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It’s after the statement of Lawrence Moore concerning the disappearance and replacement of his cousin that all of the pieces finally fall into place.
Jon had seen this coming. He had been hurtling towards this conclusion for what felt like weeks but now he was sitting at his desk, staring at his tape player, now dormant. He itched for something to do with his hands, something productive, definitive, but his hands remained empty and useless.
The Sasha he’d talked to, shared a dry joke with, who’d offered him tea and ducked out of Tim’s pub quiz nights on the pretext of seeing her new boyfriend was not Sasha. It was not only not Sasha, but was, in fact, Not Sasha.
Jon felt numb.
The evidence suggested that the real Sasha—a woman whose face he couldn’t even bring to mind, even when he played that statement about the damn Calliope organ over and over, listening hard, trying to force himself to a point of recognition—was dead. Had been for months.
He hunted inside of him for sorrow, but it was stopped up somewhere like a plugged wellspring. He knew the psychology of it: recognizing that he was in a position of danger, his mind and body knew only the things necessary to survival, and that meant he would not be mourning until that thing was dead in the ground.
Until he was safe. A laughable concept.
It still hurt. It hurt in a numbing, horrifying way.
He considered curating his evidence, coming up with a plan of attack without bringing Tim and Martin in, but he knew instinctively that to delay telling them about his discovery—or in fact, not to tell them at all—put them and the sense of trust and companionship between them in jeopardy. After all, it was such a fragile, new thing.
He called them both in near the end of the day, after the… Not Sasha had left for the night, and asked them to take a seat in front of his desk.
He didn’t know what to say, so he presented the evidence: Amy Patel’s statement concerning her across-the-street neighbor, Graham; Lawrence Moore’s statement about his cousin Carl; the statement of Lucy Cooper about the woman who was not her mother. The tapes of Melanie, asking after Sasha, her insistence that the woman working in the archives was a different woman than the Sasha she had met previously. Jon meeting Not Sasha down in the tunnels after hours. The tape of Sasha’s voice, the real Sasha, giving her statement. The tape he’d found in Sasha’s desk, recoded during Prentiss’ invasion of the institute, the voice that they all knew so hatefully well mocking the achingly unfamiliar one.
Jon played them one after the other, not speaking much. By the end Tim’s head was in his hands and Martin was staring at a point on the surface of Jon’s desk, transfixed. None of them broke the silence until long after Sasha’s voice had faded out.
Tim’s voice was hoarse when he finally spoke. “That thing—”
Jon finished for him, “Is not the real Sasha.”
Martin transferred his gaze to Tim, whose hands were clenched in his own hair now, his face completely hidden from view where he sat, nearly doubled over. “Does this mean Sasha’s—?”
“Dead,” Jon said. “In all likelihood she died months ago, during Prentiss’ attack.”
Tim reacted as if he’d been dealt a physical blow, recoiling, pulling his limbs in tighter, making himself a smaller target.
“Tim,” Martin said softly, and there was a sob in his voice but it was buried deep. He reached out, but Tim shrugged him off.
When he finally looked up, his face was absolutely bloodless, his expression hard but brittle, as if it would take nothing at all to shatter him into a million pieces. He found Jon’s gaze and held it.
“Tell us what to do.”
In the aftermath, the table destroyed, Jurgen Leitner alive and then dead within the space of an hour, Elias being held for questioning, Not Sasha trapped in Michael’s domain as a deeply unsatisfying and somewhat uneasy solution to how to remove it from their lives… it’s messy.
Jon just supposes he should count himself lucky the Not Them had not taken him, that he himself had not been charged with Leitner’s murder, as his prints had been all over the pipe Elias had used.
Martin had been detained by the police for hours, answering the same questions over and over until they had reluctantly let him go. Something about being the sole witness to one dead body and a murder within a number of months strained credibility. To say he was badly shaken was the direst understatement.
Tim had left with Jon as he went to smoke a cigarette, leaving Martin watching over Leitner, all three of them still reeling at the sheer volume of revelations that had been dropped in their laps. Jon knew Tim was still kicking himself for leaving Martin alone with Leitner, but he simply did not have the words to comfort him. “It’s not your fault our boss murdered someone,” just didn’t seem to fit neatly into the silence.
After it’s all over, they head back to Tim’s place.
Jon doesn’t know what to say, and it seems neither do the other two. As hard as he’s sure talking about the worm attack was, this is worse.
None of them are hungry.
Tim left his jacket lying on the floor and Martin quietly picked it up and hung it on the peg.
Martin looked ashen-faced, a little aimless, the dark circles under his eyes more pronounced than ever.
Jon didn’t know how he felt. His feelings about Sasha’s death still seemed stopped-up somewhere inside.
As Jon looked on, Martin pulled Tim into an embrace and Tim buried his face in Martin’s chest, hands coming up to clutch at Martin’s jumper. It was a vulnerable moment, and for a second Jon thought Tim was crying. In a detached part of him, he was jealous. He flagged that part for further investigation, because for now these two were right in front of him and he was here and he was allowed to be here.
“What do you need, baby?” Martin sighed, stroking Tim’s hair.
“Need you to break me,” Tim’s voice was almost inaudible, still buried against Martin’s jumper. “I can’t feel it until you do.”
Martin was already nodding. “Okay love, okay.” He shot Jon a sidelong look. “If you want to leave I’d understand. This might get a little intense.”
Jon shook his head. His stomach was roiling, although with what, he didn’t know. “What are you going to do to him?”
Martin smiled, but there was a focus behind the smile that Jon knew was not directed at him. “Nothing he doesn’t want.”
“I’d like to stay, if that’s okay.”
“You can watch.” Jon understood this for what it was: both an invitation and a polite threshold over which he was not permitted to step. Not yet.Tim led the way to the bedroom and fetched out the box from his closet, stripping off his clothes unselfconsciously and kneeling on the bed, back straight, hands in his lap, gaze cast downward. He didn’t speak. Jon wondered if he was concentrating again.
Martin removed his jumper so he stood in his shirtsleeves and then began to lay out a number of items from the box. Tim’s bright downcast eyes tracked the movements, taking note of what was in store for him.
Martin put a hand under Tim’s chin and brought his face up to meet his gaze. “I have some rules for you this time, love,” he said softly, and Tim was nodding before he was done. “You’re not to come unless you ask me and I give you permission. You’re not to touch yourself or push me off. If you need to tap out you can snap your fingers or you can tap the bedframe. If you break any of my rules, I will beat you. How does that sound?”
Tim was nodding franticly, shifting his knees against the bed, spreading them a little.“Good boy. Now, up by the headboard and cross your wrists.”
Tim complied, pushing pillows onto the floor, kneeling by the headboard and crossing his wrists. Martin took one of the coils of red rope he’d used to bind Tim that first time and bound his wrists together. “Is that okay?” He asked, running two fingers around inside the knots and pulling on the rope leading from it. “It doesn’t tighten when I pull?”
“It’s good,” Tim said, and his voice sounded hoarse, undercut with heat.
“Good boy. Now, open your mouth.” Martin picked up a hard silicone thing on a leather strap that even Jon recognized as a ball gag. Martin fitted it into Tim’s mouth, checking the tightness of the strap against his face and buckling it in the back. Tim’s eyes were almost closed, and Jon could see a little sliver of white under his eyelashes that sent a surge of arousal through him.
As Martin encouraged Tim to lie down on his back so Martin could tie his hands above his head, Jon motioned for Martin’s attention. He wasn’t sure if he was allowed to talk, but Martin allayed his fears with a small nod. Jon swallowed, his throat dry. “You said he’s not allowed to come unless he asks first,” Jon said.
“Yeah.”
“But how can he ask when he’s gagged?”
Tim made some kind of noise, trying to speak around the gag and Martin laid a restraining hand on Tim’s chest to quiet him before going back to checking his knots. This time he’d left Tim a good bit of lead between his bound wrists and the knots tying him to the headboard.
“He can’t,” Martin said simply. “He knows that, and he knows exactly what’s going to happen. He knows that I’m going to force him to break my rules and then I’m going to punish him for it.”
Tim made a choked noise and his cock twitched as he arched his back. Jon supposed that was as much of an endorsement as he needed, but he couldn’t help asking, “But why bother with rules if you’re going to make him break them?”
Martin took hold of Tim’s cock, gently squeezing and stroking it. Tim made all kinds of interesting noises at that, whining and bracing his feet on the bed. “It’s better to know exactly what the rules and consequences are,” Martin said. “He knows that right now, he has no power over his body or what’s done to it. He needs to let go and trust me because there’s no other choice. It releases him to focus on feeling rather than thinking.” Martin strokes Tim’s cock in earnest and Tim lets his head fall back, the muscles of his thighs tensed.
“He looks like he’s close already.”
Martin’s smile had something wolfish about it. “You underestimate him, Jon.”
“Or maybe I overestimate you?”
Martin let out a started laugh, the color high in his cheeks and Jon leaned forward to chase that sound with a kiss. Martin indulged him for a blissful minute and then pulled back, continuing to administer to Tim.
Tim was getting louder. Maybe the gag in his mouth stopped him from thinking too hard about the sounds he was making but they were making Jon flush all over, hot and wanting. Tim still had his feet braced against the bed, trying to control himself, to keep from rutting up into Martin’s hand. When Martin stilled however, Tim groaned and thrust up, looking for friction, seemingly unable to help himself.
“So desperate,” Martin mocked. “You’re not even going to try to pretend that you don’t want to break my rules?”
Tim shuddered, his grip on the lead rope tightening, and tried his best to keep still. Martin leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “So good for me.”
Martin retrieved a curved wand with a flared base, lubed it up, and pushed it inside of Tim with a long, slow, practiced motion, rubbing the head of Tim’s cock as he did so.
Tim made a high-pitched noise and came, back bowed, shaking, feet sliding against the sheets. Jon felt the insistence of his own hardness and looked to Martin, who was wearing a grim, understanding smile.
As soon as Tim had stopped trembling, mostly, Martin removed the toy and ordered him to turn over. Tim did so, propping himself on his forearms with his ass in the air. The first blow nearly sent him sprawling, but he steadied himself, making helpless noises.
“How many will you give him?” Jon asked.
“As many as it takes.”
Martin worked away at Tim, using only his hand this time, each blow punctuated with a jerk or a moan. It wasn’t very long before Tim’s ass was red and his back was bowed, no longer the compliant slope from before. Jon could see the tension in his shoulders.
Martin labored for longer than Jon had expected, five minutes, ten, maybe. Jon wondered if his arm was getting tired.
Martin smoothed a hand down Tim’s back. “Turn over,” he said.
Stiffly, Tim did so. Jon was interested to see that he was half-hard again, that his eyes were closed, his breathing coming in pants around the gag.
Martin began to touch Tim all over—running his hand down his chest, pausing to play with his nipples in a way that made Tim whine and squirm, eyes still closed and brow furrowing. He stroked Tim’s arms and shoulders, pausing briefly to check the ropes around his wrists. He rubbed Tim’s thighs, pushing them apart, stroking his thumbs up and down the creases where his hips and thighs met. By that point Tim was more than half-hard, and Martin lubed up his hand and stroked his cock, bringing him off quick and efficiently, leaving Tim a panting mess, fighting back his own orgasm but ultimately succumbing with a ragged sound.
“Turn over,” Martin said, and Tim did so, slower to comply than the last time. This time his pressed his face into the mattress, twining his fingers through the bars of the headboard, supporting his chest on the bed.
Jon caught Martin’s gaze and tilted his head. Martin nodded at him. All was well then, or at least, all was proceeding according to plan.
Tim’s ass was still pink from the first round, and Martin went slower this time, setting a hard, consistent rhythm. Sometimes he would pull his hand back and the next blow would not come and Tim would flinch in anticipation, shuddering when Martin just waited, watching, before returning to the task at hand.
When Martin finally pulled back and instructed Tim to turn over, Tim moved as though his limbs were made of rubber, slow to respond. Martin slid the wand back inside of him.
This time he took Tim’s soft cock into his mouth and Tim’s eyes flew open to see. For his part, Jon was unable to look away from the sight of Martin expertly bobbing his head, squeezing the base of Tim’s cock, moving back to suck at the head, doing something with his tongue that made Tim thrash, reaching down with his bound hands to push Martin off. Jon supposed he must be hideously oversensitive by now, and wondered through a haze of arousal if Tim even had it in him to come again.
It didn’t seem to matter much, as Martin was turning Tim over, not bothering to remove the toy this time. Tim had tried to push him away, after all, and that was as much against the rules Martin had set forth as coming without asking. Tim’s face was buried in the mattress again and with the wand inside of him, every blow had him arching his back and shaking. It was slower going because of that, Martin having to wait until his settled before resuming punishment.
At some point Tim started getting louder, more desperate. The next blow struck him silent. He shaking for so long, every line of him held in tension, so tightly wound Jon thought he would snap. It dawned on Jon that this was as close as Tim could get to coming at this point and he ached in sympathy as Tim slumped to the bed and, after and exhausted pause, turned over onto his back.
“Can I hear him?” Jon was not sure it was his place to ask, but Martin nodded almost before he was finished, unbuckling the gag and brushing his fingers over the red welts it left by the corners of Tim’s mouth. Tim tried to capture Martin’s fingers in his mouth and Martin let him take them, thrusting shallowly, making Tim moan in that out-of-his-mind, can’t-form-words way and Jon was about two seconds from thrusting a hand down the front of his pants, and from the looks of it, Martin wasn’t much better off. He seemed to be holding himself back with iron will alone.
“Shh,” Martin whispered, pushing the hair back from Tim’s face as Tim sucked his fingers. “You’ve taken your punishment so well, love.” Martin looked up to meet Jon’s eyes, smiling a little at what Jon could only assume was a look of intense arousal painted across on his face.
“I think he can go one more round, don’t you think, Jon?”
Jon made a noise he hadn’t realized he was capable of making. “Can I?” he asked, and Martin nodded.
Jon didn’t bother with lube, instead licking his hand and griping Tim’s cock. Martin had a hungry look in his eye, and it wasn’t long before Tim was making noises around Martin’s fingers, clearly trying to speak. Martin withdrew his hand and Tim panted, his voice hoarse.
“Please, fuck, please can I—”
“Please what, baby?”
Tim covered his face with his bound hands and Martin patiently pulled them away. Tim’s voice cracked. “Please can I come?”
Jon made eye contact with Martin. “No,” he said, and the word moved through Tim like a jolt of electric current as Jon brought him off with ruthless efficiency.
Tim hadn’t even reached full hardness this time and coming seemed as painful as it was an ecstasy. His face was flushed, even after he stopped shaking, and when Martin removed the wand, Tim didn’t so much as open his eyes, a ragged gasp the only indication that he was still conscious. With a little help from Jon, Martin maneuvered him onto his belly.
This time Tim lay nearly full-out, clearly unable to do more than the absolute minimum required to support himself on his knees, making little movements that were not quite thrusting, as any kind of friction seemed to be too much for him right now.
Once they got Tim situated, Jon touched Martin’s knee. “Can he really take more?” He asked softly.
Martin gave him a grim smile. “He asked me to break him. He’s close, but he’s not there yet.” Sensing Jon’s hesitation, Martin covered Jon’s hand with his own. “If you want to go for this next part, I’d understand.”
But Jon shook his head. “I’m fine. I want to see this out.”
Martin nodded, and the first blow that cracked across Tim’s already-red ass shocked Jon in its ferocity.
Tim gave a ragged sob as his knees gave out and he sank down to lie on his front. Martin paused, listening, then reached over and began untying the ropes from around his wrists. He bundled Tim into his arms as he sobbed brokenly, shoulders shaking, face red and wet with tears. He rubbed Tim’s back, soothingly.
“That’s right, love,” Martin was murmuring. “You did so good for me. You broke my rules, but then you took your punishment, right? You’ll do better next time. I forgive you. You’re such a good boy. You’re okay now. I’ve got you.” Martin looked up at Jon, who was hovering, unsure what to do. “Can you put the kettle on for us please, love?”
Jon suspected that Martin knew Jon would walk barefoot across burning coals if Martin asked him to and called him “love.”
By the time he came back with three mugs of tea, Martin had negotiated Tim into sleep pants and a sweatshirt and had changed himself. Martin accepted the mugs that Jon held out to them, Tim seeming to not notice, even when Martin pressed one into his hands. Tim was curled up under Martin’s arm with his head on his chest, talking softly, staring at nothing.
Jon set his tea down and helped himself to a pair of sweatpants and an old tee shirt and left to change in the bathroom.
When he returned, Martin motioned him to join them and Jon slipped under the blanket, crowding up behind Tim to plaster himself along his back, one arm holding Tim securely. It was an awkward position, and he quietly resigned himself to his other arm inevitably falling asleep.
Meanwhile, Tim was saying, “I remember everything, you know? That’s what really gets me, because I don’t know if the memories are real because she’s not real in them. And I feel like I knew her better than most people, which, I suppose everyone is different around different people, but she could be a sarky little shit, worse than me, and I loved that about her. She was thinking of leaving when Jon got promoted over her, and I can’t stop wondering if she would have been able to if she had tried.” Tim’s voice cracked, his breath coming in wet gasps, and Jon tightens his arm around him, protectively.
Martin makes soothing shushing noises. “Hey,” he says softly. “It’s no good torturing yourself like that. If one thing had been different, maybe everything would be different. Maybe it would have got me, or Jon, or you.”
Tim shakes his head, burying his face in Martin’s chest. When he starts talking again, Jon has to listen closely to catch the muffled words.
“I knew she seemed different after Prentiss, but I thought she was just different like the rest of us, and because she had that new boyfriend. I was so stupid. I know I couldn’t have done anything but I still feel guilty for not realizing sooner. Like I could have saved her.”
Jon opened his mouth, but Tim beat him to it. “I know she was g-gone before any of us could have done anything. I know that. But I feel so guilty.”
“What can we do for you?” Martin asked softly, and Jon felt a surge of gratitude for Martin.
Tim sniffed and looked down, seemingly only just realizing he was holding a mug of tea. “This is good,” he said. “I just want this, forever. And to never go back to that place.”
The venom in his voice surprised Jon.
“Can I ask you something?”
“What?”
Jon gave Tim a squeeze. “Why did that… help?”
“What, getting beaten?”
“Yeah, all of it?”
Jon watched Tim’s half-profile. Tim sucked his lower lip into his mouth, thinking, and Jon wished he could have reached to kiss him in this position. “Do you ever get that feeling, where you get so low that all you want is to get the shit kicked out of you just to feel something?”
“That sounds a lot like self-harm.”
“Does it?” Tim’s eyes met Martin’s. “In a controlled environment, with someone you trust to know what it looks like when you’re in good pain versus bad, who will stop the moment it seems like this is not what you want, and who’ll lick your wounds for you after? Does it sound in any way similar to deliberately seeking out things that could kill you and telling them that you don’t care if you do?”
Jon felt the words ricochet inside his chest. “I suppose not. Point taken.” Jon looked up at Martin. “What do you get out of this?”
Martin seemed to consider his answer for a long moment.“I get to break him,” he said finally. “It’s hot as hell, but it’s also an act of trust on his part. It’s a way that I can take care of him.”
“How do you want to be taken care of?”
He saw a little of that darkness in Martin’s eyes that he had seen before, that hunger. He shivered deliciously.
“Time enough for that tomorrow,” Martin said softly.