Chapter Text
The apocalypse had changed things. It had changed the world, yes, but even after everything had been put back together and most people had all but forgotten (blissfully enough) that there had ever been a cataclysm at all, things were different. The food chain of the Fears was different. And at first, Jon... Jon had been different, too. Hungrier, or rather on the brink of starvation at all hours of the day - it had made him tired, forgetful, irritable and much moodier than usual, even rash when it came to decisions that Martin would have wanted to take more time for. By now, Martin was used to it when it happened. He was almost getting used to these little escapades they had now, too, where instead of reading about the Fears they went about and eliminated them. Despite all the obvious murder involved in the work, it was really almost enjoyable for the main part - Jon was stronger than most things on this plane, even or especially after the Change and the... what was it called? The Switcheroo, the Change Back, the Great Undoing? The words really didn't matter. What did was that Jon had been akin to a god in that realm. Now he wasn’t, not anymore, but what he lacked in strength and power he made up in sheer passion for his craft. He knew how to kill now, and he did so, often and with relative yet almost entirely unrestrained, pleasure. The fears of other Fears fed him well enough, it seemed: sometimes after one night of slaughter he could sleep easy for a month without even having to read a statement. Not that he’d ever stop reading them or taking them - he did his work as if it had never been interrupted. He was up early in the morning, often before Martin, and even then Martin would have to beg for him to go home with him on a daily basis, as it was as if there was no end to his working hours. Sometimes Martin missed the Head Archivist of the Institute: now he had The Archivist instead, who wasn’t bound back by such mortal concerns as the last bus home. Still, he loved Jon, and if that was what he had to put up with... well, he put up with it. He made breakfast for Jon in the morning and pulled him out of the archives in the evening and sometimes, like now, he took a night or a day off to skulk around in the darkness, quite literally committing murder after murder with his boyfriend for supper.
Today’s victim of choice was the Stranger.
It had gotten awfully bold in the months past since the apocalypse. It seemed to have been made quite mad by the end being cancelled, and although it wasn’t alone, it was one of those fears that Martin didn’t mind seeing done away with as quickly as possible. Unluckily enough, the Stranger had proven rather hard to track down, and now that they were here in this... what was it, exactly? A decrepit, dusty old house in plain sight guarded by a padlock that no one seemed to have a key for, which yet opened with any key that was thrust into it, revealing from within a maze of workshops and endless rooms which to an unknowing eye perhaps could have summoned the impressions of a theatre backstage? A cavern of a building with stairs and steps and locked and unlocked doors to get lost in for days, like crafted by the Spiral itself? It didn’t matter. Ultimately, it was a hideout, and Jon had all the knowledge necessary for clearing it out in the most efficient manner.
Martin had just... followed him, aside from that one time he’d been set upon by a suddenly very lively wooden doll the size of a small child, faceless and silent as it had began to claw at his clothes, sharp fingers reaching for his throat. That time he’d used the knife he had on him, not that it had done much beyond sticking to the head of that child-figure, and then Jon had been back with him, his eyes blazing as he forced the doll to turn for him, forced it to witness him, and left it in ashes.
It was... really quite attractive; Martin was certain he’d been blushing vividly as he’d adjusted his clothes and caught his breath before they’d moved on again, but for all the knowing that Jon had to him, at least he couldn’t see in the dark any better than Martin could and would have inevitably missed this little detail in the wake of the fight.
Still, upon entering what Martin could only assume would be the very last staircase leading up to the attic of this convoluted house of horrors, he felt like they were missing something. Yes, they’d faced some resistance, but it had all felt awfully staged - like a little puzzle leading them towards a reward. Rats in a maze.
He reached out to tug at Jon’s shirt.
”Jon, wait.”
”Mm-hm?” Jon replied, turning half-way back with one foot on a stair above the other. ”What is it?”
He sounded so casual, like this was their own attic and the house they were ascending hadn’t been full of dolls wearing human skins and... and whatever else had been there, really. Martin wanted to forget.
”This doesn’t feel right,” he said sincerely, ”It’s been - too easy. For the Stranger, I mean.”
”Maybe we’re just getting better at this, Martin.”
The light that made it through the small grimy window looking at the stairway made them both look blue. In that light, however, Jon could definitely see the look that Martin was giving him.
”I know, I know,” he sighed then, ”I’ve been thinking the same thing. Usually something has gone wrong by now.”
”While I’m glad neither of us has had any close encounters with death or - or worse, I do think that it's suspicious,” Martin agreed.
Jon nodded.
”I’ll be careful,” he promised.
”That’s all I ask.”
They climbed up the remaining stairs. There was a lock on the door, but it had the key in it - inviting, innocent and yet so obviously suspicious that they exchanged looks once more to reassure one another that they were prepared for whatever would still lurk behind this door. Martin’s skin crawled when Jon twisted the key and the door began to slide open.
The attic was a mess of boxes and old furniture illuminated by another grimy window, this one larger and letting through a convenient amount of lighting that next mixed with the light of Martin’s torch that he aimed into the room from behind Jon’s back. Jon was tense, prepared, and in the torchlight Martin could see blood running down his arm from a cut in his sleeve. He hadn’t noticed that before. It had to have healed by now, of course, but the injury had bled enough to make him think that perhaps their mission hadn’t been quite as easy at Jon had led him to believe so far. The shirt would need stitches, at the very least.
”Do you see anything?” Martin asked quietly.
Jon shook his head, taking a step inside. The floorboards creaked as they passed a pile of shoeboxes the height of a grown man. Behind it there was more furniture: old chairs, two mattresses with boxes piled on top of them, and a rocking chair elaborately set in the middle of the room. Something was huddled in it, Martin realised with a jump of terror within him; these things never grew on him, no matter how many times in his life he’d had this happen to him before. A... body, it seemed, its head resting against the back of the rocking chair, one skinny arm stretched over its lap and the other hanging down from the arm rest. Its legs were far out on the floor, leaning onto their heels. It was covered with a blanket that had settled over its shape, revealing each feature with enough precision for them to make no mistake about the nature of what would be found beneath it. On the blanket... there was something taped to it. A note.
”Jon - be careful. This is definitely a set-up,” Martin breathed.
Jon nodded again.
”It’s a message,” he claimed under his breath, his voice... curious, intrigued. He motioned Martin to follow him, and together they approached the shape until they were within an arm’s reach from it. It hadn’t moved. It didn’t move even as Jon began to reach for the note on the cloth cast over it.
”What’s it say?” Martin asked as Jon pulled the note off the tape it had been hanging by and brought it up.
”’To the Archivist and his little pet: good on you for making it this far. As a reward for your diligence and a sign of good will from our side, please accept this humble gift of something that you once left behind. We’ve no more use of it, but perhaps you still do. Either way, the reunion should be delightful for both of us.’”
Jon turned the note, but the backside was empty.
”That’s not good,” Martin noted. He wanted to pull Jon further away from the body but Jon wouldn’t budge - he merely leaned into Martin’s touch and then readjusted himself to ensure his footing. ”Jon, please.”
Jon handed him the note, and Martin took it, the dreadful feeling at the bottom of his stomach growing heavier as he touched it, but he knew there was nothing he could say to stop Jon from unwrapping this ”reward”. He tucked the note into his pocket and touched the knife he’d returned to his belt, ready to pull it out to fight whatever the inevitable horror beneath the old blanket would be, and the torch in his hand shook a little.
”Martin, you - you won’t want to look at this,” Jon told him, and Martin wanted to slap him for it.
”Would you just get it over with? I’m not leaving you alone, whatever it is.”
”Maybe you... maybe you should, Martin, I -”
”No, Jon. No way.”
Jon turned a pleading gaze to him, but Martin shook his head firmly.
”Will it make a difference if I tell you what it is?” Jon asked him, his hand retreating a little as if rethinking pulling down the blanket.
”No, because you’ll take it on either way. I’m not leaving you. No matter what it is, Jon.”
”I think - from what I can tell, it's... it's Tim, Martin.”
Martin blinked.
”Wh-what? No. We buried Tim.”
”You buried what you found of him.”
”Oh, God, Jon, don’t say that. Don’t - don’t say that. No.”
”Besides, what does it matter?” Jon asked, his voice now impatient, ”The Stranger certainly isn’t beyond trickery.”
”You weren’t there.”
”Well, I doubt very much they held an open casket funeral for him, so I don’t see the point, Martin.”
Martin swallowed. He wanted Jon to be wrong so badly, but... when was he ever? When he asked for a third pot of coffee in a single afternoon or when he argued against a five minute egg, but other than that, the answer was... never. He was never wrong about anything.
”Thanks, I... I hate it.”
The look that Jon gave him was empathetic, but he was reaching for the blanket again, and his hand wasn’t shaking like Martin’s.
”Will you go? Please,” he said quietly, voice soft and gentle.
Martin wanted to. He was almost turning when he remembered what they were dealing with. The Stranger wouldn’t leave them a corpse, no matter how familiar it would be to them. He shook his head, and the gesture was firm.
”No, Jon. There’s something else to this.”
”I know.”
”I’m tired of you knowing,” Martin let out in an exasperated voice, ”Could you please be any less cryptic? Just once?”
”I don’t - want to tell you, unless you want to know. This isn’t... you don’t have to go through this.”
”And you do?”
”Someone has to, Martin.”
”Well, what are you going to do about it?” Martin asked, and Jon’s hand retreated again.
He lowered it to his side and picked at the hem of his pocket with it instead, head lowering and gaze tracking the shapes of the feet hidden beneath the blanket in front of him.
”I’ll... deal with it,” he said quietly, ”Like the rest of this.”
”He’s...?”
”Yes. Whatever is - whatever is under there and what used to be Tim Stoker, it is... animated, reconstructed, however you’d like me to put it. And I - I owe it to him to... let him rest. So will you go, Martin, or will you stay? I don’t want to wait.”
”I know, Jon. I - just do it, alright? Just... just do it. I’m not leaving you - just in case.”
”Are you sure?”
”I’m quite sure, yes, thank you.”
Martin tried hard to swallow the bile climbing up his throat. Jon nodded at him, then stood there quietly for a moment before he finally turned back to the shape and took ahold of the blanket covering it. He let it down carefully, not quickly as Martin had anticipated, and... God, it was Tim. It really was. Scarred, with seams and stitches visible on the side of his neck and along his cheek and over the nose and forehead, but he wasn’t unrecognisable, not his face anyway. His hair was tangled and messy, his head resting back against the rocking chair and he looked just as dead as he should have been, but not the kind of dead that had been so for years, and when the blanket was off and he was seated there in blood-stained, ragged clothes with bare feet and hands so full of scars and those same stitched-up seams that they seemed to have been put together from next to nothing, Martin fully expected him - or what had once been him - to stir up and charge at them.
The corpse did nothing of the sort. Jon examined it quietly for a moment before taking a step forwards.
”Jon?”
He shook his head and gestured Martin to stay back. Then he reached his hand and touched the shoulder of the dead man in front of them, and Martin’s heart skipped a beat in anticipation, yet nothing happened.
”Do you... need him to be aware of it when you do it?” he asked tensely, realising as he spoke that the bile he’d barely kept down earlier was now trying to flood his mouth with every syllable he spoke. He barely got the words out before he had to turn, his eyes closed and throat positively knotted as he forced himself not to gag.
”I need it to be present.”
”And what the hell does that mean? Jon, I hate this.”
”Mm.”
Martin readjusted, and as Jon didn’t seem to be about to answer him, he rephrased his question as well.
”You’re certain that whatever that is, there’s... something inside it?”
”Yes. I just have to tempt it out. I can force it if I have to, but - I’d rather - I’d rather not do that.”
”So it’s just - a doll, like the rest.”
”Something like that,” Jon agreed. He reached his hand in again and ran his finger over the bony shape of Tim’s shoulder before gripping the shirt covering it. When he moved it aside, a bloodied straw was released from beneath - it stuck out from one of the seams that now made up Tim’s skin. Martin looked away. He wanted to cry. ”You can still leave, Martin.”
”No. Just get it over with.”
”Alright.”
Martin closed his eyes before relaxing his neck again. He listened to Jon mutter to himself for a moment’s time before a shudder stirred him and made him step aside; he balanced the torch on one of the boxes and went wandering about to get blood flowing back into his feet, as he felt like his toes had completely frozen from dread. The note had been right about one thing at least: the Stranger had to be absolutely delighted about the amount of sheer fear that Martin was now pouring into its waiting maws.
”Respond to me,” Jon’s voice called, now louder than before. Martin could feel his own skin tingling from the force he was exerting. He closed his eyes again and swayed. ”Come to me, servant of the Stranger. I command you.”
”Jon?” Martin let out in a strained voice. ”Have you considered that maybe -”
”What?”
”Well, the Stranger is... it’s resilient to the Eye, isn’t it? Unknowable against, well - knowing.”
”Your point?
”Maybe you can’t just... pull it out like that. Maybe that’s part of the joke. If it doesn’t show up willingly, there’s nothing you can do to destroy it.”
Martin dared to glance at Jon, who seemed to mouth a curse before stepping back.
”You might be right,” he said then, frustration clear in his voice. He was quiet for a moment before he turned to face Martin instead. ”Martin, I - I hate to do this, but...”
Martin sighed.
”What? What is it,” he asked in a deflated voice.
”You were closer with Tim. I mean - he hated me.”
”He didn’t hate you.”
Martin could taste the lie on his tongue, and Jon laughed quietly.
”You’re scared,” he said then instead of addressing the obvious, ”Maybe it wants that. I’m - I’m just angry, Martin. I’m not afraid of it.”
”You’re angry an awful lot these days, Jon.”
”Now’s not the time.”
Martin shook his head.
”No, you’re right. We can talk about your anger issues later. I just - I’m stalling.”
”I know, Martin. I’m sorry. We can - we can leave.”
”No,” Martin disagreed without hesitation, ”No, it’s like you said: we owe this to him. I’m not leaving him like this. What do you need me to do?”
”Feed it, I guess,” Jon said with a discouraged shrug, ”Make it want to be here.”
Martin sighed. He took a step closer but froze with the thought of what would inevitably follow. He hated every inch he’d come closer to the corpse. He hated the thought of going any closer still. And yet... there he was, walking forwards. Finally he stood there, and his knees bent stiffly under him when he seated himself on a box next to the rocking chair. His eyes darted for Jon who nodded at him with an apologetic smile, but Martin shook his head; it had to be done. Then he turned his gaze back to Tim and forced himself to look and feel everything it sparked into life within him - the pain, the grief, the dread, the fear that told him to move away, to run, and then he focused on the latter, although he didn’t doubt for a moment that even the former were feeding the entity residing within the mutilated body of his former coworker and... friend?
His eyes stung. His breath was hitching when he reached for the straw that was poking out of Tim’s body, and although every hair on his body stood upright and stiff as he did so, he took a grip of it and pulled it out. It felt firmly stuck at first, but once the blood that had caked onto it under the skin loosened like a rotted scab, it came off easily enough and Martin pulled at it gently like removing a splinter from a child. The tears flowed down his cheeks now. He didn’t know what to do - what he was supposed to do, or how to make his fear any clearer - but the pain was so strong now that it gripped him entirely and he couldn’t hold back the choked sob that escaped him.
”Martin?” Jon called from somewhere behind him, but he shook his head.
”It’s fine, Jon.”
He refocused and forced his eyes up to Tim’s face. His breath hitched, and his palm lowered over Tim’s shoulder were the straw had been. He could feel the seam in his skin against his flesh and the way it stuck up from the smooth expanse before vanishing underneath the red, blood-stained tee.
”You didn’t deserve this,” he breathed out, unsure if Jon was close enough to hear it, and for once he hoped that he wasn’t - this was for Tim only. Not a secret, just... private, and he didn’t want anyone listening in, not even Jon. ”I’m so sorry, Tim. You already gave enough. You did enough. You did... good. This isn’t... isn’t how it was supposed to end.”
He wanted to yelp when he felt the cold body move under his touch. It was barely a shiver, and for a second he doubted he’d ever felt it but something in him told him that he had, and the question faded. Instead of turning away, he forced himself to stay - although even then he rebalanced himself so that getting away fast would be easier.
”Can you hear me?” he asked quietly, his voice desperate and distraught. Now he was very sure he didn’t want Jon to listen, but there was no way that Jon would leave him more alone than he already had - it was a miracle he was standing more than a foot apart from Martin to begin with. ”Tim, if it’s you - if there’s a single part in there that’s still you - it’ll be alright, okay? We’ll end this. It’s going to be alright.”
As Martin watched, Tim’s lids cracked open; the eyes beneath were colourless and dull, even if only a mere sliver could be seen of them. Another sob escaped Martin and he was just about ready to pounce off, but he knew as well as Jon behind him that this wasn’t enough - it would be too easy for the entity to simply fade back out if he stopped giving it exactly what it wanted now, so he braced himself and held onto Tim’s shoulder even as his cloudy pupils fixed upon him.
”So you can hear me,” he breathed out shakily, ”That’s... nice. I really, really hate it. I really hate this. I - I’m so sorry. For what it did to you. For what we did to you.”
A breath slid out from between Tim’s lips - Martin was certain it spelled out Elias’s name.
”He’s dead,” he said instinctively. ”It’s a long story. Don’t... concern yourself with it.”
The corner of Tim’s mouth twitched and he closed his eyes again.
”Doesn’t feel... any different,” his lips spelled almost completely inaudibly.
Now Martin threw a gaze at Jon, who’d taken a step forwards, but... he was holding his hand between them, palm facing Jon to stop him. He shook his head with wide eyes and a racing heart and Jon stared at him, head tilting in an angry twitch; why not, the gesture said. Martin wanted to breathe, but he couldn’t. Instead he turned back to Tim.
”What do you mean?” he asked, the words the only exhale he could manage.
”I didn’t... ever feel it happen,” Tim replied so slowly his voice sounded like a scratched vinyl playing at an uneven speed, ”For all that talk... about how he was important. And I didn’t ever... feel him die.”
His lips were cracking - not deep enough to draw blood, if he had any in him, but the surface broke every single time he moved them.
”I hope that bastard rots in hell,” he hissed and his whole body twitched, finally causing Martin to jump backwards and stumble.
He fell into Jon’s leg, and in an instant Jon was ahead of him, half-crouched with his palm still on Martin’s shoulder and the other between him and Tim’s body like he was holding an invisible shield. For all Martin knew... maybe he was.
”Don’t!” he heard himself call out, reaching to take a hold of Jon’s outstretched arm; ”Don’t. It’s - I think - Jon, I think it’s really Tim.”
A dry, cough-like laugh escaped the body in front of them.
”You two finally figured it out?” Tim asked, his eyes blinking a few times before opening - Martin wasn’t sure if he could see through them, but it did feel like he was watching them. ”Never seen... a man hold Jonathan Sims back from a stupid decision before.”
Jon snarled. His knee hit the floor and his grip of Martin grew tighter.
”Or a woman,” Tim added, shrugging one shoulder; his hand lifted and he gripped the arm rest of the chair he’d been left on. ”Does that make you lucky or just special, Martin? I wonder.”
”Lucky, thanks,” Martin breathed out with a shiver.
”Special,” Jon argued. He glanced at Martin to make sure he was alright, but he’d really done nothing else aside from falling back, and Jon seemed to determine as much in a moment, returning to face Tim instead. ”And you? What are you?”
”Unlucky as hell,” Tim muttered. He lifted his other hand and gripped the chair to pull himself into a better position. ”But not really because I missed out on dating the head archivist.”
”It’s nice to hear from you, too,” Jon said, but his voice was still suspicious, nearly dripping with it.
”Well, it’s good to know you two still hold beef with each other after all these years,” Martin stated exasperatedly, ”Can we all take a moment and just - take this in?”
”I’ve taken in enough,” Tim sighed, ”I haven’t felt this alive in years. Funny that it’s just because you’re about to kill me, isn’t it?”
He fixed his blind gaze onto Jon, who was now finally standing back up.
”I can do that,” Jon said, but there was hesitation in his voice now. He hadn’t expected this any more than Martin had. It seemed... the note had perhaps been more genuine than they had expected from the Stranger.
”Now, don’t be so modest, Jon,” Tim huffed, his head tilting slightly, ”You can, obviously, I don’t think it was Martin who carved your way in here, was it? No offense, Martin - I always did like you better.”
”None... taken,” Martin said slowly, exchanging looks with Jon. He knew Tim well enough to tell that he was tense - that this mattered to him one way or the other. ”We’re not here to - I mean, yeah, technically we’re here to kill you, but... we don’t have to. Right, Jon? We didn’t know you’d be here. I... I don’t want to kill you.”
”Martin, you can’t tell if it’s really him. You shouldn’t trust it,” Jon pointed out, but Martin let out a tired laugh and shook his head.
”No, I can’t. But you can, and you would have called it by now.”
”I’m just... I’m just saying. I can't really - I can't tell as much as I'd want to. Not with the Stranger.”
”Point taken,” Martin promised, ”but I trust you to have my back, Jon.”
”Sweet,” Tim commented; he lifted his hand from the arm rest and shifted his fingers through his hair in a manner that brought Martin back to years before even though he’d never seen him get tangled up so quickly and in so many knots before. ”Assume nobody’s going to have my back, then? I’m kind of on my own here. It’s not a fair fight, really. Me against the antichrist of the archives and - and Martin Blackwood, the boy with the poetry.”
”I do have a knife,” Martin noted dryly.
”Well, that’s just great, isn’t it? Because I’ve got nothing. I can’t even see you.”
”Is he... telling the truth?” Martin asked, his eyes flickering to Jon who nodded subtly.
”For the most part,” Jon said, ”I think he can sense us - me - but that’s not the same.”
”You’ve got a knife and he can read my thoughts. Great. I’m at a big advantage here, guys; I can still make a joke.”
”We don’t have to fight,” Martin stated hurriedly. ”There’s no reason we should - is there? I mean, you’re not a threat to us, so...”
”Ask your boyfriend,” Tim replied, his voice lower now. ”He’s itching for it. I can practically smell it from here. All that... energy. You’re really full of it, you know? It’s fascinating. I knew you weren’t human before but - oh boy, Jon. It’s really something else now.”
”Look who’s talking,” Jon said, but Martin’s hand was now attached to his wrist hard enough to hurt, and he wasn’t moving.
”Do you guys have to be so hostile?” Martin asked, his voice strained and pleading.
”I don’t trust the Stranger, Martin,” Jon pointed out.
”I don’t trust the Stranger either, but I’m not going to let you just kill our friend if there’s any chance in hell that - that we can avoid doing that.”
His grip tightened more, and Jon let out an unwilling grunt before relaxing somewhat. As he did, so did Martin’s fist.
”I need to be sure,” Jon said then, giving a meaningful look to Martin, who shuddered.
Behind them, the torch shimmered briefly before recovering. The batteries were running out.
”Tim?” Martin called and stepped forwards, past Jon and into the general vicinity of the rocking chair, which was now in fact swinging a little. He stopped before he was quite within arm’s reach - he couldn’t will himself to go forwards from there. It was too much. It all felt so... wrong. ”Can I... ask you a couple questions? Please?”
”Go ahead. It’s not like I’m going anywhere. Give it twenty minutes at the rate you’re building me up, buttercup. Then I’ll walk right out of here. But not before then, so... let’s spend the time, shall we?”
Tim might have sounded cocky, but he didn't look the part. In fact, his tension spoke a very different story, and seeing it, Martin’s mouth bent into something of a crooked smile. He lowered himself down again, blocking Jon’s direct path to the man before them, and planted himself there on his knees.
”Okay. So... first off - what the hell happened to you? I thought... everyone thought you were... dead.”
”I guess that depends on your perspective, really,” Tim answered. ”What’s dead and what’s not? Am I alive, can something be both living and dead, or am I dead? What makes a thing dead if it isn’t the cessation of all movement and action, then? I stopped asking myself that question a while after becoming this. Alive, not alive doesn’t really matter when all you know is hell, surprisingly enough. And yeah, by the way, that happened to me: hell. Let’s just say I made some enemies at that wax museum. Funny how they didn’t appreciate me blowing up their fancy little ritual.”
”But why? Why didn’t they just, I don’t know, leave you dead?”
”Are you really asking the Stranger why it did something? Fuck - I don’t know, Martin. To make me miserable is the best guess I’ve got. I didn’t want this. I didn’t want to spend months being stitched together, being... transformed, crafted into some kind of a half-flesh, half... I don’t even know what I am. Sawdust, straw, bone fragments, blood and skin? Plastic and wax? I’m everything. I can feel the pieces in me, how nothing fits together anymore. I don’t think anybody cared what I was built out of, as long as the pain was unbearable.”
”Then how did you not die? You - you weren’t made into this first. You didn’t make a choice, did you?”
”Oh, there was a choice alright,” Tim admitted, ”Right back there at the museum. I was scared, Martin. I didn’t want to die. There were times when I thought I wouldn’t care either way but in the end... when I knew I was going to, I didn’t want it. I guess the fear is what kept me here, what kept me tied up with the bits and pieces. I guess - I was already in the Unknowing, I was all wrapped up in it, and maybe that was enough. Speaking of which, Jon doesn’t look too dead either, so it seems that I wasn’t the only survivor.”
”Jon... made his own choice,” Martin said quietly.
”Is that what made you so bright and beautiful?” Tim asked, his eyes aimed at Jon behind Martin somewhere.
”It’s a long story,” Jon said shortly. ”Not one I’m too keen on repeating here.”
”God, it really hates your guts,” Tim replied, although the words didn’t seem to be directed at them as much as they were simply spoken out loud.
”What does?” Jon asked.
”The Stranger,” Tim confirmed, ”Sheesh. It does not like you at all.”
”Okay, so, why are you here?” Martin asked, trying to steer Tim’s attention back at himself.
He succeeded.
”I don’t know. They didn’t leave you a note before they left me here, did they?”
”They did,” Martin said, and Tim’s brows jumped and he let out a raw laughter.
”Wait, really? They left you a note?”
”It just says that you’re a... gift, a sign of good will,” Martin repeated from memory. ”Maybe they’re asking for a ceasefire?”
”I don’t know any more than you do,” Tim said with a shrug. "I haven't exactly been here most of the time for the past - I don't know. A long time."
His skin was regaining colour now, but the torch was flashing again. For a moment, its light went out entirely.
”Do you have spare batteries for that thing?” Jon asked.
Martin shook his head.
”Left them behind. I wasn’t thinking we’d be staying this long. It usually lasts for ages.”
”That’s what I thought. We need to go, Martin.”
”I still have my phone, and you have yours, don’t you?” Martin asked, casting a glance back at Jon. ”Either way, we have to make a decision here. I don’t want to rush it.”
”And I don’t want to be caught up here by the enemy,” Jon reminded him - he had a good point.
Martin sighed, turning back to Tim, who had a small, joyless smile on him now. His lips were still cracking from the stretch, and a little bit of blood was visible from within one of the wounds, glistening in the light.
”He can feel it, too, you know?” he said quietly, ”I know he can. The way the Stranger has marked him.”
”And you can see that, right?” Martin asked.
Tim nodded.
”Like a beacon. Never seen anything like it before. It really is something - I haven’t seen a single thing in years, and of course the first damn thing that I do see is Jon Sims. Can’t get rid of you, can I?”
”He’s not aligned with the Eye anymore,” Jon pointed out, and Martin realised he was right - Tim was blind. The Eye had no hold on him.
”Does that mean I can finally quit?” Tim asked. He straightened in his seat, sending it rocking back and forth. He’d lifted his feet off the ground and balanced them on the chair so that he wasn’t stopping it, and in the torchlight, the movement was slightly dizzying, as slow as it was.
Finally, Jon managed to smile.
”I think you already did,” he said quietly, ”with a bang.”
”Wonderful. Well, that settles it, I’m going on a vacation. Oh - unless, of course, I die tonight. Again, or however you see that particular philosophical question. So what will it be? Can I go, or will I find out quite personally what all that light holds in it for me?”
”I can’t let you leave,” Jon told him in no uncertain terms.
”Jon?” Martin turned for him, his expression a mix of shock and betrayal.
”I can’t let him leave, Martin. I never said I could,” Jon repeated. ”That doesn’t mean he has to die.”
”I’m quite harmless, really. Ugly as all hell I’d assume of course, but did that ever kill anybody?” Tim offered.
Jon’s fingertips shifted over Martin’s hair and he gestured for him to stand up; Martin followed him a distance away from Tim, away from the torch’s light.
”He’s not an avatar yet,” Jon spoke quietly, ”Whatever that means - but he’s on the way there. The Stranger’s mark is all over him, he could as well be speaking with its mouth. He can tell that I’m marked by the Eye and what the Stranger thinks of me. I can’t let him go. I don’t know what else to tell you.”
”Then why was he left here? Just for us to kill as a last laugh for them?”
”Maybe,” Jon said, but he was hesitating. ”He could be a sacrifice they were ready to make to threaten us, but the note makes me think otherwise.”
”Then what is it?”
”A proposal,” Jon continued.
Martin lifted his brows.
”You really think they’re offering a ceasefire?”
”What choice do they have? They have no footholds, every player on the field knows that even after what we did, the Ceaseless Watcher remains the strongest of them. As long as I’m alive, that won’t change. I can kill them, and I’ve shown them that I will hunt them down without hesitation. The Stranger has little space to negotiate if it wants to ever again hold any power in this realm. It should want a ceasefire. It should be begging for it.”
”But then - what do we do?” Martin asked.
”I can’t... look into his mind the way I would be able to if this wasn’t the Stranger’s doing. But I don’t think... I don’t think he has much power yet. Maybe he can feel me strongly but I can’t even sense his presence.”
”And?”
”The Stranger may have claimed him, but he’s never been utilized. He’s never been given anything to feed on, to grow stronger from. That’s why he was so weak when we found him; beings like us fade away if we’re cut off from the fear. He was almost gone, but because I asked you to...”
”My fear of him brought him back. Alright. And?”
”It makes sense if the ones who did that to him only wanted him to suffer for what he did at the Unknowing. Turning him into one of Stranger’s own was the worst that Tim could have imagined happening after - everything - and then letting him starve, hidden away from everyone who thought he was dead the whole time; you have to give it to them, it’s creative.”
”And? Jon, you said we don’t have much time. Get to the point.”
”I’m trying,” Jon sighed, ”I’m trying to convince myself that I don’t have to kill him. I don’t want to kill him.”
”Then don’t kill him! Jesus, Jon.”
”It really isn’t that easy!”
”Well, what’s the alternative?” Martin whispered, gesturing wildly around him.
Jon’s eyes glinted in the darkness as he watched Martin for a moment, each passing second softening something in him until he was no longer as feverish, as taken by the moment as he’d been before. Finally he sighed.
”We'll take him with us,” he said, ”Keep an eye on him and try to figure out what to do with him.”
Martin let out a breath.
”It’s going to be one hell of a story for our driver,” he said then, his voice breaking from held-back nerves. ”We all look like death, but he...”
”I know,” Jon replied grimly, ”I’m trying to think of another way, but... that’s what the Stranger does. It feeds on unease.”
He aimed his gaze towards Tim and considered it for a moment.
”He doesn’t look too bad,” he said then, looking at Martin for reassurance.
”He looks like he went through a shredder,” Martin hissed, ”You can’t take him into an Uber like that. They’re going to call the police on us. It’s not even Halloween yet!”
”Then wrap him in the blanket and don’t show his hands. His face is - it’s fine.”
”His face is fine but he’s blind and covered in blood, Jon!”
”I know, Martin. I know.”
They both stared in Tim’s direction for a moment. Then Jon turned for Martin and grimaced.
”I could just...”
”No, you couldn’t,” Martin said firmly.
”I don’t want to, but - this is insane.”
”You’re not going to literally kill him because we’re having trouble figuring out how to get him home.”
Jon sighed.
”You’re right. I won’t do that. I don’t think I really could, either way, he... is still someone I care about.”
”Alright, how about this; we take the blanket, wrap him up in that, and he takes my shoes, my feet are - they’re fine, I guess, I’ll look a little stupid, but... he sits in the back with us and we act like nothing’s wrong. We all act like nothing’s wrong.”
”I don’t think it’s going to get better than that.”
”And if the Uber calls the cops on us then - I guess we’re the next reason someone gets sectioned. It’s not a crime to be like us - yet, anyway. Probably should be, honestly.”
”I’m rather certain arson is still a crime, Martin, and if we get pulled over for Tim -”
”I’m trying, Jon, I really am,” Martin breathed out in exasperation.
Tim cleared his throat.
”I’m starting to feel really left out here while you two debate on my life in there,” he said in a voice that was much stronger than the one he’d spoken with before. ”It’s - really rather lonely in here, aside from, you know, Jon glowing like a star across the room. At least I know you’re still in here.”
”Sorry,” Martin called out before turning a pleading look to Jon. ”What do we do?”
”I... guess you’re calling a car,” Jon shrugged, ”I’ll take him downstairs.”
”You don’t trust him.”
”No. I don’t.”
”Well, he doesn’t really trust you either, Jon,” Martin argued, ”Let me take him. Stay with us if you have to. You can just... the app works just fine from inside here, really, you don’t have to leave us for it.”
Their eyes met and for a while there was an inaudible battle fought between them, at the end of which Jon retreated in defeat.
”We’ll have to walk some distance,” he said, ”We can’t really be picked up here or it’ll make people curious.”
”I know. We’ll work it out.”