#hoh tim

Tim doesn’t remember how to be friends.  

The was never the one…  He could fake it… once.  Or maybe he really was like that.  Was he ever as friendly as people seemed to think?  Was he just filling a roll?  Covering for his hurt?  Where does the facade end?

It doesn’t help matters that this is Jon.  Jon.  How can he rebuild bridges long set on fire then torn down then had both sides bricked over and a cemetery developed between the halves.  

Sat on opposite ends of the couch in the quiet of a London flat.  

The distance of a few handspans may as well be a journey of a thousand steps.  

It may as well be made of pages of misdeeds, or the longest novels written stacked end to end and must be read to cross.  

Why is he even here?  

It was fine when he… what did he even think?  

That Jon had gone full monster?  That he intentionally ended the world?  That he died trying to prevent whatever the fuck that was?  That he simply died years before, maybe when Tim supposedly had.  He doesn’t know what he thought but he had deniability, for whatever that was worth.  

Jon keeps opening his mouth, as if to speak, but shuts it tightly every time.  

This isn’t the first attempt.  Nor is it the second.  

Just… the most awkward, as hard as it was to beat the previous encounters.  

Encounter one:

Scene: the grocery store.  

Enter Tim, minding his own damn business with his headphones in.  Loud enough that he can actually hear it, even if it means just about everyone else in the store can hear it too.  Probably should be paying more attention to his surroundings as he runs into someone when he’s trying to buy peanut butter.  The someone probably says ‘oof,’ but Tim can’t hear it.  

“Sorry, mate.”  He offers a bit of an apologetic smile.  (Smiling has gotten easier, but… But not as easy as it was.)

He doesn’t plan to meet the eyes of whoever he ran into, but even he can hear the squeak when the someone, Martin, catches sight of him properly.  

“TIM?”  

Oh shit.  It’s Martin.  Martin Blackwood.  Martin K. Blackwood.  Archival assistant.  (Does he count as a one night stand if the “one night” was over two weeks on in the nightmarish magical mystery ride of the Distortion’s hallways?)  Friend?  Abomination apologist.  Friend.  …Yes, a friend who thinks Tim is very very dead.  

Martin’s shopping is on the ground, and without thinking, Tim has helped Martin to the ground and is pushing his head between his knees to stave off what is shaping up to be a panic attack.  

Tim hasn’t even paused his music.  

It’s still blaring something irritatingly of the wrong mood into his ears.  

Once Martin has his breath back, he starts signing furiously.  

And Tim has to stand back stunned at the barrage affection and anger and resentment and relief, and off balance that Martin still remembers the sign he learned for Tim. 

He leaves without his peanut butter, and with a coil of guilt deep in his gut, with nothing to curb the ringing in his ears because he can’t tolerate music right now, and an address and a number ‘only if he is ready to step on his anger and listen to Jon, for once.’  He hadn’t even gotten a word in.  He hadn’t even told him that Sasha was alive.  

Just been yelled at in a grocery store.  

Encounter two:

Scene: A Living Room, night.  

“Jon isn’t here.”  Martin tells him this before even letting him in.  “He knows you are, but he isn’t here.  He’s having dinner with some other teachers in his department.  It’s just us.”  Martin’s signing this.  

Tim is wearing his hearing aids, but Martin is signing anyhow.  Maybe it’s easier for him to get it out through that halfway-to-icy expression on his face.  Maybe it’s out of coldness, but Tim can’t help but feel a warmth deep in his chest that Martin remembered the BSL he labored over when he was assigned to the archives.  

Tim swallows hard around the hope and bitterness and anger and regret and longing.  He nods.  “Thanks for having me.”  He signs quietly.  

Martin ushers him in, and hands him a cup of tea.  It’s still hot.  It’s just how Tim takes it.  And he’s sat on a squashy couch, staring at a squashy cat who is glaring at him.  

Well.  That seems fitting.  

Cat glaring.  Martin… almost glaring.  No, not glaring.  He’s got his own tea.  And he is sipping it, giving a very chilly look to the poor wall.  

Tim takes in the photos on the wall, while avoiding Martin’s eyes.  All Polaroids.  There’s Jon and Martin in Martin’s ratty looking jumpers (ones that were significantly more new when they first met) standing in the countryside squashed together and laughing their assess off.  Jon in oversized wellies, covered in mud, facing off against a cow.  Jon standing in the shallows of a pond, looking peacefully into the distance.  Martin asleep, in a rustic bedroom, golden morning light spilling across his lax and happy face.  There is a frame containing the Litany Against Fear from Dune.  A frame with a page from Slaughterhouse Five.  …A frame with a picture of a young and unsecured Jon looking grumpy, a young and happy and probably drunk Tim with an arm slung around him, and an arm around Sasha who is giving a blushing Martin bunny ears.  That one has a place of honor.  It’s a little worn looking, but in a way that makes it clear it survived a lot… the end of the world, in fact.  

Seeing it hits Tim square in the chest.  It hurts.  

Martin finishes his tea and turns towards Tim.  

“So.”  

Tim puts his nearly cool tea down on the coffee table.  The squashy cat keeps glaring at him from an equally squashy arm chair.  He faces Martin, but can’t quite meet his eye.  Martin is waiting for him to talk.  

“Didn’t die.  Thought I would.  Thought I had.  Didn’t.  Walked away.  Got a job.  I… I uh.  Found Sasha.  Stranger had fucked her up pretty badly, so don’t be mad at her for not calling, she had a lot of trouble remembering and being remembered.  Survived the apocalypse.  Got on with life, or tried to.  Got some therapy.”

He braces himself for the impact.  He’s mentioned Sasha over text, but still.  Not to mention, it’s all a lot.  

Martin’s jaw tightens.  

“Thought you could just, let me think you died?  Tim, the only person who came back from the Unknowing was Basira.  The only one.  Call me selfish, but you died, Jon essentially died, we thought Daisy had died.  Then my mother died too.  I know you had your head up your ass, but do you know what that did to me?  Yeah, sure, great, you got out.  Whoop-de-fucking-do.  You could have called.  Or texted.  Or sent a letter.  Anything!  And you know what?  Partly it was a relief, because at least I thought you were happy.  Or at peace.  Or at the very least you wouldn’t be there to harass Jon anymore.  But you all died.  It was just me.  Everyone I cared about was dead.  Six month Jon was dead.  And no, don’t you dare get on Jon’s case about that.  He mourned you.  He still is mourning you.  He’s been walking on air since you and Sasha…  Tim, I swear, if you hurt him… If you hurt him again, you will regret it.  You will only see him if you are ready to listen.  You don’t have to forgive, but you are not allowed to be cruel.”  

Tim doesn’t have a single doubt.  “I…  I’ve missed him.  I’m sorry.”  

“No yelling, no grabbing, no sudden movements, nothing passive aggressive.  And I will be in the next room and so help me, if you scare him…”

Martin lets the threat hang.  

It hurts.  It isn’t anything he’s ever gotten from Martin.  Didn’t think Martin had enough of a spine for it.  …But.  But he guesses when everyone dies(? he has a lot of questions, but it doesn’t look like Martin is in the right headspace to answer them, and Tim might not be either.  His breathing is uneven and his face is hot and he isn’t sure if he wants to break something or cry or scream or maybe just repaint his and Sasha’s home all in one go.)…  Well… he doesn’t have to guess.  He knows exactly what that can do to a person.  And it isn’t pretty.  He feels the guilt coiling again.  He wants to tear it out and stomp on it.  But… but he guesses, the guilt can guide him.  He needs to do right by the people that used to be his friends.  The people he’s missed every day since he got his head on straight with extensive therapy and a variety of coping mechanisms.  

The scene: The same squashy couch, in the same quiet flat.  

The squashy cat is in Jon’s lap.  The cat is glaring, and Jon is staring at him with those giant, hopeful, tired, guilty eyes.  Haunted and rimmed in shadow, as ever.  

He knows Martin is in the next room, ready to step in if he needs to.  

Sasha is at work.  Tim wishes she wasn’t.  

Got injured on the job.  Nothing serious, just has some colorful bruising, but it was enough that his supervisor took him off work for a couple days.  Which is just as well because he’s at the start of what promises to be a deeply irritating migraine.  He’s propped some medicine for that, but now there’s nothing more left to do than just lay here in the dark bedroom and wait it out.  

No one expects migraines to be boring.  

Everyone he’s ever talked to looks surprised that what Tim complains about is the boredom.  Not the pain.  Not the nausea.  Well, those suck ass too, but it’s just so goddamned dull.  

Oh yes the thrilling adventures of Tim.  Can he eat the applesauce without getting sick?  Can he tolerate the walk to the shower to take cold shower which could take the edge off the pain?  Can he just sit here and do absolutely nothing?  

Just those fun every day adventures.  

Can’t even drown out the sound of his damaged eardrums.  So he has to deal with the irritating whine of his fucked up ears but can’t put in his hearing aids because then everything else would be too loud.  And of course, he can’t listen to anything because either he can’t hear anything or it’s too loud and hurts his head more.  

Can’t play games or scroll through facebook or twitter or Instagram or tumblr or bother Jon in between his classes, because he can’t look at his stupid phone because his stupid eyes can’t tolerate that.  

He wishes Sasha were here, but there isn’t anything she could do, then she would be bored too.  

Which just leaves his own stupid thoughts.  

His loud, angry, guilt ridden thoughts.  

Just the usual spiral that keeps him from sleeping some nights.  That has caused the rapid color changes of their home an embarrassing number of times.  At least Sasha hadn’t minded.  Hasn’t minded so far.  She likes helping him paint when Tim is okay with company.  When her own brain starts doing her wrong.  

He should have expected Jon to drop by.  Should have expected Sasha to text him and Martin.  He knows Jon worries.  Martin too.  Honestly, before this all, he would have expected Martin to fret more, but after everything, Jon was the one who wanted to reach out, and Martin was the one who was wary.  (Martin has forgiven him, but Tim hasn’t forgotten the distrust and betrayal on his face when they first encountered each other after Tim’s presumed death.  It was cut with joy and disbelief, but it was enough to leave Tim feeling cold).  

But Jon.  Jon so eager to rebuild.  Even if it took several false starts and panic attacks.  Jon had been trying to reach out since after Sash…  But Tim had kept pushing him back.  

Until his unglamorous return to their lives.  

In any case.  Jon lets himself in.  Well, Tim assumes he did, because he sure as hell didn’t open the door.  And he is fairly certain it’s Jon, because Sasha is at work and he knows for certain that Martin is working, and of course Jon basically shouting his name and barreling through the bedroom door is a good indication.  

It’s Tim’s room.  Usually he and Sasha share, but they do have their separate rooms.  Sasha spends most of the time in his, because she is still working on decorations that tether her.  No matter how hard she tries, she keeps getting lost in the generic adult bedroom that looks like it came out of a stock photo.  Something that is decidedly not good for her psyche.  Tim has tried to help, but both he and Sasha are still trying to put together fractured memories of who she is.  It’s like trying to pick out the features from a water-stained and sun bleached photograph that you once took a long look at a couple years back and are now trying to recreate using finger paints.  It’s hard.  Sometimes he thinks he has a good memory and is talented enough to paint it, but sometimes he feels like a chimp painting with his feet.  

In any case.  Tim’s bedroom.  Dark and cool.  Then bright and frenzied.  

Tim lets out a pained moan.  It’s just the light from outside the room, but it’s too much.  And it’s just Jon’s nervous energy and frantic shouting, but it’s too much movement, even if his shitty hearing lends him the small mercy of it not being too loud.  Well, certainly not loud enough to overtake the constant ringing in his ears.  

To just about anyone else, that would be cause for worry and lights turned on and maybe a hospital if Tim can’t find the words through the haze of pain and the nausea to assure the worrier that this is fine, it happens, nothing to worry about.  Just boring and irritating.  

And even though this hurts and is too much and it’s making his skin prickle and bringing him almost to tears, at least it’s something different.   So he doesn’t get too lost in how much he regrets.  How much he wants to forget.  How much he will never be forgiven, and for all he can’t forgive himself.  Angry, guilt, still the phantom feelings of being trapped and having to remind himself that the Institute is long gone.  

But Jon.  Wonderful Jon.  Understanding Jon.  Jon, who also gets frequent migraines.  Both from stress and from the remnants of the Eye.  Jon is the one here.  Jon who recognizes that hiss of pain.  Jon is the one who is here.  Jon, who closes the door as swiftly and quietly as he can.  

Tim can’t hear Jon trying to fight of the panic of not knowing where his friend was, but hw knows it anyhow.  He can imagine Jon fighting off the dizziness, and at least partly failing as Tim watches him sink to the ground.  At least it’s a controlled decent.  Tim can’t sit up to check if Jon is actually unconscious, but since he was aware enough to get himself down, Tim can trust that he hasn’t hurt himself.  Just needs to get his blood pressure under control.  

He wishes he could help get Jon’s feet up and get him some lucozade, but Tim doesn’t even have it in him to get himself some lucozade.  

Tim ought to get his hearing aids so he can actually talk to Jon.  

Or maybe he should just wait until Jon is with it enough to lay down next to him so they can sign.  

He doesn’t have to wait long.  Tim doesn’t really know how much time has passed, but it doesn’t feel long before Jon is crawling up next to him.  

Which warms Tim’s heart because Jon feels welcome.  And safe enough to crawl into his bed without asking.  He doesn’t touch not until he gets permission, and he is gentle so he doesn’t jostle Tim.  

Tim rolls onto his side, with effort.  It hurts, and he bites back another groan.  

Jon rolls to face him.  So Tim can see his hands, in the very dim light.  Just a bit coming from under the door.  Just enough to make out some light signing.  

“Sasha said you were hurt.  Why didn’t you tell us?”  Jon signs slowly.  So Tim doesn’t have to think too fast and so he can track the movements in the almost darkness.  

“Just some bruises.  Didn’t want to worry you.”  Tim signs back.  His arms feel heavy and clumsy.  He really isn’t in much pain.  It just looks bad.  Jon, of all people, should understand.  “I swear it isn’t as bad as it looks.”  

“How would I know?  I haven’t seen it.”  Tim can almost taste the dry tone, even if he can’t see Jon’s face.  

“Maybe later.  Can’t deal with light.”  Tim signs apologetically.  Well.  As apologetically he can without a visible expression.  

“Yeah.  I know.  Explains why you haven’t been answering your texts.”  

“Sorry.  Didn’t mean to worry you.  I swear I’m barely hurt.  Just got a little knocked around.  Just a little sore, and got some bruising.  If not for the migraine, I would be ready to go on an overnight hike or two.”

“I’ll be the judge of that later.  Also I brought food.”  Jon signs abruptly.  

Tim bites back a smile.  Jon is always a little abrupt and awkward.  It’s just so very him.  Tim’s feeling pretty exposed, as it is, and it’s… it’s good to have friends.  

“Made it after my classes.  Got some grading to do, but I don’t have to go back in.”  

Jon’s way of telling him that he’s not going to escape the fussing.  Probably serves Tim right for all the times he’s babysat a sick Jon while Martin was out.  

“Thanks, Jon.  Doubt I can eat much now, but later…”  

“Can I get you anything?  I can get you some more meds?  Water?  Lucozade?  Ginger tea?”  Jon asks earnestly.  

Tim considers.  “How about you get me some ginger tea, and you get yourself some lucozade.  Then text Martin and tell him he can come to dinner.  You two can keep Sasha company this evening and, for now, you are welcome to keep me company or leave me to whither while you get some grading done.  It’s not imposing.  It’s… I’m glad you came.  Thank you.”  

“It’s no trouble.  And… and you want me to keep you company?  I wouldn’t be …bothering you.”  

“‘Course not.  Migraines are painful and boring.  Come and cuddle.  Besides.  You always look like you could use a nap.”  

Jon ducks his head, probably to hide a smile.  

Jon returns with tea and sports drink, gently gets himself into the bed, and tucks himself up next to Tim.  He puts on a podcast so he doesn’t get bored.  And he holds his friend.  

The day after the Buried, it doesn’t even occur to Tim that he should be hungry.  He hasn’t needed to eat in so long that he simply forgets.  Just downs glass after glass of water in the break room after a shower that lasts far longer than the meager supply of hot water.  He can’t be fucked that Daisy and Jon still need to wash the muck off.  At least Daisy has somewhere to go, Basira is hovering around, ready to ferry her out of this hell archive.  

Of course, it’s his own fault that he doesn’t have a flat.  

He supposes he owes Jon.  Or something.  

He doesn’t care.  

He’s still angry.  And tired and filthy and depressed.  The only thing the buried did was keep him from dying.  Hell of a suicide watch to be on.  

Sometimes when he closed his eyes down there, he could believe it was Jon or Martin lying on him.  Keeping his fingers from itching to do harm…  Well, almost, anyhow.  

After that, he sleeps.  And sleeps.  

And, well, after that.  He feels like shit.  

Complete shit. 

When he was a teen with soup for brains, Danny got sick.  A bad flu, but he couldn’t keep anything down for three days.  Three days of foisting broths and lucozade on his brother with little success.  Should have been taken to hospital, by all rights, but their mother didn’t really believe in the whole modern medicine thing, and well.  Dad was away, so Tim couldn’t even get Danny to an adult who could help, even if he didn’t give a damn.  It had been awful.  

He really thought his little brother was dying.  Cracked and dry lips, fever so high that he wasn’t coherent.  Three days he sat vigil.  Praying to a god he barely believed in.  

A fever that scooped out his brother until he was praying for a breathing corpse.  Giving oblations of thin liquid.  

On the third day, his eyes opened and he stroked Tim’s hand, as Tim shook with exhaustion by his bedside.  He had to be propped up to sip at his broth, but it was far better than trickling it down his unconscious baby brother’s throat.  

Pure helplessness.  Both in empathy for his brother, who was probably having a worse time than Tim, and because he was next to useless.  

Three days and Tim can’t keep down food.  Gave up trying.  Just shivers on the cot, gazing nearly sightlessly at the ceiling, muscles too wasted to move.  He doesn’t know if anyone notices that he’s gone.  He hasn’t heard any word from Martin.  Basira and Daisy fucked off days ago, as far as Tim can reckon.  Then again, he doesn’t have so much as a working phone.  He doesn’t even know if it’s been three days or thirty.  

His skin feels hot and tight.  Like the Buried is taking a new approach to suffocating him.  A dreadful thirst clawing at him, but he doesn’t have the strength to stand and get water anymore.  Barely could limp his way there before the lack of food and probable fever stole what little he had left.  

Is this just some divine punishment for prodding too hard at the forces of evil in the universe?  

He’d finally come to terms with the abstract and incidental nature of these things, but he can’t help the hazy imagining that he deserves this.  

Failed to keep his brother safe, for all his bedside bargaining and promises made to the wind on long walks after his brother disappeared.  All the broken promises betwixt his savior and himself.  Bitter words corroding promises that could have been harder than diamond.  

It was his fault.  Couldn’t hold up his end, and he deserves this dreadful heat and the foul desert of his mouth.  His body generating his own funeral pyre.  

He wishes he could bring himself to care.  But all he’s known since Jon betrayed him has been anger and dissent disinterest.  

There is an ache at his very core.  

He lies there, on the cot.  Tangled in the sheets.  Bone dry.  Dry as parched soil.  For he has no moisture to spare for sweat.  His own body out of anything that could bring his temperature down.  

Finding Tim isn’t easy.  Jon’s body betrays him after the Buried.  Months of uneasy sleep, and days of pressure on all the wrong parts of him leave him poorly put together and his joints slipping apart at the slightest provocation.  He spends days on the floor of his office, in too much pain to move, too dizzy to stand, and running a fever from the pain in his squashed and shitty joints.  

His own fault, but a small price to pay for Tim and Daisy.  

He would have stayed there if it meant getting them back.  

One less monster.  

Of course the Eye doesn’t let him die.  Aren’t humans supposed to die if they don’t drink water for three days?  

He spends most of his time passing out when he tries to stand.  

And he can’t bring himself to care.  He’s so tired.  Too tired.  

He didn’t expect anyone to come after him.  Certainly not Tim.  Not after everything.  

Well maybe he hoped.  

(He did).  

(Damn his… well it isn’t optimism.  Damn his longing for someone to give a shit if he vanishes for days.  He should know by now that no one is coming.  No one ever does.)  

Groggy and foggy and battered.  

He’s tired.  He needs a proper mattress for just one night, but he can’t even get off the floor.  Just lays in the remnants of mud, waiting to whither like the corpse he is, one just hasn’t stopped breathing yet (again).  

But something draws him upright, more or less.  Clinging to the walls, bracing his stilted journey on aching limbs.  

It’s probably the Eye.  Probably the Eye, or maybe Jon’s piercing curiosity, control slackened by fever, peering though a hairline fracture in the door of his mind.  

He all but crawls to the cot, securing a half empty water bottle from somewhere he probably should be worried about, but he arrives to find Tim burning away before him as his own vision swims dangerously.  

A face in front of his.  Features obscure and unreadable.  He can read the worry in those eyes.  Even in the half light.  

Tim couldn’t hear Jon in the Buried.  His hearing aids long since ran out of life.  All for the best, for the singing of the coffin in the rain will haunt his dreams (not only in a spooky way) for the rest of his life.  

Only knew it was Jon by Jon guiding his (Tim’s)  hand with too thin and gentle and burned fingers to his (Jon’s) mouth.  So Tim could read his lips by feel.  An imprecise thing, but better than nothing.  

Filthy fingers against dry and dusty lips.  Almost like a kiss.  Perhaps more intimate.  

The face hovers closer.  Thin and careful fingers soothing his brow.  

Pressing water to his lips.  Mouthing words that are lost to Tim.  And even if they reached him, he knows he wouldn’t understand them.  

Is this Danny before him?  Would he know his own brother?  After all these years?  After the Stranger chewed him up and regurgitated …whatever.  Is he lost as much as Sasha had been?  Like she’d been?  

And what good would knowing that do?  He would rather keep the memories he has, doesn’t want to know the creeping uncertainties that plague him when he closes his eyes.  

He supposes that the advantage of the Buried is that it keeps the mind off things that aren’t the slow process of returning stone to stone in a way that obliterates everything in between.  Everything but fear.  

Not Danny, but Jon, Tim discovers.  Pulled awake by uneasy stomach, and panicked breath, to find Jon fluttering out of consciousness by his side.  

He wants to be put out that they are flush with each other, but …but they were closer still in the choking darkness with air thick with the soil that Tim swears he can feel coating his internal organs.  

He’s drifting off again when he hears Jon gasp awake, looking nearly as unwell as Tim feels.  

The small figure curled at his back is not his brother.  But he feels as warm and as fragile as Danny did when he sat his vigil.  Counting the seconds between breaths.  His heart stuttering when they lagged and caught in his raw throat in the muted hours between sunset and sunrise.  The hours that Tim feared if he stopped willing the next breath to happen, they wouldn’t.  

But Jon is hardly human.  His pulse is jittery and uneven.  Each breath just a little more strained than they should be.  Likely matching Tim’s own.  

Some distant part of him… the distant part that can feel Jon’s pulse when the rest of him is floating away, untethered to a body too light and empty without topsoil and rich loam to brace him into and against the earth… worries that his own furnace of a temperature is too high and will roast Jon.  

Another equally distant part of him is annoyed that Jon dares to share this pyre of internal heat with him.  …If this is how he goes out, he wishes he saw the stars when he still had any strength.  

Tim wakes again to cool water against his tongue.  

Jon is mumbling to himself fervently.  And Tim can recognize that look.  That fear.  That determination.  The will of someone breathing for someone else.  Holding their life-force steady in the mind.  Knowing to let it faulter is a death sentence.  With wild certainty that is bounded in something beyond reason, for when you are willing another person to breathe, you are often beyond the reach of science.  

And Tim wonders who Jon could possibly be breathing for, because there is no universe in the extensive multiverse that Jon would ever will the life into someone who has spewed such hateful things and led another fragile being he swore to protect to his death.  

And yet…