Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Jonathan Sims carries such a strong aura of being overworked that when you spend more than a few minutes in his presence you start thinking about a third cup of coffee to get through the rest of your day. Jon would be handsome if he wasn’t so tired, or if he devoted any effort to his presentation. The dark circles under his eyes had been a common sight as long as he could remember looking in the mirror, but became permanent fixtures when he started working in the Archives. There were even frown lines beginning to form on his high forehead and a deepening of the lines around his large straight nose, stretching toward his sharp angular jaw. It was the perfect nose to look down at someone from behind his glasses, especially when his mouth turned into a scowling frown, which was often. His lips are a bit too thin to be called attractive but they match his high cheekbones and compliment his thick dark brows and long lashes. The bronze undertones from his mixed heritage are the only thing keeping him from being called “pale” or “deprived of sunlight” - something he would snarkily defend if anyone ever called him that. 

“Well, I do work in the Archives, in the climate controlled basement, so excuse me if I’m not working on my tan.”

His skin has become a map of his experiences. The handful of shiny, circular, worm-attack scars that dot his forearms and climb up his shoulders to his neck and peek out from under the scruff on his cheeks have started to fade thanks to Nikola Orsinov’s moisturizing routine, but the jagged line of a stab wound above his wrist, and a brutal burn scar on his hand have refused to be soothed away. The pale moons of worm bites are even easier to see when his dark hair is pulled back from his face. The soft brown waves streaked with silver obscure his young age. When he had started there were only a few pale strands, but the role of Archivist had doubled the gray in the couple years he had been on this journey, despite being in his mid thirties. He often left it hanging around his face, as if the curtain of hair that brushed his shoulders would create another barrier to prevent people from speaking to him when he was bent over an old dusty tome. When he was trying to look presentable he’d pull half of it back, in a look Georgie described as “his slutty little up-do”, and when he was truly agitated and didn’t want anyone to see how greasy it had become he swept all of it up. Tim had once said he was “sporting a man-bun” and the sheer violence in Jon’s gaze prevented Tim from ever remarking on Jon’s hair again. He hadn’t grown it out intentionally. When he was still in the research department it had barely curled around his ears. Now, every few weeks he would look in the mirror after a shower and declare his hair unmanageable and resolve to get it cut. But he never managed to actually get to a barber. 

His outfits suffered from a similar spectrum of hurried to forgetfulness. His slacks fit him well but desperately needed the creases pressed. The button down shirts also cried out for the touch of an iron, but it was harder to notice when he layered them under blazers and jumpers. It was the fashion sense only someone who missed the academic focus of their Oxford days would develop. The colors stayed in neutrals with heaps of green, navy, and maybe maroon. The day he wore a buttercup yellow shirt, no fewer than 3 people stopped to do a double take. It turned out he had spilled an entire cup of tea on his original shirt on the way to work and needed to stop last minute for a new one. 

He was normally seen with a cup of tea in his hand, or coffee if he was feeling desperate, and a pen in his mouth. Martin guessed that Jon had a tendency to chew on the end of his pens when he wanted a cigarette. He had smoked off and on since his college days, and always seemed to pick up the habit again when he was stressed. It was less of a nicotine addiction, than the desire to have a good reason to take a break and get some fresh air every once in a while. The reason he had picked the habit up in the first place in college, was that smoking was a perfect excuse to sit out on someone’s roof, or back garden, away from the loud music and loud people. Jon had been a grumpy old man even when he was 19. Something about the noise and press of bodies made him feel trapped and hot and like electricity was crawling up his spine. Or maybe it was just a very quiet upbringing that made parties feel unnatural to him. 

You could tell from the way he hunched over his work, as if it was a closely guarded secret, darting his eyes around before focusing in on a conversation, and jumped slightly when the doors slammed that he’d had a tough childhood. Jon never spoke of his parents, and it took years of knowing him before he’d slip and mention being raised by his grandmother. His father had died when he was two, but he grew with his image as a constant comparison. Athletic, where Jon was bookish; outgoing, where Jon was shy - the ghost of his father was the invisible standard Jon constantly failed to live up to in his grandmother’s eyes. No, he always heard that he was his mother’s child. He had more memories of his her, but they were hazy from toddlerhood: her soft brown face framed with delicate reading glasses, her long braid that she let Jon weave flowers into from the garden, the smell of chai in the morning, flowing bright colored fabrics, warm dinners packed with flavor that made the kitchen a bustling center of activity. His very British grandmother - his father’s mother - had not kept those colors or flavors in his life after he went to live with her at the age of six. He had Granny to thank for his accent, stiff shoulders, and degree from Oxford. He sometimes wondered what would have happened if he had gone with his mother’s family instead. But Jon would rather die than share these musings willingly, so his details had to be put together like a puzzle from observation. 

Observing Jon was Martin’s favorite pastime. For instance he had observed that Jon’s eyes seemed brown at first, but if you got close to him you could see little flecks of gold and green. And that while the scruff on Jon’s face could get messy, the effect was intentional - because even when Jon cleaned up scuff remained, just with straighter lines and a more pleasing shape. He’d also gotten close enough to feel how soft his hair was, in need of a thorough comb and maybe a deep condition, but silky nonetheless. They’d been trapped in the archives at the time, so there were bigger things to worry about than how soft Jon’s hair was or how he smelled of sandalwood and leather and books - but Martin had noticed nonetheless. 

On the rare occasions that Tim and Martin (or Tim and Sasha before) were able to cajole Jon out to the pub after work, they knew to take him to a quiet place where they could occupy a corner booth and find some topic to start a friendly argument. They had little luck drawing Jon on football or any other sport, and even less on the merits of various popstars. Once, when they still worked in research, Tim had started ordering whiskey instead of beer, and tried to play Smash or Pass with the other bar patrons. Jon had been so uncomfortable that he made an excuse to leave and declined any subsequent invitations for at least six months. 

Actually Martin had never seen Jon show an interest in anyone, in that way. And Martin was looking. But Jon had always found dating difficult. His longest relationship had been with his college best-friend-turned-girlfriend Georgie. He’d had a couple short, failed relationships after that, and a few semi-successful but ultimately fruitless long distance relationships after those. You could almost feel the repercussions of the string of disappointments when you talked to him. It was as if everyone started their acquaintance with him at a negative point balance, and needed to work their way up. He used his inherent mistrust of people as a wall to keep people from looking too closely at him. 

If you didn’t need people, then you couldn’t be let down by them, you wouldn’t be vulnerable to them. And that’s the way he wanted to keep it, thank you.

Chapter Text

Martin Blackwood spent most of his life trying to take up as little space as possible. He felt most comfortable when he was invisible in the corner of the room, which was quite a feat at 6ft 1in with broad shoulders and a round figure. He was the tallest person working in the archives, much to Tim’s 5ft 11 annoyance, and he practically towered over Jon at 5ft 8in. He had been “too big” since he was a teenager, and even though he was deceptively strong, it wasn’t in the useful sporty way. No, Martin was too soft. His large upper arms made button down shirts uncomfortable unless he went up a size, and his trousers often got holes in the thighs from friction. On top of that, his bulk in the crowded and narrow basement meant he was always pressing past a stack of files desperately hoping the sleeve of his jumper or the curve of his ass wouldn’t topple something to the floor. He had seen exasperated looks when that happened, and it happened a lot. He had even heard a whispered invective from the highly critical Head Archivist a couple times. Those cut especially deep since he wanted nothing more than to be good at this job. Or least good enough to not stand out as a disappointment. It wasn’t just his body that was soft, his mother had spent decades telling him he was too emotional, too prone to fits of crying. That liking poetry and small animals and quiet walks were what made him soft and gay and useless. And those words followed him every time he bumped into something, or ate a sweet, or worried that he might break a delicate chair. 

Martin spent a lot of time trying to forget his appearance. The best days were when he was so caught up in a research project that he could forget he had a body at all, and just exist as a floating consciousness in the archives, helpful and unobtrusive. When he was forced to look in the mirror he hated his round boyish face. Popular media insisted that a smattering of freckles over your cheeks and nose were supposed to be cute, but Martin had a hard time distinguishing them from faded teenage acne scars, so all he could see was mess. He’d tried growing a beard to hide his imperfect skin and soft chin, but it came in patchy and uneven and sprawled more down his neck than up his full cheeks where he wanted it. No, he was stuck with the clean-shaven, cherubic, peaches and cream complexion that made him look even younger than his twenty nine years. Thirty-three according to his embellished resume, of course. 

His sandy-colored hair didn’t help him look any older either. When he was a child, his hair had fallen in angelic gold curls that somehow annoyed his mother, since she had him crop it short. Now as an adult, it fell in soft fluffy waves that he kept above his ears, though when it got long the ends still started to curl. The bright gold had also faded to an unremarkable muddy mix between dirty blonde and mousy brown. He had continued to list it as “blonde” on dating apps until he got enough annoyed or disappointed reactions in person. Apparently his blonde wasn’t blonde enough, and his eyes were too grey to be called blue, and of course “You seem heavier than your pictures, no offense”. God, Martin hated the Grindr scene. 

It’s not that he never dated, the relationships just didn’t last long. He had learned through rejections after rejection that he was good for a hookup and not much else. The encounters left him feeling a little used, and often unsatisfied, but just having the touch of another person staved off the dark places his mind brought him. It also gave him a break from fantasizing about his boss and the really terrible crush he’d been nursing for a couple years now. 

He’d always had a thing for the lanky bookish types, the hot professor aesthetic really did it for him. Even better when that professor was strict and withholding. Something about it made Martin want to beg for approval. It was the difference between a dog's affection that’s handed out freely to anyone in the room, and winning over the judgemental cat in the corner. Martin dreamed of being chosen, being examined and found worthy. Or maybe it was just latent daddy issues stemming from his father’s abandonment at age 8. Either way, Jonathan Sims hit every one of those buttons. It had been just an attraction until the worm attacks. When Jon went out of his way to protect Martin, and when they started spending time together late at night when Jon worked late and Martin was sleeping in document storage, that attraction had blossomed into a full blown infatuation. 

Even though Martin’s favorite tea was Yorkshire Gold, Jon drank Hampstead Earl Grey, so switching over gave Martin an excuse to drop a cup on Jon’s desk whenever he refreshed his own. Martin had even spent a fruitless two weeks researching youtube tutorials on making an authentic chai blend, until he convinced himself Jon would find that presumptuous and accuse him of being racist. 

Martin spent a lot of his time divining ways his coworkers could hate him. Years of practice had taught him that the best way to avoid getting yelled at was to anticipate every possible need and either meet them or get out of the way. He learned that lesson young. The marks of a troubled childhood were easy to spot on him. He was quick with stammering apologies, flinched at slammed doors and raised voices, and spent valuable time double and triple checking his work anxiously. He could see those very qualities getting under people’s skin, but seemed to be unable to stop. 

The only place he could relax was his cramped flat in Stockwell. Most of the furniture was thrifted, the gaming console was two generations old at this point, and the landlord hadn’t fixed the leaky sink or cracked floorboard since Martin moved in - but it was his. The paycheck from the Magnus Institute was the best he’d ever had, but it took a lot to keep his mother in her care home in Devon. He had been living with her out of financial necessity after dropping out of school to become her carer, but about a year before he’d been hired at the institute she’d decided to put herself in a home far enough away that Martin couldn’t visit regularly. Now she barely answered his calls, and sometimes pretended to be asleep or sick to avoid seeing him when he did get down to visit. 

His financial struggles were easy to see on him. His slacks and jumpers were often secondhand, and Martin had learned to sew and patch things to get as much use out of them as possible. It also meant his clothes were often ill-fitting since plus size shopping at thrift stores was damn near impossible. He always brought his lunch, and on days when he was too rushed or his bread had gone moldy, he would make up a reason he couldn’t go out with Tim or Basira. The unhelpful voice in his head usually said You can stand to miss a few meals anyway , but he had learned not to say that part out loud. On a few dire occasions, Martin had accepted a Grindr date he knew would end poorly just because the guy would buy him dinner first. 

Sasha had caught him walking with a slight limp one Monday morning after just such an occasion and had cornered him about it. At first she was convinced Martin had a secret boyfriend and wanted details. Then she’d given a mild talking to about being safe when he’d admitted to making poor hookup choices. He couldn’t remember now if that had been Sasha or NotSasha. It was strange to think the monster would have cared if Martin was ok, but maybe it just wanted him to stay in the Archives more. 

And for the most part he did. Especially now that Jon was away more, and Tim was angry and distant, and Basira and Melanie seemed to be trapped here against their will, Martin felt like he was holding down the fort. He just wanted to avoid a fight, but it felt like the entire team was slowly boiling. He just needed to make enough tea and keep things organized and he could prevent someone from taking their anger out on him. 

If he could just be good enough. If he could just be good enough. If he could just be good . Then they could prevent the apocalypse. Then Jon would be safe. Then Tim would be safe. Then Jon would love him back. Then he could be worthy of someone loving him back. He could be worthy.

Chapter Text

Tim Stoker felt like he was made of paper mache most of the time; giant gaping holes just covered over with old newspaper and glue, artfully painted to look like anything you want. He smiled, he laughed, he flirted with the girls at the institute, and some of the boys as well - but it all felt just slightly fake. He wanted to smile and laugh, he genuinely liked the cute guys and girls he charmed into his bed, he loved the friendship he had built with Sasha and (sometimes) with Jon. But felt like if anyone poked too hard at his handsome and charming exterior, their hand would go right through the delicate paper and shatter him completely. 

When he looked in the mirror, sometimes he saw himself - fear and anger and guilt bubbling just under the surface. But other times he saw what Danny would have looked like if Tim had been able to save him. Danny was 2 years younger than Tim, but they had been mistaken for twins constantly. He knew that leaving his dark hair just long enough to fall into his eyes was attractive, because women always giggled at Danny when he flicked it back. He knew that leaving the first few buttons of his shirt undone to show off his tan neck and collarbones would give him a roguish charm, because it always worked for Danny. Hell, he even found himself picking up silly patterns, like a shirt with pineapples on it, because he knew Danny would have loved it. 

It’s not that Tim didn’t like his hair, or the way he rolled his shirtsleeves, but he just couldn’t tell anymore whether they had started as things he liked, things Danny liked and shared with Tim, or things Tim had wrapped himself in to keep Danny’s memory alive. Trying to untangle when and why and where his own preferences came from was annoying, and futile. He was a chimera of himself and the ghost of his brother. The last time Tim had gotten too drunk, he stared into the mirror and thought Who was really wearing Danny’s face, me or that clown? He had blacked out after that, but he could guess what had happened next from the cuts on his knuckles and the broken glass. At least no one at the institute had ever known Tim before. They couldn’t see that his face was borrowed. 

At least his jokes had always been his. That was one of his favorite things about Sasha, she laughed at his jokes. And she loved books the same way Tim did. Tim was the bookworm in the family, always reading about wizards and dragons and time traveling spaceships. He enjoyed spending time with Sasha, getting silly flavored lattes together from the overpriced cafe around the corner, or turning on pop music that would annoy Jon, and singing along while they worked. And they were a menace together. They had only successfully gotten the entire archive team out to the pub a few times; Jon was incredibly hard to wrangle. But Martin was easier to pressure. They’d even gotten Martin out to a gay club once and coaxed him out onto the dance floor for three whole songs before self-consciousness took over and he retreated to a table. Tim could have gone home with someone that night, but he was having too much fun to leave his friends. That had happened with Sasha a few times, where they went out together to scope out cute guys, picking potentials for each other to go talk to, but by the end of night neither had found more pleasurable company than each other. 

Once, and only once to Tim’s regret, Sasha had invited him over because “her place was closer and it was too far to walk.” By morning he was convinced he was in love with her, but she told him gently that she wanted him as a friend more than she wanted him as a boyfriend. And that she especially didn’t want him as an ex-boyfriend. He said he totally understood, but he was still holding a small secret candle for her, thinking maybe she’d change her mind. There was a brief moment Tim had dreamed of being a unit again. “Tim and Sasha” instead of “Tim and Danny,” a unit he could choose, and one that didn’t bring him unimaginable pain.

It was only when he joined the Institute Tim realized he would never be thought of as “Danny’s brother” again, and he scolded himself for ever disliking the epithet. 

In the Before, he was the quiet son. Danny shone bright like the sun and Tim was dutiful and reliable. Tim did well in school and always got praise for his high marks, but Danny was loud and distracting in class, he wandered off, he got into trouble. There were meetings about Danny. There were behavior charts for Danny. Danny climbed trees that were too tall, or found a secret way to get onto the roof. Danny also dislocated his shoulder at 11 and broke his leg at 14. The only time Tim had broken a bone was when Danny convinced him to go cliff diving on a family holiday in Manila. His grandparents, who they’d been visiting, gave Tim quite the dressing down and made him sit and roll lumpia with his mum and grandmother even in his cast. And he still got a lecture from his grandfather about being the responsible older brother. The constant refrain: you’re responsible for Danny.

He couldn’t forget that responsibility now, that’s why he was at the Magnus Institute. If he could put the ghost in the mirror to rest, maybe he could be a responsible partner or a responsible father, instead of the brother who failed his responsibility. So Tim plastered over the hurt with a smile, with a joke, with a toffee latte, and a colorful lanyard with dancing skeletons on it. He was so close to getting his answers.

Chapter Text

Sasha had spent so much of her childhood trying to stand out, that now as an adult sometimes she worried she’d overdone it. She was one of five kids in an even larger extended family. She wasn’t the oldest (her brother Dan), or even the oldest girl (her sister Mariatu), the proverbial middle child who gets permission to act out (Aminata) or the baby of the family (her younger brother Musa). No, she was fourth. There was nothing special about being fourth, but Sasha was determined. If she couldn’t be the first to get a milestone, she was going to be the best.

But firstborn children of immigrants take the family wellbeing very seriously, Dan had become an orthopedic surgeon and Mariatu had studied constitutional law and was working in politics. Sasha was a voracious reader and had a nearly photographic memory, but she was a little too squeamish for surgery and didn’t have the temperament for politics. Aminata had studied jazz music at a high ranking conservatory, could sing, play four instruments, and was now composing. So really, Sasha had no choice but to become the weird one. 

Every couple years Sasha developed a new interest and it was all she would talk about at the dinner table. It was all she would talk about anywhere actually, even when her siblings begged her to stop. Deep sea creatures, Greek mythology, alien encounters, The Lord of The Rings - she was ready to discuss any of these topics at length. And as any autistic child with a family who gets tired of listening to infodumps, Sasha took to the internet. (Being autistic didn’t even make her stand out at home, both her father and Dan were autistic too, and Aminata had ADHD.)

Spending her formative teenage years online had solidified her place as “quirky” or downright “strange.” As a college student Sasha often wore shirts that referenced TV shows no one had heard of, glow in the dark alien earrings made by a friend she met on a forum, and long multi-colored cardigans she had thrifted and mended herself. She had adultified her wardrobe when she started working at the Magnus Institute, but the quirkiness never really went away. Going that deep into tumblr and reddit leaves a mark on your personal style that can never be erased. 

She had large round glasses in bright blue and a pair in orange that glowed in the dark. She wore her hair in waist length microbraids with tiny gold clasps on the end that swished and clicked when she walked. It took 10 hours to get her hair done, but she liked the statement they made. Sometimes she would braid the braids into a fishtail and tie it off with a ribbon, or twist the braids on top of her head in a large bun and secure it with a brightly colored scarf. She was already a tall woman – and she liked to wear heeled boots – so with her braids piled high on her head she cut an imposing figure. 

She loved bright colors, orange was probably her favorite as it complimented her dark complexion so well. But neon green, bright blue, even bright white looked great on her. She didn’t wear as many colors at once as she did while at University but she was still easily identifiable in a crowd at The Magnus Institute - that crowd overall loved drab browns, forest green, and maroon. It was like the tweed convention. Even Elias’s expensive suits were usually black, gray, or a dark green. At least he knew what tailoring was, Jon looked like he fell out of a laundry basket of someone else’s clothes most days. She knew he didn’t get the job of Head Archivist because of his fashion sense, but it still irked her occasionally. Sasha loved fashion, interesting silhouettes, unusual patterns, finding unique pieces and making them work - she didn’t have a lot of disposable income to devote to it, but thrifting and crafting was half the fun. And she never gave up her nerdy accessories. She still wore those glow in the dark alien earrings, and now she had glow in the dark ghosts, and a floating eye to go with them.  

As she sat across from the thing calling itself Michael in a crowded cafe, she thought “I should know better than this.” But she couldn’t shake the desire to be the one to discover something. If she could be the one to document proof of the supernatural it would be an achievement no one could eclipse. She would be world renowned, people would write about her in books, people would study her habits and dig for her personal correspondence. She wanted to make her mark on the world and be remembered as something other than Good friend, loving daughter on her gravestone. 

Sasha was remembered as quiet and competent. She favored long tweed skirts and Mary Janes that were good for walking to work in all seasons. Tim always thought she was so pretty with her shiny hair and patient eyes. She had a silk press that just touched her shoulders in a style that looked like she was going to run for mayor, or be a newscaster. Tim had seen her once with her hair in a scarf and her contacts out - and almost didn’t recognize her. She was terrible with technology and woefully out of touch with pop culture which Tim thought was very endearing. He found himself often sharing memes with her that she had no hope of understanding. He wasn’t sure why he kept doing it, he would just see something and think “Oh Sash will get a kick out this” 

While those at the Magnus Institute were shaken by somebody so normal up and disappearing, there were countless forums and private message boards online that wondered whatever happened to BrightStar51. Her last message on r/ParanormalEncounters had two different posters reaching out with tales of Mikaele Salesa, but BrightStar51 never responded.