Chapter Text
A sharp pain in his chest. A gasp. His Eyes open. Jonathan Sims, or rather, The Archivist, has never felt less alive in his life. Not even after he died the first time.
Jonathan Sims had never been a simple person. His life had been filled with tragedy, self-pity, repression as a coping mechanism, and the repetition of these things over and over again. His coping mechanisms and habits had led him to breaking many relationships with friends over the years, but none had hurt quite as much as ruining what little friendship he had with those he’d spent time with in the archives. Whether it be missing what little he could remember of the original Sasha James, (she’d whistle her ‘S’s sometimes when she spoke), or regretting all the mistakes he’d made regarding Tim Stoker. He missed them more than anyone.
And.. oh… Martin. He’d hurt Martin so badly at the end of everything. He could still faintly see a pale, shaking hand holding a blood-stained kitchen knife in his mind’s eye. A trembling voice and those bright, gray-hazel eyes he’d fallen so deeply into before overflowing with grief and spilling forth a fountain of angry tears.
In a moment of weakness, Jon found himself crying at these memories. He hunched in on himself, a black, silent void all around him as he broke into harsh sobs. He truly had lost everything in the end. He and his loved ones had become yet another mystery. Just as he’d always feared most.
He swallowed thickly, sniffling and wiping his eyes as he felt a low hum in the back of his mind. A familiar one. A comforting one. Even after everyone else was gone, Beholding was still there. It had clung to Jon like a lifeline the moment the tether had been cut and had sent all of the fears and their avatars spiraling into other worlds. Only, Jon didn’t know how long it had been since then. It had felt like days, maybe even months since the incident at the Panopticon. Maybe Annabelle’s- No. Maybe The Mother’s theory had been wrong all along. Maybe he’d just be alone in the void until all of time and space fell apart. Well, alone with Beholding anyways. Jon took a deep breath and closed their eyes, willing themself to sleep. When they finally did, Beholding hummed again, low and… almost apologetic.
Heh. What a funny thought that was.
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Timothy Stoker prided himself on not being surprised by most things anymore. Not since Danny anyways. But when he’d heard a loud thudding and cracking noise come from Jon’s office (followed by the guy’s scream), he’d nearly fallen out of his chair in trying to rush to his boss’s door. Sasha and Martin seemed to have similar ideas, as they both had jumped up at the sound as well. In their frantic scrambling, Sasha had remained the most levelheaded (as always) and entered the room first. She stopped in her tracks a moment later, however, eyes wide with a confused and concerned furrow in her brow. Tim stepped in second and he nearly choked on his own spit when he saw what was there.
There was a lanky, skinny looking man lying face up on Jon’s (now broken in half) desk, who looked an awful-lot like the man himself. Not only that but there was a huge, bleeding wound in his chest. It was a miracle the guy was even still breathing. Above the desk was… something. It looked like a black hole had opened up in the ceiling, and was now.. growing smaller? Before it fully closed, a tape recorder flew out of it at high speeds, nearly hitting- Oh Christ. Tim realized then that Jon had been there the whole time, one hand clutched over his heart while the other held a pen tightly, knuckles whitening from his grip. He was looking upwards, wide-eyed staring at where the space rift or whatever it had been had opened previously.
Tim carefully made his way around the destroyed desk, the smell of iron and… ink? Filling up his senses entirely. He scrunched his nose before kneeling in front of his boss. “Jon, can you hear me?” He received a nod. Good enough. He gave the man what he hoped was a comforting smile, despite his own confusion and, though he’d never admit it, fear, before nodding back. “Good. Is it okay if I take you to the break room? We probably shouldn’t be sitting in a room with a half-dead guy for too long. Probably not good for our health, y’know?” He chuckled nervously, awaiting Jon’s response. Eventually the man in question cleared his throat before jerkily nodding and standing up a little too fast. His iron didn’t quite enjoy that. Tim caught him as he swayed and led him out of the room, giving Sasha and Martin a serious nod before continuing on.
Martin carefully tried to move the injured man off of the broken desk, having always been rather strong. His height and fat helped with that quite a bit, and the man was quite small and… concerningly lighter than he should’ve been anyways. He tried not to jostle the guy around too much and took him to an extra cot in one of the storage rooms, putting pressure on the wound to try and stop him from bleeding so much.
Having a better look at him now, Martin noticed how similar the man looked to his boss. It was… uncanny. Like Jon’s face had been copy-pasted onto a far more scarred, far more weathered and gray looking man. His warm, brown colored skin and sharp jawline paired with a strong, greek nose and tired, yet piercing eyes, surrounded by a halo of dark hair streaked and peppered with gray, though this man had far, far more gray than Jon had. He shook his head, feeling heat spread across his face in embarrassment. The man now appeared to be awake, though he didn’t seem entirely conscious. His dark (but very bright) eyes looked glassy and unfocused, puffy from what Martin could only assume were tears.
He kept pressure on the wound, hearing Sasha enter with a cold rag to wipe away the stranger’s sweat. She sighed quietly, tapping her toes against the floor, a habit she had when deep in thought. “Should we call an ambulance? I’m not exactly sure how we’re supposed to explain what looked like a multidimensional rift opening up in our boss’s office and spitting out someone who looks exactly like him. I checked the bag that Jon said flew out with him but… there were really only some bare essentials and what looked like statements and tape recorders from the institute inside. No ID, no passport, nothing.”
Martin hummed softly. She was right, of course, but was it really right to just leave this guy here, bleeding out on a cot in archival storage? His eyes shifted back to the stranger, eyes widening when he saw what was happening. The man’s wound… looked like it was closing itself? A faint acidic green glowed around his pupils, his breathing starting to grow less pained and stressful. “Sasha, you’re seeing this too, right? I’m not losing it?” His head was spinning.
Sasha stood in shock, her jaw slack. She nodded hesitantly. “Seeing, yes. I’m still working on the believing part.”
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Jonathan Sims had never been a simple person. He saw a giant spider steal and eat a kid when he was eight and had been chasing the paranormal out of curiosity ever since. But when an ear-shattering ripping sound joined a large portal-like opening appearing in the ceiling of his office, suddenly he felt like anything else would make more sense than this. He hadn’t even realized he’d fallen from his chair in shock.
And just when he didn’t think things could get any weirder, a person roughly his size came rocketing out of the portal, crashing into his desk and breaking it into two, a large backpack following suit. Jon screamed at the sudden jumpscare, chips of wood having scraped him from the force of the impact and splinters landing all over the floor. He’d grabbed a pen that had flown off of the desk in self defense just in case the man started moving or anything else came through. He hadn’t seen or heard the others enter the room, and hadn’t even registered that Tim was there until the guy spoke.
Now Jon was sitting on the couch in the breakroom, trying desperately not to have a breakdown in front of his fr-... coworker. His knee bounced up and down anxiously, wondering what was going to be done about this... portal-stranger.
He was once again torn away from his thoughts when Tim walked up and placed a cold glass of water against his face, snorting fondly at Jon’s scrunched up expression. “Here you go, boss. Figured you may need some hydration after all that mess.”
“Ah- thank you, Tim.”
“No problem, Jon. What’s on your mind this time?”
Jon sighed in frustration, picking at the cuffs of his sleeves before taking a sip of water. Ah, that did feel better. “I just… I can’t seem to find any-.. any logical reason behind what just happened. It just doesn’t make any sense! All I did was turn on the tape recorder to record Joshua Gillespe’s statement and next thing I know, someone with my face is flying at me at high speeds and destroys my desk entirely from the sheer velocity-”
Tim gently placed a hand on Jon’s knee, “Hey. Take a breath, boss.”
Jon paused and sighed, his brow creasing as he seemed to hunch over. In Tim’s eyes, it almost looked like Jon was about to shatter under an unseen weight of some kind. Didn’t look as though he’d been sleeping much either. Jon normally had dark circles under his eyes due to a mix of genetics and a poor sleep schedule, but they appeared darker than normal.
Not a good sign, considering that usually meant Jon was in workaholic mode and completely neglecting his basic human needs. Typical.
Tim sighed. “Listen boss, if there’s anything you need to get off your chest, could you tell me? For my own sake? I’ll feel a lot less stressed over worrying about you if you just tell me what’s going on, mate. And before you go around saying, ‘Timothy this is highly unprofessional for the workplace’, need I remind you that you and I slept half-naked in the same bed after getting black out drunk because we were both sick of David’s painfully boring stories at the bar?”
Jon flinched and sputtered in embarrassment, trying to maintain what little dignity he still felt in the moment.
“T-Tim! Okay, Okay. I just-”
Sasha burst through the door with wide eyes and wild hair.
“The guy who fell through that rift is awake! And his wounds are healing on their own!” She smiled big, her front two gapped, bunny teeth biting her bottom lip in what appeared to be a stressed-out-but-this-is-super-cool sort of expression.
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Martin tried to keep the others from crowding the suspiciously Jon-looking stranger by using his larger frame to his advantage. He understood their excitement, truly he did. He just watched a man heal himself and save himself from bleeding out by doing absolutely nothing. Martin was restraining himself from asking any questions while the previously bleeding person attempted to gain their bearings.
They looked like a man, looking like Jon, so Martin had been calling them ‘he’ in his head the whole time, but Martin realized now that assuming probably wasn’t the best idea.
Sasha cleared her throat, and the stranger’s eyes seemed to flick up to her, seeming far more alert than the rest of their body. When they finally seemed to take in the room, their eyes widened.
Tim stepped forward and met the person’s eyes.
“So, stranger, mind giving us an explanation on what just happened?”