[thoughts on a character] What makes Tim so special? why do you bother trying to save him? (from Definitely Not Red)
Timothy, Timothy. Bright, brilliant Timothy. Glittering smile, glib tongue. His spark was unmistakable. Fire in a library was a dangerous thing. He hadnât Seen it before, because he hadnât been Looking.Â
    Donât let Jon bully you into putting yourself in danger; casual, with a hidden agenda. Tim was strong, forward, and far too willing to lay his life on the line for whatever he considered worth it -- and what that was seemed to change by the week. Kayaking, mountain climbing, spelunking, hands-on reconnaissance for the Institute, and so on and so forth. Danger was the common thread. To a man such as Elias, a death wish was-- not incomprehensible, but nauseating, certainly. He wouldnât prevent anyone from throwing their life away, of course, if that was their prerogative, but if Jon became reliant on Tim as his front line, things would become rather difficult down the road. That was the point heâd been trying to make. He could have stopped there, even with the argument that Jon would never be able to charm the police sergeant into handing over whatever records the archive needed, or whatever nonsense Tim was raising against him.
    But he hadnât. Heâd kept going. Because it was overwhelming, Timâs normalcy. Extreme sports aside, he had a social life; he was friendly, if not particularly open; but then again, who was? There was the sort of secrecy that someone like Jon ( someone like Elias ) kept ( other peopleâs secrets ), and then there was a perfectly reasonable social understanding of boundaries. So Tim didnât spill his trauma onto everyone else, whatever that trauma was ( for he absolutely had it, Elias didnât hire anybody who didnât have it ), and, despite his clear lack of self-preservation, he wasnât the sort to pepper self-deprecating or depressing jokes into a conversation. On the contrary, speaking with Tim was almost always light and pleasant. A far cry from trying to deal with the cantankerous Jon, or Martinâs stuttering. Maybe that was it: Tim was easy to talk to. He made Eliasâs front of banality that much simpler to preserve. He could stand by the water cooler with Tim, if he really wanted to. He could invite him to lunch, though he wouldnât, because that would have been inappropriate. Tim wasnât stable, he Knew that now, but he provided the image of stability in the same way that Elias provided the image of the worldâs most ineffective manager.
    And maybe there was a part of him that was hesitant to shatter such an image. He could See it in him, that sort of Entity-related damage never escaped his Eyes, but he never felt any need to dig. Tim was fantastic for the Institute, and, by extent, for Eliasâs morale. Strange, that he still needed a pick-me-up after all these years. As smoking and drinking were dirty habits that wore a body out before its time, he chose Tim. It wasnât yet beyond him to enjoy youth vicariously. Quite the opposite: youth was his obsession. It was a shame that Tim was past the age of thirty, and Elias only fifty-odd years. Had he been younger still, he might have made a great replacement, when the time came. Instead, Elias contented himself with Watching. There was nothing untoward in it -- he felt no carnal attraction to Tim, who was, in comparison with himself at two centuries and counting, all but a child. It was voyeurism in its purest form. That which brought him sterile, platonic pleasure, a zest for life that the rest of the staff so lacked, even if it was manufactured, was worth keeping around.
    None of this had crystalized in his mind just so. They were impulses, as opposed to fully-formed thoughts, but impulses that he acted on. Tim was charming. Elias was charmed by him. He was not immune to social niceties, and a bit of flattery went a long way. Double boss had a nice ring to it. It was cheeky in how casual it was, yet still showed respect. Tim was like lemonade, refreshing. And he had been content to keep him as entertainment, and to not read too far into whatever was going on beneath the surface. Sometimes, rarely, the surface was enough. One in a thousand people could just be what they presented to him, so long as they posed no threat.
    So it was only when Timâs rage became impossible to ignore that Elias Looked. And he was not surprised by what he found, no -- he was surprised by his own disappointment, that it was all coming to an end. He thought, Tim might really get Jon killed, and he thought, I donât want Tim to die, and it was the latter that shook him. He stayed up all night pondering it, agonizing over what to do. For Elias was a selfish man, and when he wanted something, he didnât often deny himself. In this case, what he wanted was for Tim to live. But he Knew that nothing he said would convince him not to jump at this opportunity, and that, if he did so, he risked all the work that he had put into Jon thus far, and he wanted his ritual as well, so very badly. All the same, the creeping thought of killing Tim made his stomach turn. Jonah had been beautiful, once. Jonah had been charming. So very few people remembered how Jonah had turned heads, how he had invited investors out to dinner, how he had convinced them to divulge what they knew to him. Acquisition by way of Adonis. And Elias did not look like Jonah -- and Jonah did not look like Jonah. The body that had won him adoration and information was all but bones, enthroned and entombed in the Panopticon. There was nothing on Earth that Elias loved more than himself. Jon was like him, in his organization, his thirst for knowledge, his attitude. Tim was like he had once been, in full flower, in hunger. But more than that, Tim was Tim, and Elias-- Elias--
    Elias Knew that he wouldnât convince him. Elias Knew that he didnât want to pull the trigger himself. It was the Stranger that did it. The Stranger, and Timâs own recklessness. He was no Pontius Pilate; he had no need to wash his hands of this, because he hadnât done it. He had warned him, and Tim had ignored him. That was the truth of it. It was the truth.
