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Living in the manor, the weirdly well kept place that it is, is a strange feeling. Ghosts and demons and zombies and whatever the hell most proxies are (because proxies like Kate and Jeff aren’t zombies nor are they demons, nobody really knows what they actually are) roam this place. Just co-existing because it’s honestly easier than constantly fighting each other.
Missions are the normal.
Stakeouts are common because new recruits are being scouted or they need to figure out the schedule of somebody that’s getting too nosy (funny that the entity that stalked them all hates being stalked).
Hence why in the freezing cold of December, Tim and Toby are stuck in a beat up jeep, scouting some idiot that’s getting too close to exposing Slenderman to the world.
Properly.
Tim was sat out in the van with the window rolled down fully, cigarette between his middle and pointer finger as usual. Toby’s sat next to him in the passenger, tapping his foot impatiently.
The snow is thick, and the temperature gauge in the car reads -36 outside. The kind of weather you bundle up and hence why the heater is blasting at full to keep the car a bearable temperature for them. Though with the way the window is cracked open it’s doing fuck all to actually keep either of the men very warm.
Toby’s head jerks to the side, the popping sound breaking the fragile silence between them.
”Do you ever shut up?” Tim asks, voice rough from the cold and the cigarette. His eyes dart to the younger proxy besides him before bringing the cigarette between his lips to take a deep drag to soothe the irritation building in his gut.
”It’s my tics,” Toby hisses, rolling his eyes so hard it looked like it almost hurt. If he could feel pain he might have flinched, but whatever deity is out there decided that him not being able to feeling pain would just be thrown into the mix.
A lovely cocktail of problems as if having an alcoholic and abusive father wasn’t enough of a shit show. “You know, my medical c-con-condition.”
The irritation was there, barely disguised because Toby’s never really been good at hiding his emotions, nor probably expressing them. ‘Thanks dad’ is probably what his, rightfully, bitter thoughts would spit.
”I have a medical condition.” Tim mutters around the cigarette. The smoke fills his mouth for a few breathes, it burns the back of his throat. A reminder that he’s still alive.
He doesn’t sound too confident about his statement though. Sure, his diagnosis as a child put him down a schizophrenic but when everything started unraveling around Alex’s stupid film project… he’s not so sure that the hallucinations and blackouts are actually because of schizophrenia.
Though he tries not to think about it.
Toby doesn’t snap back. He’s seen the pill bottles, seen the receipts, even glanced over a medical file EJ once left out by accident. Nosy, sure, but he likes minding other people’s business sometimes. Especially Tim’s.
He breathes through his nose, a slow exhale. The cold air bites at his nose, there’s a sensation there, something he’d assume would be a tiny stinging feeling from the cold leaking in through the open window.
”Heater’s useless if you’re gonna keep that window open,” He scoffs, tapping his fingers against the dashboard. His eyes look at the house they’ve been watching for a few days, view blocked by his own hair. A small reminder that he needs it cutting soon. Just routine management.
Tim glanced over. He has the kind of face that reads full of annoyance, because even though he’s cold his craving for tobacco overrides that.
Addictions.
What a cruel thing.
With a heavy sigh, the cigarette’s thrown into the thick pile of snow outside. It melts the snow around it for a brief second before the water snuffs it out for good.
The window rolls up with that distinctive sound and Tim looks over, “Happy?”
”Very.” Tony mutters, still staring at the house. His arm jerks, in the involuntary motion makes his smack his hand off the centre console of the car where the map is still displayed. He swears, pulling his arms back and stuff them inside his pockets.
Again, the silence stretches. Long, tense, awkward in the way that hints at something having happened between the driver and passenger.
”You’re angry with me.” Tim says. Not inquires or suggests, states. Because as much as he’d like to deny it, he knows Toby, from something as mundane as his morning routine to the way his skin tastes.
Toby stays silent, eyes still locked forward.
”Toby.” He tries again, but gets nothing. “Erin.” Toby’s mouth twitches in annoyance, he hates being called his last name. “Erin.” Tim repeats.
”Don’t call me that.” The hatchet-wielder hisses, lifting his sleeve to wipe at the gash in his cheek. Just to remove some saliva.
”You’re angry with me.” It’s repeated, plain, simple and out in the open. Acknowledgement.
Eventually, Toby turns his head to his right, tilting his head in a way that means most of his hair is out of the way of his face, his eyes. The eyes that are hollow with the mental impact of years of abuse and mind-control and desensitisation towards the act of taking a life like it was his birth right. But those same eyes have that lingering edge of annoyance.
“You get dumb, you know, when you get drunk,” Toby scoffs, turning away again like he can’t face the colleague he’s worked with for an unspecified amount of time. “Real fucking d-dumb.”
Tim pauses, thinking. He gets dumb when drunk, oh that’s something Brian has recorded and stashed on tapes he’s yet to find.
For a moment, he wants to laugh, tell Toby to just spit it out. Then it clicks, a dumb small get to together, and maybe he made out with somebody. Drunken action, that’s all.
He watches the other, watches him twitch and swear and whistle under his breath. The involuntary movements he’s come to get use to.
”We’re not dating.” Tim said.
”Really?” Toby asks.
”Really.” Tim confirms. “Don’t tell me you’re suddenly getting jealous.” It’s almost laughable to him, sure they’ve gotten raw, intimate and knowledgeable about each other, about their bodies, but that doesn’t mean shit.
They don’t mushy labels like Jack and Nina, or Jane and Mary. Then again those relationships are actually quite healthy.
“… No,” Toby mutters, pulling the door handle and pushing it open. Snow crunches underneath his boots and he grabs his hatchets from the footwell. Barely glancing back at Tim. “Keep a look out.”
The door slams shut with a loud thud, and Tim watches Toby walk off. Of course his eyes can’t help but wander down to the way he wears tight-fitting jeans. It’s sick, almost perverted, and he knows that he’s pissed off because he made out with somebody else but jealousy’s a hot look, right?
Or maybe he’s just sick in the mind. Actually that makes a lot of sense.
———•
A hunt has thrill, usually, it’s what makes a predator’s blood sing with adrenaline. Toby can feel the buzzing beneath his skin, a low hum that makes his heart beat a little faster as he slowly walks through this house.
It’s fancy, rich in the way that’s obvious and meant to be a subtle brag to anybody that doesn’t meet that level of wealth. The kind of people that would have looked down on people like Toby all his life live here, and the daughter of the house owner made the mistake of trying to find proof that the Slenderman exists. That had infuriated (not that the irony was lost on any proxy) that he was being watched, documented. You’d think a mouth less entity couldn’t yell like a drill sergeant but everything seems possible in that manor.
As he passes through the corridors, he can’t help but brush the frames of some paintings. Occasionally he twitches, jerks, knocks something slightly off, but he thinks it’s a little funny. A house so prim and proper that even the pains need to so perfectly straight. It’s basically the nightmare of an OCD haver.
It takes 5 minutes before Toby reaches the bedroom, inside there’s a girl laid fast asleep on the queen sized bed. Though his eyes don’t see the target, they see that person, the one he saw Tim making out with at the party.
A cruel trick of his brain. That girl had been one of Offender’s surprisingly willing playthings, hell that degenerate probably already fed her to whatever monsters roamed close enough to that sex dungeon like house. Toys don’t last with Offender, they used and discarded like rubbish.
The hatchet makes a sickening, though to Toby it’s almost like the satisfying crunch of a crisp breaking, crack against the girl’s skull. No time to scream, no time to even process that she was about to be met with the sharp blade of a hatchet.
Blood leaks immediately, splattering across the pillow, hair and face of the nameless victim. Streaks of gorgeous blond hair quickly become a deep, rich crimson, moving down the fine strands like a morbid river.
And Toby? He just stares for a moment. Not in fascination, just taking in this act, the face of that toy fades away and this girl’s face remains, though it doesn’t change anything about his detachment. Just another target the boss wanted dead. Then he yanks the hatchet but it staggers, lodged, and he presses his foot against the girl’s side, pinning the corpse down as he continues to yank.
The body lurches at the force, head dragged up and body pressed down. Two opposite forces acting upon each other as more blood gushes out with each tug at the weapon. But finally it un-lodges, leaving the gaping hole in the skull.
”God,” Toby breathes, wiping the blade of his hatch on the covers. “Helen would love you as a refill.”
He chuckles at his own joke, even debates spending Helen a message just to let him know there’s somebody to refill his paint cans. Then again, he’s probably got multiple bodies strung up like dead pigs, throats slit and bleeding dry into buckets in that warehouse of his. So ultimately he decides against it. Instead he just makes his way back through the house, grabbing a couple more valuable looking items to pawn off later to get some cash under his belt. It’s never a bad thing.
———•
Tim had been scrolling on his phone for the better part of this kill, after he realised of course that Toby had actually walked off in a mood. He knows better than to piss off him.
He’s watched Jeff get beaten within an inch of his life. As deserved as it was. Toby’s lean but he’s got force behind him.
He honestly didn’t even realised Toby returned until he literally slammed the door after sliding into the passenger seat. And then he could feel that scrutinising glare at him.
”Who you—“ Tim didn’t let him finish and just tossed his phone into Toby’s lap. A random word search app on full screen already half completed. It stopped Toby from continuing his original jab, his jealousy had made him automatically assume Tim was texting someone else. But no, just a game. “Whatever.”
Tim didn’t acknowledge the quiet mutter. It was what the other did when he realised that he was wrong because his resentment thought for him instead of his logical brain.
The engine kicks to life with a low rumble, and the hand break lowers, unlocking and allowing the gas to be kicked off. Thank God they had a proper truck to combat the awful heavy winter months, made things a whole lot better.
Silence sits for about 3 minutes and 21 seconds before Toby whole body seems to jolt, and in a fit of frustration he reaches over to the radio. He tries to simply press the button but his hands are shaky and he almost jabs the button. Some cheesy romance song starts playing, an old classic, something you’d probably hear in a 50s romance film. The ones that made it seem like every marriage was perfect and wives didn’t knocked around.
”R-Ro— Fuck! Romantic!” Toby snaps, fist thumping against his own thigh. But he takes a breath, in for 3 seconds and out for 3. He was trying to make a joke.
”Very romantic,” Tim murmurs, pressing down the accelerator as the car pulls from the private road onto the main road, immediately shifting up a gear. “Fits tonight’s mood perfectly.”
A murder date sounds insane to a normal person because they’re the opposite, sane. But frankly it’s basically all they can get as a date, they don’t leave that plane of existence that supernaturals thrive in. There’s no cute cafés or diners to have a decent meal in, bit of a shame really, people should really capitalise on that! Love and lust can drag people places they wouldn’t usually go.
But of course they’re just being silly. Messing around. All you can do when you work for a faceless entity with anger and family issues.
Yes, even powerful supernatural entities can have familial struggles.
———•
The car pulls up with a slight screech, both doors pop open and shut in an exact methodical manner. Same time and everything, unplanned coordination but that fits Tim and Toby down to a wire.
”Sleep.” Tim states, firm and unapologetic in its order like structure.
”With Smile Dog scratching at my door?” Toby asks, trailing shortly behind Tim. For weeks now that demented dog has been scratching at his door.
”You’re grown sleep through it.” He shrugs.
”Asshole.” He scoffs.