normal circumstances- have more patience for Jon’s emotional constipation, but this is far past that. “You could say what’s going on.”

“It’s not that simple, Tim-”

“Make it simple.” Tim demands, firm, feeling like a wire under constant and sudden pressure, unsure what it’s even from, the specifics blurry and giving him no focus for his feelings.

“I- I can’t. I can’t make it simple. I-” Jon takes a shuddering breath, as if collecting himself, before speaking further.

“Helen seems to... like Basira and Melanie to a degree. You may be back to your time soon, so learning all this would just be, a burden.”

Tim scoffs, again, at that, feeling indignant, throwing an arm over the back of the chair and looking at Jon with a daring expression. “Yeah? A burden?” Tim chuckles. “What- you can’t tell me how to prevent my own death?” Tim’s voice raises to a higher pitched, mocking tenor, despite the fact Jon’s voice is deeper than his own. “Oh Tim, don’t go into the dark spooky ally- none of that? You’re not even going to try?”

Jon looks at him as if struck, a little paler.

“Tim-”

Tim shakes his head, hand raised.

"And what about you, huh? You look like you got put through a wood chipper.” Tim spits, gesturing to Jon’s body with a sneer, though it’s more so aimed for Jon than fully at Jon, perhaps a mixture of both. “You wanna tell me how to stop that too? Or are you just going to look at me all sad, as if there’s nothing you could say?”

Tim spits, sharper and sharper as his words near the end, and Jon is at a visible loss for words. Tim wants to scream anything and everything, as he realizes he’s pushed this fragile seeming man too far. Jon looks absolutely wrecked by the words, and Tim can just see him rolling them over in his brain with nothing short of guilt, like some sort of sour candy on his tongue.

Tim groans, pushing at the unappealing sandwich on the table like a toddler refusing their peas, leaning back far in the uncomfortable chair and shutting his eyes as he takes a long, measured breath.

“I don’t want to die, Jon.”

Tim says, sudden, and blunt. The words, in a way, catch himself by surprise, even if they shouldn’t. Of course Tim doesn’t want to die. He wants to live to at the very least try and avenge Danny. And, as hard as it is to imagine life after completing that goal, he doesn’t want to stop. He’s scared of it, of dying. Even if it is only for the minor things, such as awful horror movie nights with Sasha, prodding at Jon till he gets a smile, gossiping and flirting with his coworkers and friends for just the fun of it, downing an unhealthy amount of alcohol on a Sunday afternoon. Despite it all, Tim likes being alive.

A grimace, settles onto Jon’s face, far deeper than even the one there prior.

“I don’t want die, and fail, like some kind of idiot.” Tim spits, continuing and unable to help himself, self despise bubbled up in his throat like acid reflux.

Jon is quiet for those long moments, before speaking again, stepped closer to set what must be an attempted assuring hand on the table.

“.... you didn’t fail.”

Tim scoffs, again, at that. A near guffaw at the idea.

“You didn’t.” Jon insists with great offense, and in any other time Tim would tease the man about actually caring.

“As if you’d know.” Tim challenges. Jon very much looks like he wants to say something, and part of Tim is intensely satisfied by the conflicted expression. It makes him feel less alone in his confliction, that sharper part of himself that wants to drag others down with him, kicking and screaming.

“Yes.. I suppose I... wouldn't.”

Jon sighs, and despite it all, he can't help but default to Martin’s methods.

“Would you like some... some shitty tea with your shitty sandwich.” Jon attempts with a smile.

Tim laughs humorously.

“Yeah.”

Tim sighs, and Jon is almost thankfully silent, turning towards the abandoned kettle and sorting through the cabinets for another cup, setting down old ceramic, and pouring Tim a portion of what will likely be a steamy cup of stale water and bitter fermented tea leaves.

In that silence, Tim taps at the table, antsy, resisting the urge to rock back and forth like an impatient child at the doctor’s office.

Idly, naturally, his mind strays, catching once again on the thought of his phone, as if this was some average boredom he could entertain with mindless scrolling, or staring groggily at past text messages just to remind himself someone cares.

Glancing up at Jon, back turned to him and all hunched like an easily frightened squirrel, perhaps naturally, he groans, picks the shitty sandwich up again and biting into the spongey yet somehow dry bread with more force than what’s necessary, finally pulling his phone out his pocket.

He presses his thumb to the power, but the screen remains black, and he squints, sighing and holding the button down, wondering if time travel did indeed break his phone, and this is just salt an incomprehensibly large wound he’s barely aware of.

Shockingly, though, after a few moments, it lights up, as it reboots

“Ah!-”

Immediately, the thing starts to buzz like crazy, and Tim startles dropping it onto the table, the phone moving across the wood from the force of the vibration. Jon glances over, clearly about to say something, but Tim sighs, raising a hand.

“I’m fine. Not dead yet, yeah?”

Jon groans at the remark, clearly not happy, but Tim pays it little mind, watching notifications flood his screen, till it slowly, calms down. It very much reminds him of being in the woods with no service, only to step back into civilization and be flooded by messages from friends because he forgot to tell them he was camping that week.

Tim swipes them away, leant over in the chair, chewing on sandwich bread and whatever undefinable, but likely ham approximate meat is in it.

Once able to see his actual screen, the first thing he checks is the date. When that much turns up differently than he’s expecting, Tim checks the year.

It is with a slump hand and wide eyes, reality settled anew for what must be the third time since his arrival, Jon setting a steaming cup of water down onto the table, does Tim really, truly see. A differ month, a different day, a different year. Several years, in fact, yet still all too close.

Jon looks at Tim, concerned, and the weight of Jon’s stare feels absolutely suffocating.

Tim clears his throat, waving a dismissive hand and pushing his phone away. He takes the cup, blowing over it, brushing away steam, and brings it to his lips. Only to quickly pull it away with a disgusted wince.

“Wow... that’s....” Tim starts, voice a little weaker than he’d like, but Jon just laughs a small and airy thing, pulling back.

“Awful, I know.” Jon says, and though Tim can’t fully aid in Jon’s attempts at ease, he can distantly appreciate them, taking another sip of “tea” with a wince. Jon is staring at Tim, though, that much is apparent to him, and the longer it goes on for, the more antsy Tim can’t help but feel, glancing up a little challenging, before Jon clears his throat.

“I need to- do some work.” Jon says, stilted. It’s sounds like just as much of an excuse as it does a reason. “Will you....?” Jon begins, and Tim sighs.

“I’ll be fine without you babysitting me, go sort through more ghost stories or whatever it is you do.” Tim jabs, but Jon merely hums, nodding. It’s disappointing in the most subtle of ways, yet Tim also longs for at least a momentary solitude.

“Quite.” Jon steps back, seeming ready to rush through the door, but stopping to look at Tim and say. “I’ll be in my office... if you need me.”

Tim just nods, resisting the urge to do that polite, strained smile relatives do on thanksgiving and Christmas parties.

Jon nods, and steps through the door.

Tim breathes in deep, rocking back in the chair and shutting his eyes, truing to center himself to something more whole and understanding than he can be at this time and in this place in the most literal of sense.

Casually, his hand meanders to his phone again, tapping his flooded messages, scrolling through notifications.

Some, from people he doesn’t know- yet- some, with more than he’d expect, and plenty from scammers he can’t ever seem to be rid of, when it comes to his voicemail. Something Tim doesn’t dare open, afraid his Phone might actually explode in his hand with how warm it already feels.

Tim scrolls, idle and tired, yet so very aware, letting his mind bleed into notifications he won’t dare to press on, till he stills, and squints

For a moment, he wonders if it’s from some sort of joke, the profile picture. But then, jokes seem less appreciated now. It sticks to him like the taste of of bitter, poorly made tea does to his mouth. It’s the oddest thing, really, staring and saying it aloud in a mutter.

“Who is that?”

Tim questions to no one, staring at Sasha’s profile picture in his messages.

Sighing, he, on somewhat muscle memory and half parts curiosity, taps on it. Bringing it up and scrolling through mindlessly, started from what he remembers as his last texts to Sasha, and swiping infinitely downward, scrolling through years worth of texts without reading them, his phone struggling to keep up, lagging and occasionally freezing, till he hits the bottom.

All the way, to the sixteenth of February twenty seventeen.

Tim glances the date, then checks the one currently on his phone. And wonders, brief, if Sasha got a new number.

Tim sighs, finishing the last of his sandwich, eyes scanning over the last messages without context, an odd feeling, pinching his chest.

“I’m just sick of it.” Tim’s reads, and Sasha’s follows, some fifteen minutes later.

“I know Tim, but don’t worry, I’ll protect you<3” The out of character message makes Tim’s head tilt, wondering if Sasha is drunk, or teasing him. Or, if things had rounded back around from casual sleeping, from friends, to something more again. Tim doesn’t let himself debatably get his hopes up, nor be unsettled, always unsure of how he feels on that particular matter.

"Real funny. With what?" Tim could scroll, to find context. Or rather, attempt to, but he finds his eyes locked on the messages, cup brought to his lips.

"A good whack on the head would do the trick." Sasha jokes, Tim huffs small at that one, even if he doesn’t understand. "Tempting Lol. See you at lunch?"

Tim scrolls, hitting the last message sent, something, thudding oddly in his chest.

"I'll see you there, Tim :)"

Or, rather, the last message Sasha sent him, Tim’s eyes locked on his own written words, with no context, but a bone-deep dread at their meaning.

“I’m sorry.”

The smiling face of a woman Tim doesn’t know, cropped plain and content for Sasha’s profile, stares back at him.

Chapter Text

The food settles uneasily in his stomach.

Tim feels he could get sick at any moment, something he can’t lie and say he isn’t too unused to from partying both recklessly in his youth, and self destructively in his adulthood. He could perhaps thank that now, as it keeps the meager meal from crawling up his throat and onto the somewhat dusty floors with a well worn tolerance. Floors, cleaned, yet, the grime seeming a permanent feature, no matter the scrubbing. Unintrusive, but never fading, much like the presence Tim feels beating down onto his back, curling over his shoulders and staring into his downturned eyes. As if judging him, perhaps as harshly as he is judging himself.

Tim wants to scoff at the thing, the feeling. To spit in its face, as if it were a physical person he could push away and scorn with the efficiency of someone used to ruining their own life by pushing everyone away.

Tim did get better at that, he thinks. Perhaps, to his own detriment.

Tim pushes out the chair with more force than necessary, the legs squeaking obnoxiously against the floor.

He isn’t sure exactly how long he’s been sat there, staring at the black screen of his phone, as if it would light up with life to show him some new message. He, in all honesty, isn’t sure how to feel.

Curiously, he wants to scroll up through the messages, to read each and every one, just to learn about the kind of person he’d become, but instinctually, he finds himself turning away from it, at least for now. It feels all too much like staring at a stranger, someone pretending to be him, something wearing his skin like a coat, thin and leathery.

Tim still, feels angry, a stomach deep burden, gnawing on his insides, only coming out in bouts of annoyance.

For whatever reason, Tim also feels betrayed.

As much as he can pity this Jon, he can’t trust him. He can’t trust anyone here. Tim doesn’t know these people, doesn’t know this time. This is a place Tim simply does not belong in the most literal of senses. And, the longer he stays- not even a full day- Tim finds himself beginning to wonder if maybe his death was some sort of fucked up mercy, if he could wind up as awful looking as Jon. Not to insult the man’s looks, but the thought only makes Tim feel sicker.

“Jesus Christ.”

Tim mutters, quickly turning to a groan, dragging his hand down the skin of his face, middle and index finger pulling down the bottom lids of his eyes. Keeping them there for some time, makes his eyes sting a little, as he stares down the plain and somewhat messy counter of the workplace kitchen, the half full kettle of disgusting tea left to sit there and grow cold. It likely already is, with the ache in his back as Tim stands.

Tim stretches, rolling his neck and holding back another groan at the cracks that he hears. He doesn’t often feel old. Sometimes, he feels like a stupid teenager still, but if he were in different situation than he is now, he’d perhaps grumble about feeling old now.

Somewhat idly, he meanders through the kitchen and back to the hall Jon had led him through. Tim, explores, left without purpose or goal in mind until he can go home- however or whenever that may be. The paintings are creepy, is one of the first thing Tim notices. Old men, painted and memorialized with names he cannot be bothered to read, with death dates he cares even less about.

It feels right, for a place like this. A place, so alike research in its vintage and Victorian décor, but amped up to eleven, and distinctly more unsettling, as well as colder. Tim would hate to imagine working here in the winter, would pray the head of institute, Elias in all his- quirks- would be sure there’s a heating system installed.

It is also, very quiet.

Tim would think a space like this, so old and underground would have some weird noises, to match the uneasy aesthetic of it. But, somehow, it’s a dead sort of silence. The sort he feels he could choke on. Without the yelling of- Melanie? - or the company of Jon, and, whoever else everyone was again, it’s, so annoyingly quiet. A silence that only makes Tim all the more irritable.

It is perhaps that, that makes Tim drawn to the sound he comes across like a moth to a flame.

The door, in all its simplicity, feels like a looming presence. With recent events, Tim can compare it to the stomach dropping feeling of when he had gone through the door in his flat that had not belonged. Well, not exactly that- not that Tim gives a shit about the distinction- but comparable enough to make his nerves, itch.

It’s not like it stands out, just as the door that led him here hadn’t. Yet, something about the door to Jon’s office felt more like an entrance to some sort of tomb, when not accompanied by the man himself.

From beyond the old wood, he can hear a voice. Jon’s, that deep, honestly pleasant tenor the man takes when reading. Tim still is not fully convinced the accent is real, far too posh for someone who isn’t a snooty old, wrinkled white guy who’d probably stare at Tim like he’s some sort of alien. Fake or not, though, it seems to have remained the same, the murmur of muffled words floating out the space between the bottom of the door and the floor.

Despite the sound not being particularly ominous, creeping closer, Tim cannot help but feel a further irritating invasiveness. And, whether he’s the one invading, or Jon is, feels inexplicably hard to discern. It makes his pace a little slow, toe stepping on creaky old wood floors, till his palm rests against the door, not daring to push lest it creak open. Pressing his head against it, the words muffled beyond the wood are incomprehensible. Heard, but not understood, though Tim would guess it’s something as equally ominous as the tone of which Jon is carrying the words with. Something more out a Stephan King novel, rather than the goosebumps Tim would joke it is.

Tim, despite his caution, does not knock before he enters. Rather, slowly, his fingers glide down the wood to the metal handle, settling there uneasily, before slowly creaking it open, peering inside with an equally uneasily set grin.

“Hey, Jon, sorry to interrupt your diary or whatever but-” Tim begins, before his mouth clamps shut, as his eyes meet Jon’s in a dead silence.

Hungry.

It’s the only word that flicks through Tim’s mind. as he stares into Jon’s eyes, as they burrow into his own.

Exposed. Utterly and entirely, down to his bare bones.

It must be what a rabbit feels in those last moments, staring into the maw of the wolf set to consume it. This, however, is far more calculated than that, and perhaps far more- sadistic?- apathetic? Enjoying the way Tim so slightly staggers in his surprise, yet uncaring about the feelings that rake Tim’s spine. The sort of feeling of being watched while suffering, as if you were less than human.

Tim’s lips part in a squeezed out, nervous bit of laughter, clearing his own throat of a discomfort he cannot swallow. “Hey- Jon. Sorry to interrupt your reading-” Tim states again, trying to regain his footing in the attempt of conversation- or- whatever he had thought this might be.

“Just thought I'd see what you’re up to. You didn’t really give me much to do, yeah?” At least, Tim thinks so. It’s hard to even remember all that has happened. He certainly hasn’t been processing it all.

Tim tries for the playful annoyance of an intent fly buzzing in Jon’s face- as his coworker and friend had once described him- but much like all he’s attempted since his arrival, it falls a little flat.

Jon, for his part, does not respond, rather looking more interested- more enticed- by the second. Jokingly, Tim would almost say it seems like Jon is about to start drooling, but his own instincts deem that more factual than something to laugh at.

“I know I'm like... dead and all, here. But are you just gonna stare at me, or....?”

Another laugh, it is even harder to manage than the last. Jon’s hand slowly presses to the edge of his desk, almost creeping, spindly fingers like spider’s legs. Eyes, intent, as he even more slowly stands up from his chair- as if a wrong move from the scrawny and sickly looking man will startle Tim- and for once, Tim finds himself a little intimidated, hand feeling behind his back for the doorknob.

“Tim.”

The sound of Jon’s voice, the tone, strikes Tim square in his chest and steals his breath in a swallowed gasp, hand finding the knob and locking around it tightly. It’s almost layered, like white noise, worming into Tim’s eardrums and laying there like a comfortable parasite.

“Tim.”

Jon repeats again, and in normal circumstances, Tim would think the man is saying his name again to get his attention, as Tim does not respond. But, as Jon slowly steps from around his desk, to the side, fingers trailing the edge and head cocked like an owl examining for the perfect angle to swoop from, Tim has had enough.

“Sorry Johnny boy- didn't mean to interrupt!”

Tim nearly shouts the joke as a last defense, swiftly turning the knob and backing out the door, slamming it not long after, nearly missing his own arm by the frenzied pace. He takes no time to breathe, walking in what could more aptly be called a run, whipping his head about for any exit, any sense of how to get out of here, and away from that, for just a moment.

Stairs, are his savior, and it is with no delicacy that Tim ascends them, nearly tripping over his own feet till he finds the door to the upper floor.

It feels no less comfortable or familiar, almost sterile, compared to the chaotic and littered nature of the archive’s basement. It is with no plan, that Tim wanders, there aren’t many people here, never were, even in research. At least, compared to other institutes and places he’s worked at. And those he does pass either do not look up to see him, do not recognize him, or do not care. Any gasps or murmurs are distant things in his ears as he steps through doors till it becomes something he could almost call familiar. Passing by the research department, to an exit he’s acquainted himself well with. The sight of windows, and a door, and a more comprehensible- in this moment- world outside feeling like food on a silver platter for a starving man.

Almost as hungry for it as Jon was for- Tim's soul? His life? His mind? Everything and anything, tugging at his skull and pulling his teeth like fingers raking the inside of his throat, begging him to speak, to say something and anything, laughing crowd and cruel display, flayed skin and eager grins, if only to just-

“Hey.”

The words break Tim out his thoughts, and it is only upon blinking, does he register the slight breeze against his face. The air is a little chilly, and glancing around, he can see trees in the distance, orange-ing with the beginning of autumn decay, fluttering slightly in that light wind.

Sliding his gaze from beyond that distance, he finds the woman from before. Melanie, Tim is fairly sure, leant against the wall in a pose that would make a cigarette look right at home sat between her lips.

“You good there Stoker?”

The woman asks, but it sounds pretty mocking more than anything. With the attitude Tim saw before, it wouldn’t surprise him. It does succeed in making him take a breath, though, and sop his gaping fish gasping, heart pound in his ears slowly lowering to a soft thump as he tries to think on what just happened, and why he even reacted that way.

It felt so, violating, in the moment, but now in the after, he struggles to even place it. It was as much as an instinctual wrongness, as it was when Tim first saw this new Jon. He hated it, hates, it. Tim hates, whatever that just was, and without a certainty of if it was something Jon did, or something more, he has no direction for the panicking defensiveness welled in his chest beyond balled up fists and glare ahead of him.

“Y’know, I never did get to know you much” Melanie says, almost muttered and brows pinched, as if the words are a grim, angry sort of confession. Tim looks at her properly, rarely silent, at least for the moment.

“Guess I didn't really care to.” A pause, a little brief, but lingering, as Melanie’s gaze finds Tim in a far less invasive and hungry manor than Jon’s was. “I still don’t”

Despite it, Tim can’t help but scoff, crossing his arms and leaning his back against the institute wall just as Melanie is doing.

“Thanks” Tim drawls dryly, deadpan, expression flattened with an unimpressed manor.

“You’re welcome” Melanie shoots back with ease, a grin creasing onto her seemingly naturally tense features, rubbing her sweater covered hands together as if to warm them. “Already sick of Jon’s shit?”

Tim wants to say a firm “no” in offense on Jon’s behalf, as it seems- thus far in Tim’s perspective- that the woman before him seems set on bullying Jon as if the two were in high school. With what just happened, though, he settles on. “No, he’s reading one of his goosebumps stories or something, and I’m bored.” Tim rubs his arms a little, underdressed for the chill.

“I don’t have whatever problem with him that you do.”

Melanie barks a bout of laughter. “Yet.”

Tim wants to deny it. But, his own lack of knowledge has him holding his tongue a little, curiosity and ill ease biting at his senses.

“You’ll be mad at him.” Melanie says, as if certain, before the tone lowers to something more a mutter, looking down and away. “You should be mad at him.”

It sounds more like projection than anything, and Tim side eyes the woman, biting the inside of his cheek in some restlessness. “And why’s that?” Tim prods, half wanting to know and half wanting to just, make someone angry.

It seems to have its intended effect, as Melanie scoffs,

“Basira better hurry up, we don’t need more shit around here” Melanie fully mutters, harsh and angry. Tim can see Melanie bristle, nerves likely already ran similarly high from the fight Tim had interrupted- however long ago.

Tim can’t help but be offended with his own shot nerves.

“Yeah, must be real inconvenient for you.”

Melanie whirls on him with a force that makes her stance waver, favoring one leg over the other. Tim stands his ground regardless, having the height advantage, a fact that seems to make her more angry.

“Yeah, it is. It really fucking is. So keep out of shit that isn’t your business till you can go.”

Tim can’t help but have his own turn for a bark of laughter, gripping at his arms, nails pressing little crescent indentations into his skin, turning his tan a little whiter.

“Sorry? Am I just supposed to sit here and twiddle my thumbs when I'm- y'know- dead?. Maybe you’re used to that but it’s kinda a big deal to me- So why don’t you-”

Tim’s beginnings of a rant, is broken by the door opening. It makes him stumble a bit away from it in his surprise, and with a bitter satisfaction, Tim watches Melanie do the same, muttering a sharp “shit” under her breath.

One of the women from before, peers her head out at them. Basira, if Tim where to recall.

“Melanie” She says, as looks at Melanie as if it isn’t an uncommon occurrence to find her out here, but pauses at the sight of Tim. Whether it’s because she hadn’t expected to see him here, or the whole being dead thing making it still a large adjustment to him being here, Tim cannot be certain.

“C’mon. Archives meeting.” She says it as if it annoys her. Perhaps, too cheesy or too heavy on comradery for her. In that moment, Tim wants to laugh, just a little, but a glance at Basira’s expression, as if she had sensed as much, is enough to stop the urge for now.

Basira steps back inside without another word, expecting them to follow without question.

Melanie idles in place, like a kid told to do something they very much don’t want to do, but is struggling to find any other option out of it.

With a precursory glance at Tim, more so a glare, she pulls the door open, muttering lowly.

“C’mon Stoker.”

Tim does not move, as the door slams shut. Idly he wonders if the woman calls him by his last name out of a formality, or out of distaste. Maybe, she picked up the habit from the blond woman that had slammed him against the wall in their first and only meeting- thus far.

Oddly, it is only alone like this, does Tim remember Jon’s vague warning of monsters roaming outside the archives.

It feels silly, childish. The sort of thing from a time where Tim had his parents buy him a nightlight he was too embarrassed to admit he had to anyone besides his brother. Where he was young and would sneak up behind the couch as his parents watched horror movies that would leave him hiding under the covers, knowing he shouldn’t have seen them, but thrilled by the act of being disobedient.

It is not the same weight, that clung to his shoulders as he sat in the archives. Nor, the invasive and throat clogging prey response he felt when staring into Jon’s eyes. Or even the dizzying, nauseated field of flashing colors and vibrations in that too long, too confusing corridor. Yet, Tim finds himself pulling open the door, and stepping back inside without much further need for convincing.

Tim finds himself not that far behind, though it is Basira that lingers by the doorframe, tapping her foot impatiently at him, the buff blond- Daisy- Tim had just thought of not long ago lingering by her side like a guard dog, silent and gaze leering in a very different way. Perhaps, that metaphor of a rabbit before a wolf’s maw much more accurate here.

Wordlessly, Basira gestures him forward, and it is with a heavy sigh, that he follows.

Walking after the woman, awkwardly saddled up to the blond, Tim decides he does not particularly like Basira thus far.

The thought is an only slightly petty thing from the woman’s initial ignore-ance of his presence in their first meeting.

As if sensing his thoughts, Daisy looks at him, brow wordlessly raised.

It isn’t quite threatening, so it lets Tim be a little curious, looking back at her, though he breaks the gaze when they descend the stairs, not confident enough in the unfamiliar, old staircase to step down it without looking.

Daisy feels, mysterious, in a way, likley due to the silent lone wolf impression she’d giving off, though Tim can already tell that isn’t fully true. She was quick to defend Jon, after all, something Tim would appreciate more if not after what he just saw, but may dwell on later.

She feels like the sort of person Sasha would love to tear apart, in the most somewhat well-meaning way possible. Sasha has always, in all the time Tim has known her, been like that with quiet types.

The thought sticks to Tim’s brain, as he lets his foot swing off the last step, landing him with a slight audible thump, staring at Daisy’s back as the woman had went ahead o him, the stairs too stuffy to not descend in order. He has to resist the urge to reach into his pocket for his phone, the thought too dread inducing. Rather, voicing aloud as they step into the bull pen.

“Hey.”

Daisy looks back at Tim, grunting slightly in question, and Tim has to clear his throat a little.

“Do you-”

“Hurry up.”

Tim’s words are once more cut off by Basira, and the assertion that he does not much care for her only grows with the annoyance in his gut. Daisy follows after without hesitation, and it takes a deep breath for Tim not to scream, just wanting an answer for at least as something as simple as to where his friend has gone.

Swallowing it down, just as he has his anger, and fear, and so much more for many, many years, Tim grits his teeth, and steps into the room.

Chapter Text

The air is tense, as Tim steps in.

That much seems to be a constant, as he’s put under the scrutinizing gazes of his not so friendly cohorts. Beyond Jon, who gives him that same, nervous and uneasy smile.

That much does not comfort Tim in this situation, not this time, and it is with a poignant manner he darts his eyes away.

Tim does not need to look, to imagine the dejected expression that crosses Jon’s face. Tim’s chest, stirring with irritability at how, fragile, his self-appointed friend has gotten, finding himself already starting to feel fed up by how self pitying it all feels. He would not admit as much, though, not in Melanie’s presence, feeling much more annoyed by the woman than Jon in any capacity, despite the fact it felt like Jon was going to tear him apart, literally, with his eyes not long ago.

Daisy draws Tim’s attention back, grunting in the back of her throat, and gesturing him further along and into one of the few chairs. Melanie, scoffing under her breath in a manner fitting an angry teenager, elects to lean against the wall with crossed arms. Though, the oversized sweater, with its arms going past Melanie's hands in a “cute” dangle, sully that image fairly.

"Sit." Basira says firmly, the woman’s voice terse and professional that finds a home in the tense atmosphere well.

"I'm not a dog." Tim can’t help but reply, a little indignant, juggling an almost wounded sense of pride, thrown high and caught by deft hands of already stated irritability. Though also, he can’t help but find his eyes idly wander to Daisy, as if the sentiments were correlated.

She seems to agree, with the briefest of glances back, stern and telling him to just cooperate. He makes sure to sigh like an agitated child nonetheless, as he does sit down anyway.

"So" Basira begins, but Tim cuts her off, unable to help the incessant questions pestering his brain from spilling past his lips.

"Anyone gonna tell me what the fuck is going on now?"

Basira gives Tim a long look.

Idly, Tim finds it a bit comparable to his mother’s disapproval when she had found out he had convinced Danny into stealing from the old candy shop down the road. She had thought of Danny as her “innocent little boy”, compared to Tim’s more confrontational nature. She, of course, was not aware of many of Danny’s exploits.

That much was a bit of a secret between him and his brother. Whispered with proud giggles but just as apt to be used as blackmail when they got on each other's nerves to the point of fighting. Which, was often, in what Tim is sure average brotherly fashion.

“....Yes." Basira drawls after some silence, before clearing her throat a little, back straight in a stance fitting her appearance.

"I spoke with Helen.” Basira pauses, lips thinned and slanted downwards. “As you can imagine, she found it all very funny. But, I got her talking." Jon scoffs, almost like a pouting child.

"Quiet." Basira says almost instinctual in annoyance, giving Jon a brief glare, correcting him as if she were a teacher. It is a trend Tim cannot help but come to notice. It isn’t one he brews in, as now by this point he has far more pressing and existentially horrifying matters to settle in.

But, it is something that both adds to the alien atmosphere and is familiar.

Not many people have the patience for Jon, the grouch the far too old looking man is. In other circumstances, Tim may have been snickering like a student in the back of said class Jon is not quite being lectured in.

"You, will be here for ‘a few weeks’, in her words." Basira says tersely, and Tim can’t help but sneer and scoff, rocking forward in his chair.

"Really?"

She has the gal to roll her eyes, as if Tim is the problem here.

"Yes, really.” The woman sighs, pressing her hand to her forehead, as if to message away a headache. “Despite saying she doesn't know how she did it, she can send you back-”

"Typical" Jon interjects in a moody mutter. Daisy sighs at this as Basira once more gives the man an unappreciative glance, leaning on Jon's shoulder.

To Tim’s surprise, Jon doesn’t move away, even as he hunches under the muscular woman’s weight. In other circumstances Tim might feel jealous at that fact, since Jon always throws off Tim’s arm when he tries to do the same.

"So.” Basira emphasizes, louder.

“Till then, we just have to keep " pretty boy" here, alive." The woman says, gesturing in Tim’s direction with a tight lipped, almost sneer.

Tim raises a brow at that, half offended, and half perpetually lost.

He knows they’re speaking about him, context aside. He’s also not a stranger to compliments, he so seldom gets flustered by them these days, especially shallow ones. He’s not a romantic or anything, not anymore at least, but you can only be called handsome so many times till the edge wears off. Not that Tim isn’t unaware that this is an enviable problem.

Still, in a situation like this, so sudden, it catches him by mild surprise. Basira seems to notice his look, clearing her throat light with mild bashfulness.

"That's what Helen called you."

Basira explains, and she seems all the more human to Tim now in this singular moment than she had speaking like some sort of crotchety kid hating teacher.

"As if you don't think he's hot." Melanie lilts in a teasing tone, wearing a grin to match.

Basira visibly bristles a little, with a more touchy temperament, face flushing a little darker, poignantly not looking in Tim’s direction as she scowls.

A sour-faced expression, equally embarrassed and outright annoyed. Melanie, meanwhile, cackles like a wart faced witch on Halloween night. The sort of sound that would give someone the impression that the source bares fangs rather than petty words and maybe likes to terrorize whiny five year olds.

Tim gets the impression that maybe one of those is true.

Tim, despite finding it all comical, watching these people he doesn’t know make jabs at each other about him, can’t help but clench his fists and ask.

"So, that's it?"

Basira finally looks back at him, and Melanie stops in her cackling laughter.

"What?" The headstrong woman asks, brow raised as if Tim warrants some inherent disapproval.

"That's all? Keep me alive? Just so what- I can die again?” Tim insists, strain leaking into his voice as Jon noticeably stiffens in his seat.

“You're not gonna tell me literally anything? I mean clearly some freaky shit went down- I mean seriously-” Tim cries, gesturing harshly at everyone in room. From the scar ridden Jon, to the haggard Daisy, to the defensive Melanie, to the tense Basira. “Everyone here looks like shit!"

The looks shared and aimed at Tim are both offended and uneasy. Jon, more uneasy, Melanie, more offended. A mix of sneering lips and hunched shoulders. Some, more unreadable, such as Basira or Daisy, though Tim isn’t sure if he’s imagining the slight growl that drifts through the tense air.

"Well.." Basira starts, again, but Tim can’t help but persist.

"Well what? You could at least try or something. huh? At least tell me how I die or something!” Tim explodes, long since risen from his chair, tossing his arms in the air with an exaggerated, exasperated breath. It is a near identical outburst he had with Jon not the day before, but it replays in Tim’s head regardless. No one is doing anything to stop his maybe close, maybe distant, demise. If he were in Jon’s place, he’d at least say something.

That’s what he tells himself, at least.

“Christ." Tim mutters, exhaling heavily, feeling his shoulders sag with the weight of it, and Jon stands, but hesitates in going closer, looking for the words. But, it is Daisy, who surprisingly steps forward. Basira, who looks like she may have been about to say something, elects for silence at the sight.

"C'mon stoker." Daisy says, waving a hand, turned towards the door, as if she has any sort of authority over him to drag him out the room for the other’s comfort.

Tim look at the woman, some mixture of frustrated and appalled, barking a laugh that chokes up in the back of his throat.

"I'm not just gonna-” Tim starts, but Daisy cuts him off easily with a low and almost bored drawl. "C'mon."

Tim grits his teeth, internally seething, bristling in a way not too unlike Melanie not too long ago, the woman in question watching Tim with a raised brow when Tim happens to meet her eyes. Daisy, standing in front of him, arms now crossed, seems to take his silence for reply, carrying on, electing to have this conversation in front of everyone instead of somewhere more secluded.

"You're angry." Daisy begins, and Tim already loathes the direction of this, and finds himself somewhat regretting not taking the woman’s offer to leave, glancing at the silent voyeurs.

"No shit."

"You feel helpless."

"Sure."

"You're 'lone."

Tim grins, almost a bit wild, baring his teeth at Daisy, who returns the favor, daring to not look at what must be Jon’s pitiful expression, Melanie’s apathetic smug, and Basira’s pointed glancing away.

"Are you just going to say ominous shit at me, or what? Cause it's been what? >em>a day? And I'm already sick of this."

"I get that. Some stuff better not knowing, though."

Tim balks, and deciding to take the initiative himself, turns sharply, stomping away from the conversation.

“Fuck off!”

There’s a scuffle behind him, the sound of someone getting out their chair quickly, but no other steps besides Daisy’s firm pace follow behind Tim as he budges out the door and back up the stairs and outside where he was brooding before Melanie interrupted him prior.

Once again, the fresh air that greets his lungs feels no less stale than that of inside.

It takes little time for the door to open after him, and for Daisy to slide into place next to him.

Tim scoffs, shouldering away from her, giving an accuracy glance to the uneasily empty street.

“Didn't you hear me the first time? I said fuck off.” Tim spits.

“Some stuff better not knowin’.”

She repeats again, firm and confident in her words. Tim sneers, meeting her head on.

"Right. Like my death? I'm sure I could do something."

She looks at him, almost bashful in a sort of infuriating way.

"... Maybe."

Tim opens his mouth to say- something, a large inhale filling his lungs with air, that blows out past his lips when Daisy raises a hand.

"Folks bad at talking. Dumb, too. Probably didn't think bout it."

Tim’s expression turns incredulous, speaking an aggressive sarcastic.

"Seriously?"

"Lot's happened. S', happening. Hard to...... Think" Daisy trails off, eyes sliding cleanly to the left, words tangling up audibly in the woman’s throat as if caught by deft fingers, her lip curling up to show her teeth in some odd sort of sneer. What follows is that slight, just audible rumble Tim would compare to a dog’s growl.

“Yeah?” Tim presses, a bit snappy and a bit uncomfortable, snapping Daisy’s gaze back to him at an almost whiplash pace.

It almost makes Tim want to step back, but he remains in place as the woman seems to gather herself from whatever distracted her.

"Let Jon figure it.” She states, breathing audibly through her nose in a heavy exhale. “He'll know if we should."

Tim looks at her, brows drawn, the question thoughtlessly spilling past his lips caught between irritation and caution, the memory of Jon’s eyes locked on him so keenly coming to the forefront of his mind. Not too dissimilar from that mannequin, that clown, walking and talking and alive in all the ways it should not be, eyes shiny like well-tended to glass or porcelain.

"How would he do that? He seems..."

"You saw 'im.” She says in a blunt, gesturing vaguely at him. “You saw that look.” Daisy says, and Tim goes from confusion at what she means, to confusion of how she knows that.

It clearly must show on his face, as Daisy points at it. “Got that look, starin’. You know." Daisy says matter of factually, and Tim’s own scowl deepens, hating being read so easy by someone he literally doesn’t know.

Tim had worked very hard his whole life to save face, smiles and cocky, jack-ass persona, even when he’d find himself pacing his shitty flat wondering how it all went so wrong.

"Give 'im a lil. If you're supposed t'know, you'll know."

She says it certain, just as all her words have been, leaving Tim no room for argument, despite the fact he desperately wants to. He doesn’t understand the reasoning, of how Jon could possibly just know in some weird, magical sense, what he should and should not be told. It’s as ridiculous as the fact he’s even here, in the future, right now.

Daisy, seemingly satisfied with herself, turns without another word, and leaves out the door and back into the archives before Tim could even think to stop her.

Tim splutters indignant, but doesn’t make chase. Maybe due to instinct, of some sort, but he has the distinct idea that it wouldn't be the best idea. So, he hangs his head, sighing long, wishing he was closer to the wall, if just to slam his head back into it.

Instead of doing that, though, he limply opens the door, glancing back into the room to find Daisy still waiting for him, as if anticipating it.

Tim isn’t sure why he steps back inside, nor why he follows Daisy back down the stairs, head swirling with thoughts he doesn’t grasp with any real urgency, both still keyed up, and absolutely exhausted from the whole affair, just as he has been since the start of it.

Down the stairs, through the door, Daisy stepping ahead of him and returning to the half- assed circle of people, Daisy leaning in to mutter something into Basira’s ear.

He eyes, suddenly lock on his unwelcome cohorts, still in the room.

Jon remains in place despite his fidgeting. Melanie, had since walked out, likely when Tim had or some time after. And Basira, stands terse, eyes flicking to the now retreating Diasy, as if to instinctually follow her, before locking onto Tim, and sighing deeply. She steps forward, more diplomatic this time around, offering Tim a slight and uneasy smile that does not grace her eyes by even the smallest of centimeters.

“She’s right. Look- Stoker. I get it.”

Tim swallows a scoff.

“I do.” Basira says more sternly than her stuttering at the expression that crosses Tim’s features.

“But- this is all- confusing.... Just” Basra hesitates, gaze straying off, lips drawing a thin line. “Hang tight, okay? For a couple days. Before we know if telling you anything would make this better... or, worse.” Her eyes trail to Jon. “Or, if it would change anything at all.”

She sighs, tired, and shakes her head, walking out after Daisy.

It leaves the room empty beyond two occupants, once again, and Tim finds his eyes straying to who he’s left with, looking to Jon, who’s already staring at him and likely never looked away, and uneasily, grins.

“Alone again, eh?” Jon startles slightly, despite his intent gaze, as if broken from a trance, letting out a somewhat shaky exhale.

“Yes, it would seem so.”

The pause that follows is tense and uncomfortable, but Tim is not going to give Jon the grace of being the one to break it this time, expression soured.

“I’m sorry.... I frightened you.”

Jon speaks slowly, unable to bear the silence and discomfort. Tim wants to laugh at it, Jon speaking to him as if Tim were a frightened animal. Tim does not refrain from rolling his eyes.

“You didn't frighten anything, Jon. You’re too small to be scary anyway.”

Tim prods at Jon, making the man scowl, which only deepens as Tim dares to step closer, poking the shorter man on the chest. Jon groans in response, taking his turn to roll his eyes, batting Tim’s hand away.

“I’m serious.” Jon insists, expression stern. Tim hardly wastes a beat, insisting on his own.

“And so am I. I’m fine.” Tim grins. “Or, whatever you'd call it.”

Jon huffs at this, as Tim waves a hand in his own dismal, clearly not pleased by the response. Let Jon be annoyed, Tim thinks, pettily.

There is a brief silence of many, and Tim once again finds himself trying to fill the gap despite his prior petty thoughts, feeling too nervous without doing so. Not when Jon is looking at him like that.

“So like.... “ Tim starts, drawings Jon’s attention which had strayed to probably wallow in self pity or something. “Is there anything I can do, here?”

Tim finally asks.

“Cause if whatever monsters are out there don't kill me first, boredom will.”

Jon sighs at that, brows furrowing. The man clearly still isn't appreciating Tim’s jokes about the matter.

Tim, understands, but it won’t stop him from making them. The expression, and annoyance, is a clear “no”, though, and Tim can’t help but mutter, raising his brows.

“Wow, I feel so loved here.”

Jon huffs again, waving a hand, spindly and burnt. As if Tim were a pestering bug he could rid himself of.

“Give me- a moment.”

Tim holds in another sigh, shifting on his feet, not letting his eyes wonder too much from the man in front of him, despite the almost natural and idle curiosity of a new location.

“Do you guys not have anything for- i don't know, entertainment?”

Tim does glance around this time, but nothing but dusty files and books about ghosts or things of the likely sort. “Between almost dying- and everything.”

Jon shifts, an uneasy smile crossing his face. “Well I- me and Daisy listen to podcasts.”

Tim laughs at how awkward it i his own smile widening as a thought crosses his mind.

“Aw, is someone-”

Jon cuts Tim off with a hand before he can continue, having picked up on Tim’s intent by his tone quickly, face a slight flush of embarrassment, but nothing more.

It does make Tim snicker, as empty as it is in the corners. Teasing Jon always made him feel better, if just because of the frazzled stare Jon is giving him now, looking akin to an old lady whose garden has just got trampled. Tim wonders if, if Jon wore pearls, if he’d clutch at them with a similar intensity.

“No- No- certainly not-” Jon stutters, and Tim raises his hands, pitying the man, grinning.

“Alright, alright. She seems too scary for you anyway.”

Jon splutters, but falls silent quickly, not fighting that issue for more than a moment, hand sliding up almost casually to his throat.

“Yeah.” Jon sighs, rubbing his throat, almost wistful, making Tim’s head tilt curious, but not asking yet.

“So... Is it just podcasts, or.....? Is there a working Tv somewhere.” Jon hums, thoughtful, eyes flicking to some odd place on the floor before they light up.

“Ah.” Jon vocalizes, as if he had bumped into something. “There’s an old VCR in storage, along with a box of movies.”

“On tape, I would assume.” Tim drawls, and Jon looks at him almost a little incredulously, perhaps mildly offended or something similar, though it lacks any real intensity by a mile.

“Yes, on tape. That is specifically what VCR;s play.”

Tim groans. It’s a bit nostalgic, at least. He can’t find comfort in it now, but it’s parallel enough that it’s tolerable. So many days Tim would give nothing to just be a kid again grabbing some run of the numbers movie and watch it with his brother like it was the most entertaining thing in the entire world.

“I’ll take it. Better than just sitting here.”

Jon moves, gesturing Tim. “Let me get that setup for you.” Tim sighs.

He’s stuck here for “A few weeks”. Over a day in, it already feels intensely grating. It’s, a lot. Tim never really considered himself to be particularly smart, Danny getting the A’s for his C’s often enough to note, though Tim knew Danny also did his fair share of cheating. He envied Danny for awhile, just as much as he was proud of him. He never was spiteful, though, not really, not in the way people might assume at least. Because Danny, Danny kept him grounded. More than thier parents ever could, more than his friends ever could. No matter what happened to him, he could just talk to Danny, and hear about his brother’s next big venture and interest, never having to wonder what either of them were running from.

And now? Now, in some fucked up future, his death looming over him, evidence of a life he hasn’t personally led in his pocket, and stood in front of him? He feels like he’s ran too far. Reached a set of stairs and tripped down the third, tumbling his way to the bottom with n warning, just to be told to crawl back up as if his knees weren’t mangled bits of splintered bone and torn ligaments he could feel sloshing and grating against the wood.

He’s supposed to just, live, after this. Live knowing he’ll die before he’s forty. Which, Tim always expected, didn’t he? Since the day Danny died, so did he. He was never going to get married, have kids, do whatever it is normal people do. That little life he sometimes daydreamed about when drunk out his mind with Sasha was never a possibility.

He’s supposed to just live on, just as he always had.

Just a few weeks, and he’ll wake up, as if this had never happened at all.

Tim wants to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all.

“Thanks, Jon.”