#vestieg

there’s a deep exhaustion in both of them,      these days.      it was only a matter of time before all of the anger and frustration fizzled out and left only that      —      only that bone-deep weariness,      that too-late grief,      that endless need to do something without anything concrete to act upon      —      but still it surprises jon to hear tim say it.

it’s not that jon doesn’t want to talk,      only that it sounds like defeat to hear a sorry from tim’s lips,      sounds wrong in a way jon doesn’t care to analyze.      it’s been so long since they’ve really talked.      before prentiss,      before sasha,      before jon’s mislaid paranoia and tim’s righteous rage      :      he can’t even fault tim for that,      much as he wishes it isn’t the case,      because jon’s well aware of how many foolish mistakes he’s made,      how much they’ve all lost because of him.      if he’d never asked tim to come to the archives with him      —      if he’d paid more attention during prentiss’ attack or found sasha’s tapes earlier      ...      there’s any number of things jon could have done differently,      but here they stand.      and here,      anger is the only thing tim has given jon in months.      it’s not comfortable but it’s well-deserved.

he’s not sure he knows how to talk to tim anymore.      it’d been so easy once,      hadn’t it?      late nights in research and being dragged out for after-work drinks and      —      it’d been simple.

but he sets aside the statement he’d been following up on,      slips its folder shut and gestures at the chair across from him.      sit,      then.      let’s talk.      please.      the furrow in his brow is something tim would’ve teased him for a long time ago,      all of his focus narrowed onto tim and looking for all the world like he’s trying to puzzle out something impossible      —      and maybe he is,      maybe that’s what they are now.

‘      it’s alright,      ’            jon says,      slowly,      like he’s taming something wild.      it isn’t and they both know it,      but what else is he to say?      he’s not expecting forgiveness but wayward apologies spill out anyways:            ‘      i’m      —      i know i’ve said it before,      but      —      i’m sorry.      for,      uh,      everything,      i suppose.      all of it.      ’

there’s a time,      sasha thinks,      when she would’ve joked in response:      yes,      you’re very scary,      tim,      and try to get him to crack a smile however she could.      it’s less on the tip of her tongue and more lodged somewhere in her throat.      all of her words have been getting trapped there,      beside the memory of the unknowing      —      colorblurred and quickpaced as it was,      she’d been clearheaded enough by the time the bombs went off to see tim’s face as he’d pressed the button.      the determination,      the acceptance.

yes,      he’d come back,      but he’d had to die first,      and the heat radiating off of him is less human warmth and more scalding flame,      and sasha does not care.      if he’s a monster,      she must be right alongside him:      doesn’t she know,      bonedeep and achingly,      just how much her humanity has slipped?      that isn’t the right word,      she thinks.      she’d pushed her own humanity away.      held the very concept of it underwater and watched it drown:      because humanity is worthless if it doesn’t let her protect those she loves,      and being a monster comes with power enough to save them all.

(      if it didn’t let her save tim,      well,      she just wasn’t powerful enough.      she will be.      for next time,      as she has no illusion anymore that there will not be a next time.      )

‘      alright.      ’            an easy acceptance;      she tilts her head,      fixes her eyes on him and smiles best as she can.      yes,      of course you are;      is that meant to make me care less about you?            ‘      full disclosure:      i’m one,      too.      if that’s what you wanna call this,      then i’m right there with you,      yeah?      ’

‘      oh,      bats.      terrifying.      ’            it’s sarcastic but not unkind,      and she makes her eyes go wide,      mock-terror breaking in a moment into a stuttering giggle.      they’re meant to be doing research      —      she’d figured it was good for her to get some fresh air,      get out from behind her desk,      and had latched herself onto tim’s statement investigation,      some supposedly-haunted house with the atmosphere of an especially dusty tomb.      it’s going well in that they haven’t run into anything trying to kill them,      but not quite so well in that they haven’t run into anything but,      according to tim,      a few bats.      frankly,      she was hoping for a bit more excitement.

i cant stop listening to this

jon has never attended the institute’s yearly holiday party before.      he is vastly unlikely,      he thinks,      to do so again      —      it’s only that tim had asked him to,      had pointed out that jon was still at his desk when it began and was unlikely to leave the building anytime soon,      anyways,      and was so far ahead on his research he may as well make an appearance.      jon almost didn’t.      jon very nearly muttered a no thank you and turned back to the stacked-up books on his desk.

instead he’d said maybe and appeared at the party an hour late,      lurked in the corner for another hour,      and he’s half a step out the door back towards the researchers’ office      (      a third-or-fourth glass of wine in hand and swaying lightly on his feet      )      when tim stops him.

there’s logic and there’s pockets of intensified fear,      but not everything is sectioned away into neat borders,      and jon has long-since trekked his way around the circumference of the stranger when rubble blooms on the horizon.      he knows,      in that matter-of-fact way of the eye,      what it is.      what it was.      the dance that had almost taken place in those impossible walls,      collapsed.      (      his memories of the event are not so blurred as they once were,      as if retrospect could make an unknowable thing shine with clarity.      )      he knows the what but not the why,      nor the who waits for him inside.      some questions he does not think to ask,      even with answers at his fingertips.

he’d never questioned whether the dead remained dead,      here.      had assumed the end would not give up its prizes so easily.

nothing can hurt him here,      so he goes through the rubble of the great yarmouth wax museum rather than around.      it still smolders      —      though it’s been well over a year since the explosion that ended it,      time means little here,      and such a fireplace-ember burning would not be put out by a hundred firemen’s hoses.      he is careful where he steps,      conscious of where his cane lands:      the fire cannot hurt him in any real way,      no,      and would likely not even scar if given the chance,      but on the off chance that it did he’d rather not explain to martin later that he may be invulnerable to the work of the entities but a little ordinary fire had bested him.      moth flies directly into flame,      cue violins.

he’s aware enough,      reaching past the edges of his sight into beholding,      that nothing around him is an active threat.      there are no monsters to be found here.      if he’d looked beyond that and tried to see if anyone was in the ruins,      monstrous or not,      perhaps the breath wouldn’t be knocked from his lungs now.      but friends are few and far between and he knows where all of his allies are,      the ones who are still alive      —      martin shortcutting through helen’s hallways and georgie and melanie a void in what-once-was-london and daisy and basira hunted and hunting across the fears’ domains.      he never thought to look for the location of the friend he’d seen blow himself to bits,      and yet      —

that is,      unmistakably,      tim.      standing atop a pile of building-bone.      jon would know if it were a trick,      would see through it like cellophane,      but still he freezes several paces away      —      all eyes-wide and stumbling-breathed.      nothing should surprise him anymore,      nothing in this world should be capable of surprising him      —      but this      —

‘      tim?      ’            it isn’t even a question,      not really,      but it comes out staticked anyways,      begging for truth.      begging for a yes,      it is me,      an explanation.      all of jon’s words have flown away,      and all he can do is stare,      watch,      behold.

after-work happy hour drinks with the rest of the archives crew has turned,      once again,      into the two of them at sasha’s flat,      bottle of wine passed between them and some movie on that they’re each only half paying attention to.      if they combined their memory of the film they may be able to get a full picture,      but as it is it’s piecemeal and incomplete and utterly unimportant compared to sneaking glances and the feeling of her head leaning against his shoulder,      legs tangled together on the sofa,      the unspoken something between them becoming palpable in the air.

at some point the movie’d finished.      the credits are rolling across the tv screen and sasha wonders how she hadn’t noticed,      how she’d gotten so distracted.      tim’s hand is in hers and she’s not quite sure how that happened either,      just that it had,      and that it is warm and she would hold it forever if she were allowed.

they haven’t really talked about it,      this seamless transition from best friends to something more,      and perhaps they should.      perhaps wine-tender and completely unprepared for the hangovers they’ll certainly have in the morning isn’t the ideal time to finally say the words      —      but then again,      maybe it’s the best time,      maybe it’s the only time.      maybe when tim says i love you sasha can just turn her head from its comfortable perch on his shoulder,      look up at him,      smile soft and smitten.

(      she’s not sure when she’d fallen in love with tim.      not first sight;      she’s never believed in love-at-a-glance and theirs had been such a gradual thing that it’d been a shock to realize,      and somehow,      it also hadn’t been a surprise at all.      )

it was my headcanon all along that martin doesnt have a middle name he just thought the k made him sound distinguished. so i feel very validated today