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Sasha James’ birthday was June 11th. Jonathan Sims had the date marked on his calendar. Not in thick, colorful marker with extra dots and hearts, like one might expect from a friend, but simply scrawled in neat black letters at the corner of June 11th’s box. Jon stared at it that morning and the words mocked him, their appearance a reminder of the comfortable, almost normal life Jon used to have. One where he could write his friends’ birthdays on his calendar without fear that they would die before the day came. Or get replaced and erased from his memory.
And to think Jon even had a gift planned: he wanted to buy her a new Bluetooth speaker. Jon always enjoyed a little background music as he worked (as long as Sasha and Sasha alone had control of the playlist) but her speaker was truly ancient. It fit quite well with the Institute’s dingy library basement aesthetic, but did little in the form of actual music playing, audio lag butchering most attempts at lightening the constant dreary mood. But that never disheartened Sasha and she kept trying until…well. Jon hadn’t noticed the lack of music in the archives for a while, but he tried to convince himself he must have registered the fact and filed it away in the paranoia corner of his mind. If he hadn’t even given it a second thought, what kind of friend had he been?
But was a new speaker something the real Sasha would have even wanted? He had no way to know. Well, he did. If he tried hard enough, he could probably Know, probably See it. But last time he tried to remember the real Sasha, he’d been dizzy for days. Not the kind of dizzy that’s so bad you needed a lie down and a prescription, but the kind that buzzes in your peripheral vision for days, a reminder that you aren’t entirely stable but nothing can be done to fix that fact.
Not like being unstable was a new concept for Jonathan Sims.
Jon considered giving everyone the day off. Daisy could probably use the time alone with Basira, Melanie was never doing anything, and Tim wouldn’t do anything today with or without the excuse of a free day. And Jon was sure that today of all days, what he had to say would have no influence on Tim’s actions.
Sasha would’ve known what to do. He wished her ghost would come pull him through the right steps. But if he saw her face in his dreams, would it be her? If it was, would he even recognize her?
~~~
Tim made no attempt to hide the bottle of beer he carried into the Institute with him and no one asked, aside from Rosy at the front desk who got no response. She didn’t press him; the question was just a half-assed attempt at professionalism anyway.
~~~
Jon gently pushed open the back door and peered outside. As expected, there was Tim, beer bottle in one hand, leaning over the railing of the Institute’s fire escape. Jon stood perfectly still.
“What do you want, boss?”
Jon jumped a bit. “How did you—”
“I can feel those creepy fucking eyes of yours.”
Jon was about to retort that Tim’s claim wasn’t possible, but wasn’t it? Instead, Jon looked away from Tim, opting to study his own shoes. “Sorry.”
“What do you want?” He repeated, voice steady and emotionless. Flat.
“I…” What did Jon want? “I don’t know.”
“Come to wallow with me?” That question dripped with an emotion Jon couldn't pinpoint. Something akin to sarcasm, but not quite.
Was it an invitation? It felt like an invitation, mocking or not. Or maybe Jon was just looking for an excuse to get out of no man’s land between the Institute’s back entrance and Timothy Stoker. So he let the door close gently behind him and walked towards his assistant. “They say misery loves company.”
“Well if you’re here to talk, you can forget it.” Jon stopped. Maybe it wasn’t an invitation.
“I know, I—”
“And you better not have a bloody tape recorder on you.”
“I don’t!” Jon replied defensively before remembering that had never stopped them before. “Well, I…I don’t think I do.”
Tim glared over his shoulder. “You don’t think you do?”
Jon sighed, throwing caution to the wind and stepping up to lean against the rail beside Tim. “I didn’t bring any with me but you know how they are, I can’t control when they just…pop up.”
“How convenient.”
“The Eye seems to think so,” Jon mused.
As silence stretched between them, Jon reached for a cigarette and his lighter, desperate to do something with his hands. It was a relief, fiddling with the thing, even as his eyes lingered a bit on the spiderweb pattern stretching across the lighter. It’d been bothering him more and more recently.
“Can I?”
Jon turned to Tim, blinking in surprise. “I didn’t think you smoked.”
“Haven’t since uni. But we’re all stuck in this hellhole now so might as well. Lung cancer sounds like a blessing at this point.”
Jon couldn’t argue with that logic. He'd been thinking along the same lines himself, having given up all hope of quitting again after Leitner's death. It’s strange; you’d think he’d avoid the habit that allowed a murder to occur right under his nose. But perhaps he continued to rely on them because, that day, the cigarettes had been the only thing under his control. Yes, he rekindled his addiction, but it was still his choice; one point of jurisdiction when the world around him was constantly spiraling, a thousand facts spilling into his head but any nugget of understanding hovering just out of reach.
Jon passed Tim a cigarette and set his own alight before holding the lighter out for Tim to take. Instead, the other man just tapped his to the end of Jon’s. The act caught the Archivist a little off guard and he stared dumbly as Tim casually placed his cigarette between his lips. He did quite well for his first smoke since university; a little coughing, but by the third inhale he was letting the smoke drift from his mouth as leisurely as a pro. It took a moment for Jon to realize he was staring and looked away, busying himself with pocketing the lighter and taking a drag of his own. If Tim had noticed the attention, he didn’t comment.
“Tim—”
“I thought I said no talking.”
“Right.” Jon sighed. “I just...I wanted to tell you I know what today is.”
Tim didn’t reply, just let the hand holding his cigarette flop limply over the rail while the other reached for his bottle of beer. He took a long swig before speaking up.
“She was too good for us, wasn’t she, boss?”
“Yeah,” Jon murmured around his cigarette in agreement.
“Too good for this fucked up world.” His voice was level, steady, almost the smooth honey Jon had always pictured when Tim used to talk. But the oozing sweetness was ruined by a gravely undertone that hung in his throat. It felt like foreshadowing. Foreshadowing what, John couldn't say; curse the Eye and its lack of prophecy.
“We went dancing.”
“Hm?”
“Sasha’s birthday, my first year here. We went dancing, you, me, and her.”
“...You remember?” Jon asked quietly.
Tim barked a humorless laugh and Jon watched the smoke from his lips catch on the breeze as it rustled an invisible hand through Tim’s hair and then Jon’s, tossing some strands out of place on both their heads. Neither much cared. “No. Not really.”
When a moment passed and he didn’t elaborate, Jon began to press lightly. “Then how do you—”
“No, no questions.”
“Right. Sorry.”
Jon focused his eyes forward again, watching the sun move centimeter by slow centimeter down to kiss the London skyline. It was truly a gorgeous sight and Jon wished he could enjoy it like he used to, leaning out of his tiny apartment’s balcony. Sasha would have liked it. Probably.
Tim let out a long sigh beside him before thrusting his hand into Jon’s line of vision. Tight in his grip was a polaroid picture. “Found it the other day when I was going through my stuff.”
Jon instinctively reached for it, but Tim retracted his hand slightly and Jon felt a pang of guilt wrack his chest. So he studied the picture from afar.
A young woman with tan skin and long curls, bouncing in the captured moment, was mid-laugh as she kept a tipsy Jon from falling over. Tim must have taken the photo.
“Do…you remember?” Tim’s tone had taken on that of an interrogation, which, in his defense, was fair.
“I—no…no, not really.”
“Is today even her birthday, or did that thing fuck with our calendars too?”
“It’s her birthday, Tim.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do,” Jon answered simply, wishing he had a better explanation.
Tim scoffed. “Right, with that all-seeing eye of yours.”
Jon didn't reply, feeling he deserved that scorn. The wind whistled in his ears and he put his cigarette to his lips again.
“She really loved you, you know.”
Jon choked on the smoke caught throat and his cigarette just about fell out of his mouth before he grabbed it, hacking wildly for a moment. Finally, he was able to inhale. “W-What?”
Tim paid no mind to the coughing fit. “Sasha talked about you all the time, about the old days when it was just you and her in research. Before me,” he addressed himself with such bitterness, it pulled at Jon’s heart. “Before Martin. Before the Archives.”
“Oh….how do you—”
Tim guessed Jon’s question before he could finish. “I can’t remember her but...I remember the way she made me feel. And…I was always happy when she rambled because it made her happy.”
“Oh. Yes, I...I suppose I remember that too.”
“Your patron saint the Eye can’t hand it’s ‘special little boy’ that information?”
“It’s not that simple, Tim.”
“I’m sure it’s not,” he growled. Another swig for alcohol. There was a long silence before Tim spoke again, softer this time. “Have you tried?” There was a hidden desperation in the simple question, the tip of an iceberg of hurt beginning to melt.
“Well...” Yes. "No. I suppose not.”
“Of course not,” Tim scoffed. He wasn’t buying it.
“Alright I did. Once.” Many times.
Tim just looked at him.
“…Many times. But they…” Jon gestured with his hands trying to find the words. “None of them were…pleasant experiences.”
“Right.” Tim sounded defeated.
“I could try again?” Jon offered.
“Don’t hurt yourself, Jon.” Now Tim sounded neither concerned, nor condescending; just tired.
“I won’t, but I...I only had the tapes last time. Now...” his eyes drifted down to Tim’s hand and back up to his eyes. When had Tim’s eyes grown so dull? They used to be bright enough to light up a room. Jon held out a hand. A question. No compelling words necessary.
Tim considered Jon for a moment before glancing down at the polaroid. “Will it damage the photo?” He spoke quietly, sounding ashamed of the question, like he shouldn’t be so concerned. Jon understood completely.
“No, it shouldn’t. It’d just be...a reference. Something to visualize, put a face to the recordings.”
After another moment of hesitation, Tim gingerly handed over the photo and Jon took it with matched carefulness. Despite the care put into the trade, Jon’s fingers brushed against Tim’s for a moment and he realized it’d been years since he’d had any physical contact with him. Or any of his coworkers, for that matter. Jon was never a very tactile person, but he often enjoyed a hug every now and then from one of his friends (peers?) More often than he’d admit. Perhaps his growing number of scars was to blame for the distance he now kept.
Jon discarded his cigarette on the rail to his side and gripped the photo with both hands. He willed with all his might for it to work this time, not for himself, but for Tim. Jon didn’t deserve to remember Sasha; he’s the reason everyone is having such a shitty go of things, her included. But Tim deserved it. Tim deserved to remember his best friend, his...whatever the two of them had been towards the end.
As that familiar buzz filled Jon’s head like a swarm of bees, he shut his eyes, silently praying for a memory, a moment, an image, a flash, anything.
~~~
The first thing Jon heard was Tim’s laughter. Light and jovial, the way it used to be. The setting slowly came into focus around Jon: The Research breakroom. A memory it is.
“Come to join us, Jon?” That was Tim. He was smiling brightly at his coworker, skin free of worm scars. Next to him was a woman.
“Are you…dancing?” Jon asked. He could hear his own voice, a mix of disdain and hidden curiosity.
“Dancing? In the Archives?” Tim mocked. “What a scandal.”
The woman sighed. “I made the mistake of telling Tim I knew how to waltz and he wouldn’t stop pestering me until I showed him.”
Sasha. That was her.
Jon’s eyes drifted the length of her body, drinking in ever detail; the singular curl escaping her up-do, the wrinkle near the bottom of her skirt, the black ring on her right middle finger that matched his; they’d bought them together. After a moment he realized she was still talking.
“—but someone’s got two left feet.”
“I’m improving!” Tim insisted.
She raised an eyebrow. “Sure, you are.”
“Well, uh, enjoy your waltz,” Jon said. He could feel his body turn away, back towards his office door and worry rose in him. This snippet could not be all the Eye was willing to give him.
“You sure you don’t want to join us?” There was the smooth voice that made Jon blush; amber honey, without a hint of despair.
Jon turned back to them and smiled despite himself. “I can’t dance.”
“We both know that’s a lie,” Sasha said, giving him a knowing look. “We have frequented many-a-bars together Jonathan Sims and you are a sight to behold on the dancefloor,” she declared loftily. Jon willed his cheeks not to flush, not that he could control his past body. “Besides,” she added, “If Tim can dance, anyone can dance.” She giggled as Tim elbowed her in mock annoyance.
“Hey!”
“I’m sorry! You’re terrible!”
John interrupted their bickering. “Thank you for the invitation, but I’m—”
“Come on Jon, it’s fun!”
“Sasha—”
“Jon.” Sasha turned to him fully with her hands on her hips and a no-nonsense look in her eyes. They engaged in a bit of a staring contest before she extended a hand towards him and Jon capitulated, stumbling a bit as Sasha pulled him towards her.
Jon was hyper-aware of how close they were standing. She smelled like lavender and vanilla.
“I’ll lead, alright?”
Jon nodded dumbly.
Sasha took his hands gently, eyes on Jon’s to ask silent permission. He nodded in reply. Sasha knew Jon didn’t like unexpected or intimate physical contact initiated by someone else, and had always taken care with him: she took her time whenever they interacted and let Jon pull away if he wanted to. But he felt comfortable in Sasha’s protection. She guided his left hand to her shoulder before slipping her own hand under that arm and extending his other hand in hers. She took a step closer, rolling her shoulders back so the inches of height she had on Jon were on full display. Her breath warmed his nose.
“Straighten up,” Sasha instructed, patting Jon’s back lightly.
“He could never,” Tim interjected cheekily and Jon blushed as he lifted his sternum so he was as close to eye-level with Sasha as he could be. He was starting to regret sharing the fact he swung both ways with Tim.
“Oh hush,” Sasha scolded over her shoulder, despite her smile. “Start the music, Tim, will you?”
“Yes ma’am.”
Sasha began to count as she moved Jon through the steps. “One…two…three.”
“This is ridiculous…” he grumbled.
Sasha ignored him. “One, two, three; one, two, three; one—”
Jon felt extremely stupid. Like when someone starts swinging their cat around and calling it “dancing.” His body was not built for fluid motion, not like Sasha’s. Time seemed to slow just looking at her; her hair floated up around her with each step and her eyes seemed to smile at him. It was hypnotizing.
For one moment Tim made eye contact with Jon over Sasha’s shoulder. He grinned, winked, and cupped his hands around his mouth.
“A natural!”
When the music came to an end Sasha squeezed Jon’s hand and stepped back to give him a formal curtsy. He bowed awkwardly and she giggled.
“I guess I’m being replaced then,” Tim said.
Sasha hummed her way back over to Tim. “Now Tim, Jon could never replace you.” She patted one hand against his broad chest and kissed the air by his cheek. “He’s way better.”
Tim’s eyes widened and he grabbed Sasha’s hand before she could move it, pressing both their hands to his heart and punctuating the entrapment with an over-dramatic gasp. “Sasha! You wound me!” Sasha simply laughed in reply and then Tim laughed and Jon laughed and then two of the voices fell away, leaving Tim’s laugh echoing in Jon’s head once again.
“Come to join us Jon?”
“Are you…dancing?”
The memory looped. Jon had never gotten this far before.
“Come on Jon!”
~~~
“Jon?” That wasn’t part of the memory.
“Tim.”
“Jon, you’ve been in there a while.” Tim sounded like he was trying to hold back concern from tainting his words.
“Do you want to see her?”
Jon heard Tim let out a shaky breath.
“W-What?”
“Do you want to see Sasha?”
“Do I…yes. Yes.”
Jon turned towards the direction he knew Tim was in and opened his eyes, connecting with Tim’s. From the expression on his face, it looked like Jon’s plan had worked.
~~~
“Straighten up.”
“He could never.”
“Oh hush.”
~~~
At some point one of Tim’s hands found Jon’s and they stood there, hands clasped around the old polaroid and braced against the railing, reliving a moment lost to both their minds again and again. Finally Jon couldn’t keep it going any longer; the hum in his head had grown staticky and too loud to hear Tim or Sasha, barely even himself. As the scene fizzled out around him, so did the memory of Sasha, of her curls and her skirt and her ring…did Sasha wear rings?
“I’m losing her.” Tim’s voice was deadly quiet but deafening against the backdrop of only whistling wind that replaced the laughter and banter and static.
Jon didn’t dare make a sound any louder than him. “Me too.”
Tim was the first to turn away, already leaning over the rail again before Jon’s vision could focus on him. But Tim looked smaller, somehow, as he stared at the empty alleyway below, head down and shoulders hunched. It took a moment for Jon to notice his eyes were squeezed shut.
“Tim?”
He clenched one hand into a fist in response, slamming it against the rail.
“Damnit, Jon!”
“I-I’m sorry, I thought this was what you wanted!” Jon stammered nervously. He took a step back, feeling guilty about how ready he was to bolt if Tim erupted. Was this how friends acted?
“It was!” Tim finally looks at Jon and there’s an ocean behind his eyes, threatening to spill down his face in two angry waterfalls. “It was and now she’s gone again and I don’t know what to do all over again.”
“I…” Jon didn’t know what to say. He couldn’t remember a time Tim had been so expressive towards him; the Archivist had always been notoriously bad with emotions. “I’m sorry.”
Tim just stared at him before turning back to the rail, eye closed again and voice much quieter. “I know you are.”
“I’m sorry,” Jon repeated quickly, then he realized he’d already said that. “I’ll uh…I think I’ll leave you alone.”
“Wait.”
“Tim—”
“Don’t go. Please.” Tim’s voice was scratchy and hoarse, like the words had clawed themselves out of his throat against his better judgment. Jon paused in his retreat.
“Thank you.”
"I—...you’re welcome,” Jon said slowly. The gratitude felt bitter on his tongue; he didn’t deserve thanks, least of all from Tim.
Tim didn’t look at Jon when he proffered his half-empty bottle. Jon stared at it for a moment, waiting for Tim to change his mind, to rescind the unexpected peace offering, but he didn’t. The olive branch remained outstretched. So Jon took the bottle and a different world fizzled into focus around him, unprompted this time.
~~~
Jon had one leg tucked under the other which lay across one of Martin’s thighs. His back was against Sasha’s whose hands held Tim’s head in her lap, stroking his hair as he told the same joke for the 100th time and they all laughed the same way they had at the first 99 attempts. Martin sipped as daintily as he could in his inebriated state from a near-empty bottle of beer before passing it to Jon.
That night they’d been sprawled across Tim’s living room floor, completely wasted. Jon rarely let himself get drunk, let alone with a new coworker, but after Sasha was so insistent on celebrating his promotion despite the fact that she obviously deserved the job that she even proffered an invite to Martin, Jon had let go of himself a bit and really had fun.
The headache that pummeled his head the next day would inform him he probably had too much fun.
But it was fun. They’d spent the first half of the night at a bar getting shitfaced before stumbling all the way to Tim’s place. Jon was surprised they all made it there in one piece, but they managed.
While Martin and Tim made themselves at home on the floor with a shared bottle between them, Sasha had grabbed Tim’s CD player and found something to dance to. It was not classical music by any stretch of the imagination, but that didn’t stop her from pulling Jon off the couch and leading him through what could vaguely be considered the steps of a waltz, if they hadn’t been tripping over each other’s feet and laughing the entire time. After a few rotten attempts landed them on top of Martin or Tim or both, they ended up joining their friends in a heap of drunken giggles on the floor. When the laughter finally dissolved, Sasha extracted herself from the pile and grabbed Tim’s drink, taking a long swig before handing it back to him who gulped down a bit and passed it to Martin, thus beginning their circle of drinking.
Jon tightened his grip on the bottle so it wouldn’t slip from his shaking grasp and quickly swallowed the remaining contents, a lovely, burning mixture of whatever cheap beer Tim kept in his fridge and the saliva of his coworkers...friends?
But then, in a struggle with the last few drops of dreg, Jon tossed his head back, bashing it squarely into Sasha’s. Sasha’s reaction time was just as slow as Jon’s but when they both successfully turned their heads to stare at each other out of their respective peripheries, there was a moment of complete silence. Then Martin snorted and Sasha burst into infectious giggles that had Jon and Tim joining in, not that the latter was probably awake enough to know what happened.
“Sorry,” Jon managed to say between gasps of laughter.
Sasha sighed contentedly. “I love you Jon.” She replied easily, her head falling back against his, now using his shoulder as a pillow.
I love you. A common phrase exchanged between friends, Jon tried to remind his past self. The proper response would have been nothing at all, but the socially inept archivist’s brain had short-circuited, and he began trying to justify himself; as if ‘I love you’ was an excuse that he had nothing to ask her forgiveness for. He had so much to ask her forgiveness for. “I-I should still ap-apolo…polo…” Jon struggled with the word for a moment.
“Apologize?” Sasha suggested.
“Yes. That.” Good thing Jon’s face was already bright red from the alcohol.
Sasha tilted her head to the side and Jon followed suit. “A good dancer, and a gentleman,” she hummed, eyes sparkling. Then she pressed a messy kiss to Jon’s cheek before facing front again, leaving Jon wide-eyed and confused. “Tim, you should take notes,” she said, shoving his shoulder.
When Tim just grunted in reply, she pushed him into a sitting position so he could get them another bottle, much to his protest; but Jon didn’t hear their bickering. He was too focused on the casual kiss he’d just received. Normally Sasha would never invade his personal privacy bubble like that and Jon knew she wasn’t one to hand out kisses for free either. Tim begged her for months before she gave him a peck on the cheek on his third attempt at catching her under mistletoe this past Christmas. But they were both very drunk. Maybe that was all it was; a drunk, platonic, kiss. Those happen all the time, right? Jon’ brain was too sloshed to figure it out; he’d think too hard about it tomorrow once the hangover wore off. Right now, he'd deny if you pointed out how much his face hurt for the rest of the night from smiling.
~~~
John tossed back a fair amount of what was left of Tim’s beer, falling into place beside his old friend again. Tim didn’t ask for the bottle back so Jon gripped the glass tight, focusing on how it felt in his worn hands. How Sasha’s kiss had felt on his cheek. What color was the lipstick stain he’d stared at in the loo mirror for an hour?
He took another long drink, gulping down the dark liquid and it set his throat alight. He couldn’t help but think the glass bottle’s emptiness was the true tragedy of the day and wished Tim had another on him. Jon was too sober for all this.
“I really miss her, Tim.”
“Yeah.” Tim didn’t look at him, but there was an unspoken understanding between them, a mutual love for a person long forgotten but never quite gone. “Me too.”
Sasha James’ birthday was June 11th. Jonathan Sims “celebrated” with Timothy Stoker on the Magnus Institute fire escape. It hadn’t been his plan, but maybe, wherever Sasha was, she’d seen her boys get along for a moment the way they used to. And maybe their awkward dance had been the best birthday gift Jon could’ve given her.