Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

When Jon stalked back into the archives the fierce conviction in his face belied his ragged appearance. Tim wasn’t stupid. He’d known there was something shady happening in this place probably before Jon did, considering. It didn’t stop him from purposefully hardening his heart against his pallid skin and bloody throat, his poorly bandaged hand, his filthy, mud-covered clothes.

“Jon?” Martin’s voice was soft and it set off a trembling in him that Tim could see from across the room. “Hey--” Without warning, Jon bent double over the nearest wastebasket, going down hard on his knees as he emptied his stomach painfully, shaking so hard the bin rattled. “Oh, oh, Jon.” Hands fluttering over his back, Martin hovered close, unsure of what to do, before settling next to him on the floor to hold his hair back, plaiting it loosely to keep it out of the way.

“Nngh...s’sorry.” Jon collapsed the rest of the way, resting his weight over the bin, his forehead on the arm slung across the top. “I, I...clean. Clean it up.” Shuddering, voice thick and wavering on a heavy breath. “God, I. I’m so, so sorry.” Another bout of dry heaving cleaved through him, Martin’s hushed reassurances making the ire in Tim rise to vitriolic levels and if he stayed any longer in this room he knew he’d do something to upset Martin. Physical violence had never been the way he preferred to resolve disputes but the confirmation of being trapped here. Trapped by Jon made him desperately want to lash out. Scream. Kick. Throw a tantrum and that wouldn’t do, even if the anger and dissolution flooding into every empty space left behind by the deaths of Danny and Sasha and his freedom begged him to take it out on the one thing left that represented it all.

“Tim, where are you going?” Martin’s attention was still focused primarily on the man panting under his palms, but he spared him a glance.

“Can’t be here for a while.” He flashed a bitter smile. “Guess I’ll be back, won’t I?” He was suffocating and if he stayed here one second longer he’d explode and Martin didn’t deserve that.

Martin had his hands full of a sick and shivering Jon so had no choice but to let Tim go. It was probably best at the moment. He’d been sniping at Jon even before he’d disappeared and the fury flashing behind his eyes wouldn’t help anyone right now. And besides, Jon was going to pass out any minute by the look of it.

“Jon?” His head jerked up and he swayed where he kneeled.

“Sorry, s’sorry…” the slurred apologies certainly weren’t a good sign. “‘L’get this cleaned up.” When he moved clumsily to do so, Martin stopped him with a hand on his cheek, ignoring his temperature for now in favor of attempting to catch his unfocused gaze.

“Let me worry about that later.” And Jon looked stricken, but when Martin pulled him to his unsteady feet he was more concerned with staying upright, embarrassment shoved unceremoniously to the back of his mind. “Can you stand?” Whole, long seconds passed and Martin almost asked again, but Jon took a wobbly step only to topple into the taller man who caught him up and held him close.

“S’sorry.” Martin hitched him a little higher. “Dizzy. Jus’...ah.”

“It’s alright, Jon.” Who knew having a cot in the archives would prove to be so useful and Martin was grateful for it now, lowering him as gently as he could. “Nothing to be sorry for.” The hiss of pain sucked through his clenched teeth didn’t bode well. “I’ll be back.” With the first aid kit, warm water, maybe a change of clothes--he was pretty sure he had a few things. They’d be big on him but certainly cleaner than what he was in now. When he returned with his supplies, Jon had tipped onto his side, apparently asleep, and Martin was careful to wake him slow, worried when he didn’t seem to remember where he was or what was happening. With him so sluggish and lethargic, Martin wasn’t sure where to start (maybe a 999 call), deciding top to bottom was as good a plan as anything. Forcing cheer into his tone, he talked about what had been happening while he'd been away, dipping a cloth, wringing it out, and wiping the muck off his skin, noting the pallor in his face underneath all of the dirt. He had the start of a pretty intense fever and looking at him it wasn’t hard to puzzle out why but the only thing for it right now was water and rest.

Jon pushed him away when he began on his neck and it took Martin several minutes to talk him back down, convince him that he was safe before he was allowed to hold a warm compress over the gash across his throat to loosen the blood. It was deeper than it looked and longer than he’d have liked; another brutal scar to add to his growing collection and how was any of it fair? Butterfly stitches applied and covered over with clean bandages, Martin gave Jon a break and kept urging him to drink. He was so silent, focused on pulling in short and shallow breaths, and Martin kept his questions to himself, trying to ease the ruined jumper over his shoulders when it became clear that he was too sore to do it on his own. Each centimeter bared developing bruises just beginning to black and Jon’s breath hitched the higher he was forced to raise his arms, exposing more over his stomach, his ribs and Martin couldn’t help himself.

“What happened?”

“Mm?”

“These bruises?” He ran a delicate thumb over the edge of one, watched him shiver in response.

“Oh…” Martin got the impression Jon was answering from somewhere far away and didn’t blame him. “Asked questions.” He didn’t elaborate and Martin moved on to his hands, draping the blanket over him while he unwrapped old dressings and examined the burn spanning his entire palm and fingers. He didn’t want to think about the shape of it, like he’d shaken hands with the wrong sort, and instead examined the broken blisters lining the long, ruined fingers of both hands, cleaning them gently and applying salves and more bandages before slipping a worn jumper over his head and joggers onto narrow hips, tying the cords to keep them secure. Jon was too pliant, too submissive, more than spent after whatever he’d been through and he sighed in heavy relief when he was finally allowed to lay down.

“Better?” Martin brushed some stray curls out of his face after tucking him in and he nodded.

“Tired.”

“You can sleep, it’s alright.” Jon forced heavy lashes apart, closed them again when Martin swept light fingertips over them. “I’ll keep watch. You’re safe.”

Late into the next day, Martin saw Jon back to Georgie’s flat where he immediately curled up in bed with the Admiral, clutching his borrowed clothes, so baggy they dwarfed his small frame and made the vulnerability in him that much more. He shared a cup of tea, spoke with Georgie in a hushed voice and urged her to keep an eye on him if he’d let her. She nodded resolutely and wished him luck when he left to return to the institute.

“Well?” Basira accosted him immediately as soon as he stepped through the door.

“Christ, Basira!” Hand over his heart, Martin calmed his racing heart, suddenly surrounded by the lot of them.

“Well?”

“He’s exhausted.”

“Aren’t we all?” Martin ignored Tim’s comment. It wasn’t a competition, just a bad situation all around, and after treating and cataloging all of Jon’s myriad injuries, he didn’t feel like continuing along that track. It wouldn’t help anybody. It wouldn’t convince them that Jon was as much a victim in all this as they were. That he didn’t want this. Instead.

“He’ll be back in a few days. Or probably tomorrow, knowing him.”

“Wonderful.”

“Tim!” Martin pinched the bridge of his nose, already exasperated. “Tim, just. Go easy, alright?”

“Oh, I’ll go easy.” Full of grief and anger and heartbreak with nowhere for all of it to go, it had sharpened into a blade Tim wielded with deadly precision. Jon had been at the other end of it for a long time and despite his own frustrations with him, Martin wanted to shield him from the worst of it even if he knew he wouldn’t be able to. If Tim wanted to hurt Jon, he would, and it made him want to weep.

Sure enough and right on time, Jon dragged himself into the archives, mumbling a breathy ‘thank you’ to Martin as he passed by him to his office on new fawn’s legs. It didn’t escape his notice that he was still wearing the jumper, bundled up in it with his bandaged fingers tangled in the sleeves.

And work began again as though they’d never stopped.

Jon could have spent the next eternity wrapped up in bed, bundled in the comfort of Martin’s clothes and hiding from his very new and very real responsibilities. He ached, deeply, profoundly, in a million different ways, crushed by the weight of it all and barely able to breathe. Georgie was disappointed by his decision to go back to the institute but he had to do whatever he could to protect the rest of them, even if that meant playing into Elias’ hands until they came up with a solution together.

If they would have him back.

Reading the statements was going slow, too slow, the pounding in his head increasing whenever he tried to focus. Jon kept the lights low, avoiding the hallways with their cold fluorescent bulbs beaming down at him from above, bowing his back, trying to push him into the floor, keep him there like an insect pressed between pages and he would gladly succumb if it meant he could rest.

“Oi!” He jumped at the sharp voice, groaning when the stabbing hurt all over his body intensified.

“T’Tim?”

“‘Y’yeah.’” He mocked, tossing a stack of folders onto the already overflowing surface of the desk.

“What, what’re these?” Though his hands were shaking and sore, Jon picked up the pile, paging through distractedly.

“How the hell should I know. Martin said you asked for them.” He had?

“I don’t. I’m sorry, I don’t remember.”

“Tch. Of course. Busy work to keep us preoccupied so we don’t have time to plot?”

“Wha--no, no!” It seemed his paranoia continued to have lasting consequences and he supposed it was only fair. “No, I wouldn’t. I. I’m sure I asked for them.” Reasonably sure, though for the life of him he couldn’t remember when. He couldn’t remember asking Martin but there was no reason for Tim to lie. Fingers snapping in front of his face jerked him back to the present.

“What’s wrong with you?” His eyes were narrowed and he was standing so close, too close, and suddenly Jon was on his feet, swaying into the wall and pushing past Tim in a desperate bid for the loo, head pounding enough to make him ill and only just making it in time to rid himself of the tea he didn’t remember drinking. Shaky, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, leaning back against the wall and willing the spinning to stop or slow or do anything that might make it less overwhelming. He washed his hands, his face, letting the cool water drip from his chin and closed his eyes against his reflection in the mirror. When he returned Tim was gone and Jon was thankful, tears prickling, threatening, as he sat back in his chair and rested his forehead on his folded arms for only a moment.

It was better in the stacks, dark and still, silent save for the rustling of statements and that didn’t make any sense at all even though something in the back of his mind insisted it did, encouraged him to pick one up and devour it. But the letters swam on the pages and his legs refused to hold him up any longer and he slid to the floor, hugging the folder to his chest and breathing in the stale scent of old, yellowing paper and ink. He felt so poorly, so tired, and he didn’t remember curling up on the floor but he must have, because he was, the statement still crushed in his arms like a safety blanket. How long had he been asleep? Getting up seemed too monumental a task and he let his eyes slip shut with a sigh, breathing through all the pain of his injuries.

Too much. This was all too much.

But it was quiet here among the boxes and envelopes, tucked with his back against the shelf grounding him, taking away some of that awful wooziness, the feeling of vertigo he hadn’t quite gotten rid of after his encounter with Mike Crew. He was safe here underground; underground was the opposite of up, the opposite of falling endlessly and he breathed in, out, slow, measured. Until his physical self seemed to drop away with everything else.

Plucked like a weed, Jon was lifted into the air, hauled up by his collar and set clumsily on his feet, pressed forcefully into the shelving. If it wasn’t for the hand at his throat (his throat, she was going to slice him open, bleed him like a game animal) he would have fallen and he was so scared of falling, no air in his lungs, just the deafening rush of it in his ears, so he scrabbled desperately, the statement fluttering away somewhere in favor of holding onto wrists attached to arms attached to shoulders attached to Tim. The world tilted on its axis, rolling like a ship at sea and he was desperately afraid of being released into that endless void.

“--Hiding down here?” How long had he been speaking? His face, features so twisted in revulsion of him he almost didn’t look like Tim, was close enough that he could feel his breath on his face. “Martin’s been worried sick looking for you!” Why was he yelling at him? He’d, he’d been here, not hiding, not doing anything. Just trying to, to, stay on the ground. Everything blacked out when Tim shook him roughly, shouting something else, and Jon didn’t know what he wanted, what would make him leave him alone, stop being so angry with him. He was going to be ill, too dizzy even when mercifully held still again and he was torn between letting go and taking his chances with Crew and sticking to Tim like a burr. But Tim made the decision for him, shaking him off, dropping him to his feet and shoving him forward and Jon knew he shrieked, shameful, loud, but he was falling, falling, falling and he hurt where he’d been pushed, like his bones were trying to make room by doing their level best to yank themselves free.

But he was plunging down, straight down, unmoored, unanchored, too much space, infinite space and nothing to grab to slow himself and he was going to fall forever and ever and ever and--

“Jon!”

No. He’d. How.

“Martin…” Whimpering, voice choked with tears, more of them streaming, pouring down his face, and he clung to Martin, solid, strong, holding him.

“Tim, what did you do?”

“M’falling...m’falling, Martin.” Clutching, clawing, he was going to hurt him if he wasn’t careful but he was too frightened, he had to be hurting him. Sobbing, selfish, stupid, and he couldn’t stop.

“You’re not, I’ve got you, Jon, I won’t let you fall.” Murmuring gently, embracing him tightly and it hurt, but he’d rather hurt than fall forever. “You’ve got to take a breath, Jon.” But all the air was rushing past him, too quickly to drink up even a sip, let alone breathe any into his seizing chest. “I’ve got you, try for me.” And he did, he would swear it, he’d try anything for Martin but he’d always failed in the most important tasks. He’d always failed the most important people.

At least he wasn’t falling anymore.

“Tim, what did you do?” Martin shifted Jon, passed out over his shoulder with bandaged fingers still tangled in his jumper and he was surprised he hadn’t torn it in his panic. Gently he pulled him into his lap, boiling with heat beneath his hands and heaving hard-won, gasping breaths.

“I--” He swallowed, shock naked in his expression. “I found him here, on the floor. Uh, pulled him up?” Tim raked his hair back. “I was rough, but. I didn’t mean.” Martin could only hope he looked as angry as he felt and Tim stopped speaking, following him to document storage like a lost puppy.

“Mm…” he held Jon tight, secure, relieved that he’d come around as quickly as he did even if he was groggy, setting him firmly on the cot, exerting pressure on his shoulders, an unspoken ‘I’m here, you’re here, no one is falling.’ He ducked his head, hiding from the light and groaning low.

“Jon, look at me.” He hadn’t noticed before, the black of his dilated pupils swallowed up by deep brown irises, but with the light, and his sensitivity to it, Martin suspected a head injury. “Jon?” Gently he tilted his face up with the tips of his fingers under his chin, trying to catch his dazed stare as it slipped over him like water over a stone.

“Hey! Stop ignoring him!” Jon flinched, hands clapping over his ears and curling even farther into himself while Martin glared. “Sorry.” Tim mumbled, arms crossed, leaning against the wall to give them some space.

“S’okay, Jon.” He inched closer. “Did you hit your head? Does your head hurt? Can I check?”

“Check?” Before Tim could do much more than scoff, Martin shushed him. If he wasn’t going to help, then it would be better for him to leave.

“Yep.” He didn’t wait for much more confirmation, just carefully reached forward under Jon’s wary gaze and buried his fingers in thick, unkempt curls, smiling softly when he leaned into the touch. Bolder, he cupped his face with his other hand, stroking along his cheek and watching his eyes drift closed with a hum. “Ah, oh, Jon.” Right at the back of his skull there was a large swelling, painful to the touch if Jon’s reaction was anything to go on. “Were you hit?”

“Hit?” Jon’s wrapped, burned fingers brushed against his own when he went to check for himself. “Daisy hit me.” Just a stated fact that chilled Martin to the bone and he watched his other hand come up to touch the column of his bandaged neck. “Daisy cut me.” He glanced back at Tim, trying to gauge his reaction, relieved to see horror blossoming in his expression and when he turned to Jon again, it was as if he was seeing Martin for the first time. “Martin?” He let his weight fall into his palm, and when his dark, damp eyes slipped shut, tears ran down his face. “Don’, don’think m’well.”

“Okay, it’s okay. I’ve--” his eyes flicked towards Tim. “We’ve got you.” Jon swallowed and Martin could feel it against his palm, literally holding his cut throat in his hands. "Can you tell us what's wrong?"

“Hur’s. Spin...falling, m’falling.” He paled, clutched at the linens, his breath shallow and fast and even Tim came forward in concern.

“I’ve got you, won’t let you go anywhere, Jon.” To Tim, “Don’t think he can tell which way is up. Vertigo? Concussion? We’ve got ice packs in the freezer yeah?”

“Anything else?”

“Ginger tea? If we have it.”

“M’tin…” He brushed stray curls back away from his forehead. “Stay? Please?”

“Of course I will.” Gentle and soft and Tim returned with tea and cold compresses quickly, passing off the mug to Martin, going so far as to sit beside Jon. “I’ve got to let go of you now.” And the look of panic and sorrow and resignation told him more about his state of mind than anything else.

Martin promised he would stay.

Martin was letting him go.

Jon was not surprised.

Just sad, so, so sad.

Prepared to be tossed aside.

“‘Course...s’sorry.” Another swallow, another and another, swallowing it down, how frightened he was, how lonely. Tears slipped over Jon’s skin, over Martin’s. “M’sorry, sorry.”

Too many.

Too much.

He watched Jon pull away, swaying, woozy, grip tightening on the sheets such that his knuckles were bone white. Alone again. Alone always. How dare he think or hope or dream otherwise.

“Got’chu, boss.” Martin waited until Tim had him ‘round the shoulders, pressing him into his sturdy side, before removing his hand and holding the mug to his lips.

“Drink this down and then some sleep, I think.” Together, they tipped him carefully sideways, grabbing his hands when they flew out to the side in an attempt to break a nonexistent fall, and Tim pressed a cold pack to the back of his neck, a shadow of a smile crossing his face when Jon relaxed into the pillow.

“You’re alright, boss. Won’t let you fall.”

Chapter Text

Watching Martin remove the evidence of panic by carefully, slowly, swiping a damp flannel over Jon’s skin, Tim continued holding the cold pack in place. The man between them made a sound, nondescript, shifting enough that his lips parted with a soft sigh as he settled.

“He’s made a right mess of these.” Martin lamented, gingerly lifting one hand to examine the heavy bandages, soiled with fresh blood and coming undone. Not altogether certain he wanted to know what was hidden away beneath, Tim stayed silent. “Would you mind fetching the first aid kit while I get rid of these?” He used the time away to take a deep breath, attempting to gather his rampant thoughts now that he was roped into fixing up their boss. There was always the possibility of giving him the kit and hightailing it out of that place and never setting foot near document storage again but before he realized what he’d done he’d accumulated other supplies he figured they might need and the relief in Martin’s eyes when he slipped back into the room was palpable. Jon’s hands were bare, blisters laid over blisters, broken and bleeding sluggishly from torn welts, one palm layered over with a nasty burn. Tim couldn’t help the noise torn from his throat in sympathy as the walls he’d built around himself began to crumble under the weight of Jon’s wounds--and he wasn’t even the one to bear them! Jon had acquired more scars, more shadows in the gaunt hollows carved into his body by his bones since Prentiss. It was like laying eyes on a stranger, or opening his own and finally seeing what his negligent ignorance had truly cost.

Were these marks, this pain, not proof that Jon had every right to be scared? Paranoid? To suspect them? When it was his own “friends” raising hands violently against him?

“What. Martin, what happened?” He accepted the water, easing Jon’s arm over the edge of the bed and doing Tim the kindness of not reminding him that he’d never cared to know before.

“I couldn’t tell you what caused most of this, but you know. Daisy.” He swallowed, eyes narrowing as he dabbed away the worst of the scarlet slicking his skin and Tim saw red at the reminder. How dare she touch him. “Hush now, you’re alright.” Jon’s arm twitched, an aborted attempt to tug his hand away from Martin’s surely painful ministrations. “Just cleaning these up.”

“Hnn…” Saltwater-soaked lashes fluttered and damn his body’s reactions but Tim was at his side on the cot before he could blink and wholly unsure of what to do now that he was there, settling on running fingers through tangled curls, teasing out the knots as Martin worked. Clouded and slightly crossed, Jon’s glazed brown eyes peered up at him, through him, blinking slow, and Tim could feel the heat of his fever under his palms.

“Hey, bud.” Surprising himself with his own softness, Tim continued combing through his hair. “Close your eyes, boss. Marto’s fixing you right up.”

“Hur’s.” Badly slurred and tinged with vulnerability he wasn’t used to anymore, Jon’s voice sent a chill racing up Tim’s spine.

“I know.” He said anyway. “It won’t soon.” Trust and exhaustion won out, dragging bruised lids closed. “Martin.” Tim didn’t look up, tracing silver strands, so many, with the fingertips. “I would like to know. Please.” Martin hummed, finished up the first hand, the worst hand, and cradled it over Jon’s stomach in a poor attempt at elevation before starting on the next one.

“I haven’t gotten much out of Jon--not because he won’t tell me!” He amended, remembering the promise Jon had made to be honest with them and clearly worried it would make Tim angry again if he thought he was keeping secrets. “He’s just. I mean.”

“I understand.” After leaving Elias’ office, whatever tenacity and fortitude Jon managed to scrape together after his ordeal with Daisy and Basira had faded quickly. Even Tim wasn’t able to ignore how bad off he was, more along the lines of being unable to explain than lacking any desire.

“I know she, she hit him. He’s bruised all over. Clocked him with her gun I assume, to leave him concussed--I still can’t believe I didn’t notice sooner.”

“It’s alright. We’ve all been. Preoccupied.” Some of them only with themselves.

“He was filthy, covered in dirt and I think bl’blood? Not his. Or, not all of it I think.” Martin rubbed his own neck thoughtfully, tracing a path that mirrored the red grin carving up Jon’s throat. “I think.” He looked into Tim’s eyes, haunted. “I, I overheard them saying he’d been made to d’dig a grave.”

“His grave.” There was no real proof, not yet. But it felt right. And Tim felt sick. “His hands.”

“The burn is bad, I don’t know how he got it.” A crease formed between Martin’s knit brows. “I. Tim.” He sighed. “You’ve been so furious with him.” He dragged both hands down his face. “Jon’s doing his best. Please, you have to believe that.”

“I think I’m beginning to.” He’d yet to stop his detangling. Jon liked when people he trusted played with his hair, especially when he wasn’t feeling well. Unbidden and effervescent, memories rose to the surface of Tim’s mind, each a different moment, beads of time strung on delicate silk strands. Sasha. Sasha, whose true face, true voice, had been written over and worn, her hands on Jon’s shoulders, working out the tension he carried there despite his complaints. Tim himself draping a cardigan over him where he slumped forward on his desk in Research when he succumbed to sleep. A rare moment at someone’s apartment, Jon three drinks in, flushed bright red and ridiculous, throwing himself into Tim’s lap and nuzzling his stomach until he got what he wanted; hands in his hair, on his back, honest to god cuddles. The embarrassment in the morning would paint him vivid with blush and he would accept the painkillers and tea with a shy grin.

That Jon was still in there.

Right?

For the first time in his career Tim chose to come into work early, heading immediately to doc storage to find Jon curled up against Martin, ruddy face squished against his chest and arm slung over his waist as though he’d recently been clinging there.

And if this had been another time, another universe, he would have teased them both, but the shadows under their eyes were beginning to match.

“We had a hard night.” Martin yawned hugely and Tim caught a quick glimpse of glassy brown at the movement but Jon passed out again in the next second. “Nightmares. You remember Crew?” Tim nodded. “Explains the vertigo. He’s going to want to work.” Martin’s palm found its way to the back of Jon’s head, tucked him under his chin as he exhaled, slow and measured.

“And you want him to rest.”

“He won’t.”

He didn’t.

But the dizziness kept him in his office for the most part and Tim helped keep an eye on him, checking up regularly, awkwardly. It was almost like old times. Except Jon was careful not to speak. Not now that he might force answers out of someone. Not now that he might be hurt because of it. Jon was smart. He tried to remember the things he learned because he only seemed to learn the hard way and right now he was trying to figure out Tim while Tim was trying to figure out himself, wary of the change towards him, confused when instead of lashing out, he asked if he needed anything.

“N’no, thank you, Tim.”

“It’s no trouble.” But it was physically painful to watch the gears turn as Jon balanced the possibility of pissing him off with how uncomfortable he was in this situation. “I’ll check back later, yeah?”

“Uh. Y’yeah. Yes. I mean, yes.” Nervously, he shifted between folders. “Of c’course.”

The day dragged and Jon’s fever and groggy exhaustion lingered, kept barely in check by Martin plying him with the painkillers and fever reducers because he refused A&E. It was frustrating, even if he was looking somewhat improved. When they caught him asleep it was often in the throes of a taxing nightmare. He was a shadow in his attempts to avoid them all, to focus on work, and now that Tim was paying attention he didn’t like how Basira was so cold, how Daisy made Jon flinch on purpose, how Melanie went out of her way to collide with him in the narrow hallways. How he was slight enough, unsteady enough that it sent him into the wall.

How he did nothing about it except murmur apologies and move past them as quick as he could.

Jon was back to pushing himself too hard, not bothering to ask for help because he’d never gotten any before so it wasn’t worth bothering with it now. He was alone. Deserted by everyone except for Martin--and oh the way his expression lit up at the sight of him. How soft his voice became when he thanked him for the tea. Tim knew Martin couldn’t see it yet, or wouldn’t let himself realize, but Jon was taken with him. Smitten. And already believed beyond a doubt that he had no worth. As prickly as Jon could be there was so much love in him just vying for a way out.

How could Tim have forgotten that?

Tim paced the length of the archives three times before heading back to check on Jon, alarmed when the office was empty. Worry, both familiar and unfamiliar, twined its way around his heart. He'd watched as the afternoon hours slipped by and Jon became worse and Tim didn’t bother asking anyone he came across; they didn’t care, he wasn’t supposed to care. But there weren’t many places Jon would go and Tim found him in the breakroom stabilizing himself on the sink. He didn’t react, didn’t turn, didn’t seem to know anyone was behind him, and Tim could make out shivery, deliberate breaths. Jon let go, lifting a hand dazedly to his forehead and staggering backwards such that Tim had to steady him.

“Whoa there, Boss.” Softly, quietly, Tim knew his head was still pounding more often than not no matter how adamant his denial. It didn’t stop Jon from flinching like he’d been struck or attempting to whirl around and only making it all that much worse as eyes filled with fear rolled back into his head and Tim had to catch him outright, lowering him to the floor and pillowing his shoulders in his lap. Unconsciously, he laid a palm over his overwarm forehead, dragging fingers back through damp strands rhythmically and wondering how he’d react to waking up with Tim staring down at him. They were dancing around each other, or at least Tim was. Jon couldn’t do much more than sit at his desk in what amounted to pyjamas and pretend to work in an attempt to wedge some normalcy back into his life.

“What happened?” At least now Martin’s inquiry wasn’t accusatory as he knelt beside them and checked over Jon himself. “How long?”

“Minute. Maybe two? He, uh. I surprised him and when he turned…” he trailed off, gesturing with a sigh.

“Ma’tin…” nothing more than a small breath of awareness in recognition of his voice, eyes still closed.

“You should be at your desk.” Lightly scolding.

“Nn...was col’...tea…” Tim met Martin’s eyes with worry at the barely coherent jumble of syllables caught on his sluggish tongue and he held up a hand, signaling him to wait.

“What’re we going to do with you, hm?”

“...Dunno…” He’d failed to understand the gentle ribbing for what it was, instead answering honestly, tearfully, and it tugged on Tim’s heartstrings. Martin chuckled kindly to ease the sting, moving forward to lift his weight off from Tim and standing still to let Jon wind a hand loosely into his jumper, hanging on for dear life with a gasp.

“You sound tired.”

“Mmyeah...tire’...” And that discordant admission alone was enough to cause alarm, doubly so when his body lost all rigidity in Martin’s hold.

“Martin--”

“Shh, Tim. He’s alright.” Protectiveness urged Tim to follow them back to document storage. Concern made him sit down before Martin asked. “Stay with him? I don’t want him to forget and wander off again. I’m gonna get that tea and something for the fever.” Tim supported his chin with a hand, elbow digging sharply into the top of his knee, and watched Jon sleep. With his eyes, he traced invisible constellations over the worm scars dotting his skin and connected their lines to the ink dark splash of lashes twitching as he dreamed. “What’re you thinking about?”

“How much running I’ve been doing.”

“Mm.”

“How much easier it was to ignore all this if I just hated Jon instead. Blamed him for it.” He lifted his fingers in a bitter and general indication of their unreasonably bad situation. “He’s made mistakes. We all have. And his are the only ones I’m not willing to forgive.” Tears prickled at the corners of his eyes, stung. “Why is that?” His skin blushed with heat when his voice broke on a sob and before Martin could speak they were interrupted.

“Head’spounding…” He could barely keep his eyes open.

“Ah, I’m sorry, love, I know, here,” he was like a rag doll when Martin lifted him. “This’ll help.” Tim watched the ease with which Martin navigated Jon. All sweet and kind, steadying his hands when they proved too shaky to hold the cup, testing his temperature with the inside of his wrist when Jon was distracted with swallowing down the medicine.

“Shouldn’t do this.” Whispered, lost and undone, as Martin tucked him in, gripping back tightly when Jon grew dizzy with the change. “M’sorry.”

“You say that too often, Boss.”

“Hush, both of you.” To Jon, “we can all talk later, when you’re feeling better. It’s okay to need help. It’s okay to rest.” And while he didn’t look convinced, he was helpless against the drag of that heavy, insistent tide of exhaustion.

“Never liked to owe people, our Jon.” Martin sighed, frustrated.

“It’s not a transaction. I wish he’d trust that I only want to help.” Tim snickered ruefully as Martin tucked stray salt and pepper strands behind Jon’s ears.

“He’s always been suspicious of decency.”

“That’s not right.” There was a lot wrong with it, and far too much to solve at this moment.

“You look knackered, Martin. Go home.” He needed caring for after keeping them all together like he’d done. “I’ve got it from here.”

“I don’t want to ask that of you.”

“You’re not asking, Marto.”

“Tim--”

“I need to. I. I need to do this.”

Tim was worried that the only reason Martin left him here alone was because he was too tired to spend another night here keeping an eye on the both of them. He only had himself to blame when it came to the loss of trust.

It was no secret his dislike of Jon.

He hadn’t forgotten his treatment of him just the other day. Yanking him up off the ground and shouting at him, blaming him for his confusion and unsteadiness, for worrying Martin while he’d been the one ill and frightened and unmoored on the dusty floor. A mournful cry jolted him out of his musings, and the nightmare didn’t sound kind, wrenching Jon awake and leaving him panting, narrow chest heaving, eyes wide and unfocused in the dim.

“Hey.” Soft and quiet, it didn’t stop Jon from jumping in surprise, nearly swooning when he jerked his head in the direction of his voice. “Back with me?”

“Tim.” Real surprise, he blinked hard, trying to clear his bleary vision. “Yeah. S’sorry.” Jon offered him a sheepish quirk of his lips.

“I’m the one who needs to apologize, Jon.” He swallowed thickly and Tim could hear the click in his throat, somewhere behind the bandage hiding that yawning red grin from sight.

“Wh’what?”

“I’ve treated you unfairly.”

“No, no, Tim. You. You had every right! I was out of line and suspected the worst with no proof and didn’t trust yo--” Jon was trying to get up, ignoring how it had to hurt, and when Tim made to stop him, he flinched in real fear and backed himself into the corner. “S’sorry. I. It’s, it isn’t you, I swear.” Guilt wrapped around Tim’s heart like a thorny vine at his stammering apologies, at the way Jon laughed at himself and scrubbed his face with the back of a bandaged hand, staring up at the ceiling as new tears pooled in his eyes. “A lot’s h’happened.” When he closed them, the damp rolled down his cheeks into the grey at his temple. “I,I,I know you don’t w’want to hear it. But I, I don’t have anything else left t’to offer and I’m so s’sorry.” Jon tucked up his knees and buried his tear-stained face in the blankets he pulled around himself. Scared and small and awaiting derision. Tim edged closer.

"Jon.” He reached out to touch and thought better of it. “I think. I think I'm ready to hear it now." Consumed by constant fear and torment, run ragged for months and months, when Jon risked glancing up at him Tim could finally look past his anger and see him. Flushed with fever, thin and drawn, bruised and beaten and burned.

But still Jon.

Still Jon, terrified of the kind of help he'd been taught by experience not to ask for. Not to accept. Not to trust. Not to need.

“No, n’no, Tim. It’s.” He sniffed, tried to offer Tim a watery smile. “M’not feeling w’well, heh. You know how I, how I am.”

“I know you don’t take care of yourself.” He continued before Jon could interrupt. “I know I’ve left you to deal with this alone.” Indeed, at the very first sign of trouble, Tim abandoned him to his own devices. “I understand why it’s been difficult to trust me.”

“Not just you.” Tim had to strain to hear him, voice tiny, wavering with misery. “It’s so hard to trust, I have to, to think about it, choose it, don’t I. Talk myself out of how a’afraid I am all the t’time. I can’t even trust myself, my words. I. They. It’s easier to not speak at all, if it can be helped. And I try. But. Tim.” Fraught, brown irises nearly swallowed by black pupil bored into him, begged him to listen, to see. “I’m a monster.”

“Jon--” He tugged at messy curls, ignoring the pain it had to cause, the spots of blood, and if Jon would let him, he would need to fix the wrappings after this. He’d folded into himself even tighter, rocking himself just slightly in an attempt at comfort.

“If everyone is saying it, it must be true. But I’m trying. I promise, Tim, I promise. I was hoping it counted for something, anything. I can’t. I.” He broke off, attempting to pull himself together, face contorted and when he noticed Tim’s stricken expression, stumbled on with half-thought out reassurances. “I, I won’t stop! T’trying, that is. I, I, I want to, to be better. I don’t want to hurt anyone. It’s not about counting, it’s about doing the right thing. Or something close to--it never seems to work out, I’m not. I keep doing the wrong things so I know--but I p’promise--and besides, D’Daisy’s watching, if you’re worried, heh.” He laughed, a little broken thing, tears glittering in his eyes. “She’ll put me d’down. If that makes you feel any better.”

And god how could he think Tim wanted that? Jon, living with the knowledge that any mistakes he made could lead to--

Hanging over his head. Just awaiting collapse.

“That’s. Jon, I don’t want her to do that.”

“Oh. Did.” Tim realized the pause was an attempt at managing his powers of compulsion. “Did you want to? Instead I mean?” Tim recoiled in horror at the genuine curiosity, the dull acceptance that they all might be waiting for their chance. Numbness flooded his fingers. And even though Tim knew Jon was trying to use the right words, the ones that would make him feel better, he was furious.

“How could you think that?!” Jon held up his raggedly bandaged hands, the blisters from digging his own grave and who knows what else hidden from view.

“I, I’m sorry, I. You’re right, that was stupid of me. I’m sorry, Tim, I’m sorry, I--” Tim cut him off by sweeping him into an embrace, pressing his face into his shoulder. He was little more than bones rattling around in a scarred and ruined skin, shaking in his arms, his own held away, stiff. Dear lord, what had he done? “T’Tim? I, I’m sorry I’ve upset you.”

“Stop it, Jon.” And he collapsed, spent from his outpouring, breath loud in Tim’s ear. “Just stop.” Tentative, Jon wrapped him up in return. “I’m going to do better.”

“You don’t--”

“I do. And I am.” Damp soaked into his sleeve despite the silence with which Jon sobbed, little more than uneven, ardent gasping as they clung to each other.

“B’but.” He pressed closer, starved for it. “I.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’ve been so afraid.” Murmured against his shirt, Tim could feel the shapes of his words, the trembling of his lips.

“I’m sorry.”

“Are you. You mean. If, if you--I couldn’t stand it. If it wasn’t real.” Desperately, he whispered, thick with tears. “Don’t think I’d survive losing you again.” Too much loss. Too much all around and not one time had Tim thought about who he still had.

“I’m going to help you.” Tim realized then he’d been crying as well. “Like I should have from the start of this mess.” Gently, he pulled him away, took his damaged hands. “Let me get these fixed up. If Martin sees them, he’ll have both our heads on pikes.” For a moment, Tim was worried it was too soon, that Jon would need to hide this vulnerability from him, and he held his breath, until he nodded, just once.

It would take time, but they’d made a start.

Chapter Text

“Hey boss. This came for you.”

“Thank you, Tim.” Jon accepted the package, turning it over in his hands and giving it a little shake, glancing up when Tim sat across from him. “You want to see.” Carefully phrased so as not to be a question and risk a compulsion.

“Yeah!” Almost to himself, Jon smiled shyly at the enthusiasm. It was good to see Tim in better spirits. It was good to see him at all really, especially lately as they rebuilt their friendship. With meticulous care, Jon peeled away the brown paper, dragging it out just to see Tim fidget, and so distracted with contained mirth, something sharp pricked his exposed finger. Reflexively, Jon stuck the bleeding digit in his mouth, muttering ‘ouch’ around the tang of copper on his tongue. “Oh, bit you did it?”

“So it would seem.” He muttered, examining the tiny wound and wiping the remaining blood off on his borrowed hoodie when he deemed it of no consequence.

“Jon.” Tim moaned, despite the multitude of rusty stains already in abundance.

“What?” Attention now focused on the filthy vintage syringe held delicately in his bandaged hands. “Doesn’t seem, uh, well, that is to say--”

“Spooky?” Tim helpfully provided, grinning broadly when Jon scoffed.

“And it didn’t come with any statements or names?”

“Nope.” He popped the ‘p.’ “Up on tetanus, I hope.”

“Elias,” he couldn’t help it; uttering his very name made Jon’s face twist. “Made certain we were all up to date on our vaccinations.”

“How magnanimous of the Big Boss.”

“Yes, quite.” Jon rewrapped the object, this time paying careful attention to the pointy end. “Still, to be safe I’ll take it to artefact storage.” He stood too quickly, catching himself on the desk and hissing between his teeth when pain rocketed up his arm from his burned palm.

“Jon!” Tim’s hands were on him, twin points of support, and while not unwelcome, he could do without more fussing and fretting. He’d no idea one could feel so smothered by just two people.

But it was lovely to have friends, people who didn’t look at him with fear or anger.

“I’m alright, I’m alright.” He waved him away, not unkindly, before heading off to artefact storage. His heart felt light enough to ignore the odd stare he received from the attendant as he signed his name beside the information logging in the syringe. Yes. The Unknowing was looming on the edge of all things but now he wasn’t alone and when he settled down for the night on the cot in doc storage, the coring emptiness was less.

It wasn’t a surprise waking to lingering dizziness and exhaustion, not since Crew and a concussion, but this morning felt different. Off somehow, in a way Jon could feel in his gut. It took longer to put himself to rights and the energy he’d gained back over the last few days seemed to have disappeared over night. Not unheard of, merely frustrating. Jon looked at himself in the restroom mirror, stuck his tongue out like he’d seen done in movies and traced the shadows made prominent by his washed out complexion. The band of crisp white ringing his neck still stood out and Jon hadn’t yet been brave enough to look. Absently he scratched at the edge of it, wincing at the sensitivity, before taking up his cane and meandering to his office.

It was probably nothing. He would keep this to himself for now. The fragile peace he’d made with Tim was far too new to add another stone to the mountain pressing down on them both. If he broke it again now he wouldn’t be able to handle Tim’s rejection again. It seemed as though Martin had already been by, leaving his customary tea, paracetamol, and a packaged snack he didn’t have the appetite to eat. But the statements. There were a few that caught his eye, ones that he’d set aside for one reason or another. Ones that were real. He hadn’t understood why or how he knew but that was before he’d been on the run for murder. Before he knew what Elias was trying to do. Swallowing, throat sore, Jon sat with relief, knuckling the residual sleep from his eyes and selecting the folder closest to him. A tape recorder began to run, its quiet whirring a strange but familiar comfort.

“Shall I tell you a wretched story?” It neither confirmed nor denied, but seemed instead to wait.

“Jon?” The creak of the old door roused him from a doze he didn’t recall falling into.

“Hm?” How long-- “Oh. Y’yes, Martin?” He pushed himself up off his desk where he’d been resting his aching eyes. “Taking a short break. Can I, can I help you?”

“You look peaky.” The worry, while wrapped up in his scrutinizing, was pouring out of Martin, welling up, drowning Jon in guilt. He’d already demanded so much of his time. Martin deserved to be free of him.

“I’m alright. Tired.” A little truth, just to stretch the lie. Offer him a crumb and for a long moment Jon was worried he wouldn’t take it.

“Well, it’s late, almost half nine. Was checking in to remind you of the time.” He didn’t mention how he’d known Jon was still in his office.

“Why?”

“I just said--”

“No, no. Why are you still here?” He watched him fidget. “Martin.”

“What!” Jon raised an eyebrow. “It really is late and if you’re tired you should rest?” Jon sighed, acquiescing to Martin handing him his cane and all but escorting him to bed. He didn’t mind it, the coddling, not really, found it a comfort ever since being carted off into the wood to die. He’d been alone then.

He wasn’t alone now.

“Good night, Jon.”

Jon was coming down with something, Tim was sure of it, the familiar niggling care that had become so foreign making his heart ache behind the cage of his ribs, like it no longer fit there. He’d been trying not to smother the man, but the glimpses he caught in between their awkward visits didn’t bode well because of course, Jon insisted on doing everything he could by himself and it was clearly taking a toll. Lessons learned, Tim supposed, considering the tense, if not downright hostile, relationships Jon had with the rest of them.

“Jon?” Just in case he’d fallen asleep at his desk again Tim peeked into the office without knocking. “Oi, Jon. You look terrible, boss.” He lifted his head from where he’d been staring vacantly at the blotter. The flush high in his face underscored slowly blinking eyes, lashes heavy and salt damp.

“Jus’ tired.”

“Got a feeling it’s a little more than that.” When he didn’t argue, Tim knew he’d struck a chord. “Can I see?”

“Mm.” Jon closed his eyes against Tim’s palm touching his forehead.

“Bit of a fever there, bud. How long have you been feeling run down?” Why didn’t he notice it was this bad?

“Wasn’t really...‘till today. Thought. Thought it was, I was. The statements sometimes. S’like I crave them.” He coughed lightly. “Like uh, like. Smoking? Used to be.” There wasn’t time right now to unpack that. He knew there was something wrong with the statements ever since they’d started and each real one had put Jon almost out of commission. Couldn’t write it off as stress from a new job any longer. Too big to think about right now. But he could think of Jon.

“Guess not?” The twitch he received could have been interpreted as a shake of the head. “Let’s get you lying down, yeah?” Tim caught him when standing sent Jon careening sideways, taking note of the sweaty heat and delicate trembling in his hollow bird-like bones, the apologetic hum. Luckily, it wasn’t far or Tim would’ve ended up carrying him outright. As it was he divested him of his worn (most likely borrowed) trainers and oversized jumper, deciding his faded band tee and joggers would do for sleep.

“Sorry...dunno…” Voice burned away, slipping in and out with each syllable, Jon stopped to cough, swallow thickly, and Tim tucked him in up to his shivering shoulders.

“Get some rest, Jon.”

“Don’tell Martin. Don’wan’im...t’worry.” Admirable, but with no desire to keep that promise, Tim was relieved when Jon went limp beneath the blankets before he had a chance to lie. For a moment, just to be sure, Tim watched his stomach rise and fall unsteadily before leaving him in search of Martin.

Tim found him in the stacks looking for more information about the Stranger which really only amounted to flipping through far too many pages and skimming their horrors in vain. It was something to do while they waited, trapped like rats in this convoluted maze, maybe it would even be helpful. Even so, Jon needed looking after and Martin set his mind to it as a distraction.

“Tim said you weren’t feeling well.” Deft and practiced, Martin’s fingers undid the bandages around Jon’s hands and he examined each one carefully assessing their progress before wrapping them securely. They looked good, much better than they had a few weeks ago when Jon came back to them worse for wear and freshly traumatized.

“Trai’or...can’keep secrets.” Jon swallowed, once, twice, touching his throat and grimacing.

“Don’t be cross with him, he’s spying for me.” Martin laughed shortly, no more than a puff of air, distracted with checking Jon over as he shivered in front of him with chills. “You're feverish again. I thought we’d kicked that.”

“Mm.” He leaned into Martin’s touch, whined petulantly when he pulled away to work on the gauze shielding Daisy’s still sensitive reminder. “Had done…” Pale, his sallow complexion set off the red around his eyes, the black shadows pooled under them.

“Jon,” he trailed the tips of his fingers lightly over the back of his neck, “what’s this?” Beneath the bandage there was what looked like a spreading bruise, deep and dark, banked coals trapped underneath his skin and radiating blistering heat.

“Wh’whas what?” Slurred and slow and Martin bit down on his mounting panic as Jon’s head tipped farther forward, chin resting above his too-prominent and unevenly heaving clavicle.

“Jon?” He continued to collapse, becoming ever smaller, to the point where only Martin's careful grip was keeping him from tumbling off the cot.

“Nn…”

“Okay, alright, love.” Gently, Martin drew him back, running careful fingers through his matted, sweaty curls before settling him on the pillow and coming around to kneel, to get a good look at him. “Oh, oh, shh.” He thumbed away tears, cupped the back of his head. “We’ll figure this out. You’re so tired, just close your eyes.” And when Jon’s breath slowed he immediately went to find Tim.

“Something’s wrong.”

He hurt. All over, top to toes and everywhere in between, and he didn’t have the breath to explain. The bruises he thought were getting better had become mottled with black and blue and purple and above them his skin itched and burned like fire and he gripped the surface he was laid upon as everything tossed around him, a ship unmoored and adrift at sea.

Sinking. Lungs heaving like a bellows, taking in water and salt and foam.

Voices, familiar, but so far away, fading in and out as he came up for air before being dragged down deep and dark where sunlight never dared reached.

He hurt. But there were no words.

Just a weight, pressing him down, so heavy, so persistent, it was impossible to shift it. His skin didn’t fit, too small, tight. Drawn like hide over his ribs and threatening to break them one after the other, to snap them in two like dry wood to fuel the burning, burning, burning spreading out ad infinitum. Every scar screamed out, seams undone, one tug and he’d unravel and they’d see how scared he was.

Coward.

Coward.

Coward.

He hurt and there is singing in the walls and he is afraid.

He could stop this, all of this. Should have let Daisy finish it. At least the grave had been already dug.

The following morning Tim found Jon struggling to swing his legs over the side of the cot, panting with the effort of moving stiff and aching limbs. He set the tea aside on a filing cabinet not strewn with piles of research to place a staying hand on his arm, drawing his attention.

“...Tim.” Breathy and strained, it sounded as though speaking pained him.

“Where’re you headed? Looks like you could use a lie in.”

“Wh’what? Oh. I. Don’ remember.”

“Tell you what.” Tim pressed the mug into his trembling hands, lingering to be certain he had it. “Gonna go grab my laptop and we’ll make a day of it. Drink your tea or I’ll be hearing about it from Martin.”

They took turns sitting with Jon throughout the day, exchanging concerned glances when he became groggy and disoriented, more and more unaware. He barely moved, exhausted and content with their company, audibly murmuring in discomfort when they touched anywhere hurting and Tim could tell it was making Martin worry. Jon had been improving steadily only to lose ground this quickly? Something was wrong and again, Martin was the one strong enough to confront it head on. Tim looked up at him when he slipped into the room, kneeling on the tile and taking Jon’s hand, tracing along the cloudy bruises peppered over the back of them.

“I need to see.”

“See what?” But he’d been talking to Jon whose half lidded and glazed fever-bright eyes watched dazedly. It didn’t look as though he intended to speak, Tim wasn’t sure he’d even registered what Martin was asking. His lips parted, tongue sweeping over chapped lips.

“H’hear it?” Like it was a secret shared between them, Jon’s voice didn’t rise above an earnest whisper. Martin ignored him in favor of replacing his hold with Tim’s, mouth pressed into a thin line.

“Just a quick, look,” he soothed when removing the quilt was akin to plucking a string, leaving Jon quaking with chills.

“B’but you, i’it. Behin’ th’walls.”

“What’s he talking about Martin?”

“Oh.” Shocked, Martin gasped. “Oh, Jon.” He’d lifted the hem of his shirt enough to bare an expanse of mottled skin creeping under his joggers with even more spreading in a dark swathe towards his chest.

“Th’song.” Jon flinched, tugging his hand away from Tim’s tight grip, revealing the black flowering under his thumb. “Th…”

“Martin?”

“This is bad. I don’t, I don’t want to move him. He’s.” Bruised all over. Anywhere they touched more than feathlight blossomed new and the marks from Daisy only provided a muted pastel backdrop for additional ink-dark splotches.

“Mmah…”

“Hush a moment, love. It’s alright, you’re alright.”

“Sing...singing. Can, can you hear’t?” Martin held his grasping fingers gently where they tried to tangle themselves into his jumper. “Not, not right.” He coughed, winced.

“I heard, Jon. Let me speak with Tim.” He sat beside him, cradling his hands to keep them still. “I’ll make the call and explain how to find us.” Thank god. Tim didn’t know how Martin was so calm with Jon gasping for every breath next to him, burning away to nothing and out of his mind with fever.

“Okay, go, I’ve. I’ve got him.” He hesitated, as if thinking if he should try to explain something important with a look alone. “Go, Martin.”

“I’ll be back.”

And Tim was alone with Jon’s frantic murmurings, petting sweat slick curls back to try and calm him.

Jon’s eyes went wide, brimming black with pupil, before rolling back beneath fluttering lashes, hands reaching, reaching, reaching, and finding only Tim who reached back, caught him up, cradled him, held his bleary stare just as tightly.

“Tim! Tim, T’Tim…the worms!” And the fear is shining there in his eyes, bright and blinding and he’s holding on to him with all he has.

“They’re gone! They’re gone, Jon, I promise. I promise, buddy.”

“Tim--” A ragged cough tore itself explosively from his chest and with horror, Tim watched Jon’s pale lips fleck with dark blood.

“It’s alright. I’ve got you...Martin! Oh, god, Martin!!” Shouting, screaming himself hoarse as he ran fingers reflexively through Jon’s hair.

“Nngh…”

“Hey, hey, stay with me, Jon.” He didn’t mean to shake him, but didn’t know what else to do because Jon was losing consciousness in his arms and he could do nothing. “Martin! Martin.” The relief was a palpable tension in his chest when the other man slid to a stop in front of them and fell to his knees, hands hovering over Jon like a swarm of butterflies.

“They’re on the way, Tim.”

Chapter Text

The lights buzzed overhead, chewing their way into Tim’s brain as he paced the length of the small room they’d been ushered to. They hadn’t heard anything in the hours passing slowly by. Nothing. Not a word. They didn’t even know if--

No news was good news.

Right?

“Tim. Please. Just sit for a moment. You’re making it worse.” And he did, leg immediately beginning to bounce, but he couldn’t help it. Not with the interminable waiting, waiting, waiting for even a morsel of information. “What could it be?” Martin muttered, hands twisting together nervously in his lap. “He was, he was getting better.”

“How are we supposed to begin to guess with all the shit we’ve been through?” Now that Tim was paying attention, the only things happening to Jon were the horrible, awful terrors taking a physical toll. Maybe his body finally gave out under the stress of it all but before he could continue his pondering a tired nurse opened the door, flipping through a chart.

“We’re running some additional tests but you can see him if you’d like.” They were already on their feet and following them through the brightly lit and seemingly infinite hallways.

And lord, if Jon wasn’t small in the bed. Tim was going to feed him to within an inch of his life when he got him home. Home. A real bed, no work. No falling asleep at his desk or passing out in the break room because right now he looked fragile and Tim wasn’t sure he’d ever thought of Jon that way. What he lacked in size he made up in attitude, by being his posh and prickly bastard self. But with all that stripped away he laid still and silent, the catheter in the back of his badly contused hand hooked up to clear bags of fluids while monitors silently tracked errant lines and colored numbers. Below the short sleeve of his hospital gown Tim could see handprints painted on a dark canvas in dusky purple the size and shape of his own.

“Tim, you didn’t mean to.” As if Martin knew, as if he sensed the building, suffocating guilt. He was trying not to hurt Jon anymore and he’d done so anyway. What did it matter if it was an accident?

“But I still did. I put those marks there. Just like, like” Blood, burns, blisters. The scent of petrichor redolent in the air for days. “Like her.”

“No.” Strong and sure, Martin turned him bodily, forced Tim to face him and stop staring at Jon’s slack face half covered in an oxygen mask, lashes ink-dark where they spilled over the soft swell of his cheek. “No, and I swear if you use this fear to distance yourself I’ll never let you near him again.”

“But--”

“Tim.” Martin softened. “Please. He needs both of us.”

“Gentlemen, if you could follow me.” Interrupted before he could speak again, Tim turned to the doctor. “This way.” She strode quickly, with purpose, leading them away from Jon and they had no choice but to follow, hoping for answers at the end of the trip. They were ushered into another room and received gowns for their trouble. “I need you to change into these.” She kept her distance.

“What?” Tim demanded. “What’s going on?”

“It’s just a precaution--”

“A precaution for what?” High pitched and nearly squeaking, Martin gripped the flimsy fabric so tightly Tim feared it would tear.

“Your friend has presented with some strange and worrying symptoms. He will be quarantined in isolation and you will stay here under observation just in case.” Stunned speechless, Tim gawped at her like a fish. “Like I said, it’s just a precaution. You’d likely be showing similar symptoms if Mr. Sims had passed this to you. For now, he’s an isolated case.”

“An isolated case of what?”

“A nurse will be by for blood samples and you’ll be admitted. I truly am sorry, we can’t allow you to leave until we know for certain what we’re dealing with.”

“Oi!” The clear doors swished closed, locked from the outside, and Tim’s shouting went unheeded as he locked eyes with Martin. He shrugged.

“Well. This can’t be worse than Prentiss.”

Tim was back to pacing like a caged tiger, gown over his street clothes like a child refusing to change for bed, punctuating each turn around the room with a muttered curse or three and Martin was at wit’s end. It was bad enough that the worry churning in his gut made him want to be sick without Tim’s petulant complaining but Martin couldn’t really blame him. They’d been here for hours already and now they were in another room, waiting. Again. No closer to any answers.

“I don’t understand how this happened.” Tim paused, arms folded, concern evident under the frustration writ across his face. “I don’t understand why he’s so ill and why they won’t tell us anything! Tim!”

“I don’t know, Martin! I don’t, I. I haven’t known since this whole thing started!”

“Sorry, sorry, I know. I’m just.” Martin tugged at his hair, eyes clenched shut until they ached, focusing on the cold of his own skin under the gown.

“Yeah, yeah. I get it.”

“Then will you just. Just come here. Sit. Stop, stop pacing.” The other man deflated, hopping up on the gurney next to Martin and the solidarity in it was a comfort.

“Can do, Marto.”

They waited, watching the seconds tick by, the back of Tim’s trainer tapping a thudding, muted rhythm against a metal bar in time with the red hand of the clock and when another human finally, finally opened the door they leapt to their feet as though they’d been scalded, questions tumbling over each other in their haste for answers. She held up her hand, the other occupied with a tray covered in blue.

“I don’t have any answers, but I do need some samples.” Her eyebrow lifted incredulously at Tim’s get up but she sighed and got situated, drawing their blood efficiently and leaving them alone.

Waiting.

Worrying.

Thinking the worst.

Until:

“You can come with me.”

“What? Really??”

“You’re clean.”

“We are?” Martin grinned, “and Jon?”

“We’re not sure yet, but he’s stabilizing and you can see him.” And oh how Martin wished it brought him relief to finally do so after so long but if anything he looked worse. Drawn and dusky grey behind a sheet of clear film, doctors and techs and nurses dressed in safety equipment swarming around him like worker bees and Jon, motionless in the middle of it all, the struggling push and pull of air a low whistling in the back of it all.

“But what’s wrong with him?” Tim looked bereft, sitting in an uncomfortable chair and taking Jon’s hot, hot hand through the unwieldy plastic sleeves. On the inside of Jon’s translucent prison, a nurse dabbed away the blood beginning to stain the corner of his mouth before adjusting a line or a lead and making a note in his chart.

“We don’t know. It looks like a small pox variant.”

“But that’s--!” Extinct! Eradicated! Scrubbed from the face of the earth and only found in creepy government labs!

“Exactly. We’re being careful. He’s on several strong courses of antibiotics and antivirals and we think they’re working.” Lord, how did this happen?

“Can we, can we stay with him?” The cadre of medical professionals was clearing out jotting down last minute thoughts and exchanging comments, paying no mind to the pair of them.

Again they waited, held exhausted vigil, and for a long time nothing changed until they were forced back home to shower, rest, change into clean clothes and get a meal that didn’t come from a vending machine. Martin arrived back first, bringing along with him a short book of poetry to read while he kept his hand curled around Jon’s slack fingers. Sometimes he muttered things, things that didn’t make sense or things that scared him and Martin both and kept others away.

”Magnus Institute.” He’d heard more than one person say in hushed whispers and it was enough to give them the room as long as his monitors stayed quiet.

“Jon hates that stuff.” Tim strode in, scrubbing a hand through his still damp hair and looking much more rested. Martin didn’t glance up from the verse he’d been reading out loud to Jon.

“Well excuse me, there’s no accounting for his poor taste.” He ran his thumb over the back of his hand, bruises finally beginning to fade. “He hasn’t told me to stop.” Chuckling, Tim pulled another chair over, threading his arm through another sleeve and circling his wrist to avoid the IV and keep hold of his thready pulse point.

“You’ve a dark side Mr. Blackwood.”

“Don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same thing, Mr. Stoker.”

“You’re right.” He grew somber. “Wish he’d wake up and yell at me, glare. Something.” Tim laughed, light, and shook his head. “Never thought I’d say that!” Martin agreed.

“Would be nice.”

Jon burned.

Surrounded by shadows that shifted, transformed into dangerous things. Mean things. Clinging in the corners of the room and coaxing fire from the walls.

It licked at his body, the paint, boiling it away and filling the already hot air with ash. Choking him, choking him with heat and fear and burning, burning.

He couldn't breathe, the sweltering incandescence searing him from the inside out and he couldn't escape it.

Could only be consumed, used up.

Eaten away to nothing. Reduced to no one. Less than no one, less than human. Fear him. Hate him. Hurt him.

A shift in the stifling heat, a breeze, a breath in the suffocating stillness.

Cool twilight above him. Below him. A whisper of relief.

Cradling him. Protecting him from the flame, the fire, the fear.

A sharp red sound strung on a taut wire tangled painfully around his spine and weaving through his ribs. Piercing muscle and bone and screaming, screaming, screaming, stealing all the breath out of him, replacing it with mud inside his lungs. Pressing. Pulling. Paralyzing.

The pain was so sharp, so strong, so all encompassing, and he couldn't understand who was making the red, red, red sound or why they wouldn’t stop. Spare him its deafening squall.

But oh god. Oh god. He hurt, he hurt, he hurt. Infinite hands touching, touching, touching his burning skin. Each fingertip cut like a blade, left a throbbing wound, and there were so many, so many, please stop, please.

He still couldn't breathe. Think. See. Move. There was nothing. Nothing but painhurtagonyhothothot.

Red. Red. Red.

Behind his eyes and in his throat. Choking, gagging on it.

Someone. Someone was screaming. Screaming themselves raw. Loud. Loud. So loud. Who. Why wasn't anyone helping them? Who would just--someone help--help. And he tried but his tongue was heavy, thick in his mouth, clumsy and dull. He was frustrated with his inability and whatever came back to him almost sounded like words, soothing. But no, that wasn't right, not. Wasn't right, they should, should.

Flashes. Glimpses. All around. Faces he didn't know. Noises he couldn't parse. Hands holding him down. Holding him still. White hot brands against the dry parched desert of him and still. Screaming, sobbing, make them stop.

Make them. Make--

Stop.

Help.

Why?

"Nnn--" Exhaustion. Weighing, tugging--no dragging him down, drowning him. A cool flood rushed through his veins, doused the fire in its wake; he was walking into the surf with pockets filled with stones.

The screaming stopped.

He could hear his breath amplified in his ears, in the cage over his nose, mouth, face.

They were just crying now.

Soft. Sad. Scared.

And then, blessedly, there was nothing.

Slowly, painfully, Jon wet chapped lips, bruised eyelids parted heavy.

“Head’s’pounding…” strung together on a garland of trembling breath and tears of relief prickled at the corners of Tim’s eyes. “Mmah…” At his whimpering, Martin swept a hand over Jon’s forehead, brushing away clinging strands and leaving it there when he sighed, shaky, damp lashes falling shut.

“No wonder, love.” Gently, he stroked his dark hair, sitting beside him on the bed and turning to Tim. “Burning up.” By way of explanation.

“M’so. M’tired.” Lashes already fluttering shut.

“You can sleep.”

“Mm.” He hummed, drowsy and soft, breathing deep. “An’you... you’ll be here?”

“‘Course boss. Not getting rid of us that easily.” Tim patted his shoulder carefully. “Get some rest.” Martin waited for Jon to slip under and sink deep before swiping at the moisture tracking its way down his own face.

“God, Tim. I was. I was so scared.” The strength fled his legs and he had to sit down, covering his mouth with a trembling hand and Tim drew him into a hug.

“It’s okay, he’s okay. He’s on the mend.” Martin nodded. “You though, both of us I think, need a meal.”

“What if he wakes up again?” The thought of Jon waking to an empty room after promising him they’d be there didn’t sit well.

“Won’t take long.” He yanked Martin up to unsteady feet. “Gotta take care of ourselves so we can keep tabs on him when he’s released.”

“There is that.” And he allowed Tim to lead him from the cramped room, thinking only of coming back to it, back to Jon, and when they opened the door, laughing over one joke or another, they faced only an empty bed and crumpled sheets.

Jon was gone.

He didn’t know where he was. Barely even remembered the giant set of hands yanking him out of one place and throwing him into another, a van if his muddled senses could be believed. It stank of grave dirt, the faint rattling of chains sparking something terrifying in the back of his mind. This wasn’t good. The doors cracked, carving a bright line of white that momentarily blinded him. Jon yelped when he was grabbed painfully by the shoulders and thrown to the ground at a pair of polished black boots.

“Why Archivist. What pretty colors.” Jon shuddered, breath hitching in naked fear when Nikola’s leering face came too close and traced a cold plastic fingertip firmly, sharply, painfully in a mocking caress along the edge of one particular florid contusion. “Like stained glass.”

Chapter Text

“Elias knows.” Tim stopped his pacing, stopped worrying at his knuckle with his teeth as a distraction and looked at Martin, eyes wide and damp.

“Wh’what do you mean?”

“Elias is behind this. He, he, he has to be, Tim.” Martin’s fingers tightened in their grip over his knees, bunching up his trousers, whitening his knuckles. “There’s no other explanation, right?” Except there were plenty, including but not limited to Jon waking up again, scared and alone and taking it upon himself to run. The flash of familiar anger momentarily blinded him, filling his chest and choking the air out of him. Of course that was it. This wasn’t Elias or some scheme.

Just Jon.

Paranoid. Suspicious.

“He’s had him taken! Or kidnapped, or, or something!”

“Stop it, Martin.”

“Tim--”

“Stop. Martin.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “This is all just Jon, isn’t it? Just his spooky bullshit. He probably ran, like he did before.” Waving his hand dismissively, Tim braced himself on the empty hospital bed, crumpling the cold, starchy sheets. “Not that I blame him,” he muttered.

“You can’t, Tim! You can’t believe that!” Martin was on his feet now, furious, voice rising in pitch and intensity. “He--Even--Tim!”

“He’s done this before. Disappeared into the wind.” He was trying to be reasonable. It made more sense than him being taken.

“You do this every time it gets hard. You let your anger run the show. Jon’s up and gone in the middle of all this, this shit, and you act like it’s personal!”

“Isn’t it?” The flurry of emotions Tim had been dealing with transformed into a blizzard, chilling him to the bone and coaxing the familiar feeling of betrayal to the surface again. “He doesn’t trust us.”

“He’s trying!”

“Is he?” Tim ran his hands through his hair, standing it on end. “He admitted that he couldn’t. What if this was the tipping point?”

“It wasn’t.”

“Martin--”

“It. Wasn’t.” Martin clenched his fists, his teeth, vibrating in place with frustration and shaking his head in disappointment at him before stalking out of the room and leaving Tim behind.

Martin let the red hot anger carry him forward, back to the Institute, past Rosie sputtering at her desk and reminding him he needed an appointment, up the stairs to Elias’ office, through the heavy door. It took the rest of his control not to smack the phone out of the insufferable man’s hand as he made his excuses and promised to ring whoever it was back.

“Where is he?”

“You’ll have to be more specific, Mr. Blackwood.” Martin slammed both palms against the desk hard enough to sting.

“Don’t toy with me. Where. Is. Jon?”

“Last I heard he was in hospital. I really am afraid I don’t know what you’re asking of me.” He wanted to slap the smug, faux look of concern off his face.

“You have something to do with this.” Made bold with fear, anger, his own futility, Martin leaned forward, imposing. He was no small man. “I will find him.”

“I hope you do.” Elias inclined his head in dismissal, raised an eyebrow as if asking him to press his luck and oh how Martin wanted to, lingering instead for another split second before shoving himself away and slamming the door hard enough to make the walls shake.

Hours. Days. Weeks.

No word. Nothing. No one had seen hide nor hair of Jon and Martin was sick with fear and worry and angry that no one else seemed to be concerned. Another afternoon passed them by during his attempts to make the others see it.

“He wouldn’t do this, not now. Not after that mess with Crew and Daisy.” Basira and Melanie exchanged a look, expressions incredulous.

“And how do you know that?” At least Basira showed the barest hit of interest. Melanie had returned to his phone and Tim seemed to be tracing the patterns swirling along the floor tile, silent.

“It’s been over a fortnight without any word.” Nearly pleading, begging any of them to please just listen. That something was wrong, that Jon was in danger or worse.

“And when he was wanted for murder he disappeared for longer.” Basira sighed. “I have people keeping an eye out but either he’s gone underground or--”

“Or?”

“Or.”

Doubt niggled at the back of Tim’s mind, going over the conversations and interactions he’d had with Jon before his disappearance. It was true, he’d been scared, but he’d also been relying on Martin and himself more. Coming to them, asking for help or comfort in his own way. He wasn’t so sure anymore that Jon had wandered away under his own power.

“These interruptions are becoming more frequent for your department.” Elias steepled his fingers, leaning back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. The perfect crease in his trousers and crisp suit jacket irked Tim in ways he couldn’t understand. Here was their boss, immaculate, when one of his own employees was missing. Maybe Martin was right. Maybe he did know something.

“Martin thinks you have something to do with Jon’s disappearance.” He chuckled, cold and cruel.

“He’s said as much.”

“And do you?”

“If I do?” Blistering, a flash of rage lit Tim up from the inside out and his next words were little more than a low growl.

“It won’t end well for you, I can promise you that.” Something changed in Elias’ demeanor, a subtle dangerous shift. The office went cold, closing around the pair of them until Tim felt exposed on all sides. Watched on all sides. A thin thread of fear wound its way down Tim’s spine, rooting him to the floor. Elias smiled, a snake who had cornered his prey, dark and malicious, leaning forward as if preparing to strike.

“With all your hovering, Mr. Stoker, I had to get him away from you somehow.” A bolt of dread striking like lightning made him ill.

“You--” Despite himself he was shaking, horror blooming frozen in his fingers.

“Of course.”

“Where?” Barely able to force it between teeth all but glued together in panic.

“Oh, I hear Great Yarmouth is particularly nice this time of year.” Tim lunged, catching his hip against the side of the stupidly large desk, all but snarling in his face as he laughed and laughed and laughed.

“Bastard!”

“Temper, temper. Hasn’t Martin scolded you for that very thing?”

“This place is creepy.” Tim couldn’t help whispering the thought into the shadows behind Martin as he used the axe he’d brought as leverage, cracking apart weak boards as quietly as possible to make their own door. It was an abandoned waxworks, decrepit and fallen into disrepair. They could thank Daisy for the intel and it was the only place that made sense. Tim had to admit, it fit a certain spooky vibe.

“Shh. Who knows what horrors are in this place.”

“How do we know Jon’s even here?” They froze as something shifted behind the wall, a clattering of old, dry mortar falling against the ground. When nothing else made a sound Martin shot Tim a scathing look and he put up placating hands. “After you.” It was eerie. Cold and damp and full of old forgotten things. Dust filtered down from the ceiling and caught in the beams of what little light there was. Sheets, grey with time, hung to the floor over inhuman shapes and they picked their way past boxes overflowing with faded costumes and clothes. It was quiet, the sound of Tim’s breathing loud in his own ears and he tried consciously to silence it, straining to hear anything other than his pounding, rabbit-quick pulse. “Martin.” He reached forward, tugged on his sleeve. “Come on. There’s nothing here.” But he pushed on and Tim followed, unwilling to abandon him here in the dark. “Hey--”

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” -

“That.” An awful tune; the repetitive uncanny warbling of a music box. And then a scrabbling, like hard soles on concrete, like the clicking and clattering of giant beetles crawling over top each other. The faintest increase of light past a few more shelves and then movement. A semicircle of grotesque mannequin bodies and surreal taxidermy monstrosities nearly humming with manic energy, anticipation.

And Jon.

In the center of it all.

Naked. Skinny back to them with his bones standing out sharply and bound at wrists and ankles. He was curled up in a ball, marked up with bruises fresh and old, brown skin a map of black lakes and purple ponds with amaranth oxbows connecting them all together.

“Shall we begin?” The ringmaster in their bright tailcoat trimmed in gold appeared, cheerful words singsong in the wrong cadence. The circle closed, Jon appearing now in bits and pieces between the shuffling of mismatched legs, a familiar, keening cry rose up above the maelstrom as they flocked as one.

Tim lurched toward the seething mass and strong fingers grabbed his arm, held it in a bruising grip. Martin shook his head, tears streaming down his face, their dripping off his chin punctuated by Jon’s weak and desperate pleas. When it seemed Tim wasn’t going to rush into the middle of the sea of churning plastic bodies being conducted by their leader’s strangely melodic jeering, Martin closed his eyes, hand twisting instead into his sleeve. Tim didn’t know whether to look away or force himself to watch as penance.

They left. As quickly as they’d descended. Stilted movements in time with the eerie harmony so heavy in the air. Nikola cupped Jon’s face in a mockery of kindness before her jointed fingers gripped his chin hard, turning him this way and that for inspection. “We’re getting close, my Little Archivist.” A cat that’s got its cream. “Soon now. Very soon.” Jon whimpered, mouth hanging open as his chest heaved like a bellows, gulping air as though he couldn’t get enough. She tapped his nose, once, twice, painted rictus grin far too bright, before dropping him to the floor and striding away. It hurt to wait, to make sure the coast was clear, and they watched Jon collapse into himself with a sob.

Martin shrugged out of his cardigan, thin for the season, but better than nothing, before surging forward with Tim close on his heels.

“Jon, oh Jon.” He jumped, shivering violently at the softest of Martin’s sounds. “Hey, we’re going to get you out of here.”

“Ma’in…”

“It’s me, can I cover you up?”

“Pl’please.” The snik of Tim’s pocket knife precipitated Jon’s pained and shaky moan when his shoulders dropped, now free of their bonds.

“Okay, alright, I know, love, I know it hurts.” Martin kept up his steady murmuring, wrapping Jon up in the soft knit, tugging gently when it clung to the lotion drying sticky on his skin, as his ankles came loose and glancing at all corners of the room, waiting for the mannequin's return. “Ready?” Sober, Tim nodded, lifting Jon carefully lest he break him further, tucking him so close he could feel the humid hitching of his breath ghosting against his neck in the shape of his name.

“T’Tim…?” Hoarse, throat no doubt torn up with screaming.

“I’ve got you, gonna get you outta here.” Jon relaxed in his hold, temple coming to rest high on his shoulder, and when he closed his eyes tears beaded along his lashes, tiny pinpricks of light in the dim like diamonds. Guilt suffocated him, an acrid smoke filling up his lungs, because this whole time. Just like Martin said when Tim had such low regard for the man trembling in his arms. He'd promised to do better by Jon, to be better. How quickly he fell into old habit. “I’ve got you, Jon. I’m, I’m going to take care of you.”

“A’always do…” and the blind trust in his small, shivering voice gave him such pause, he almost forgot they had yet to be out of this place. Martin’s approach galvanized him and he let him take point, the blade of the axe he carried catching a pale beam on its sharpest edge as they picked their way, quiet as church mice, through the debris and detritus, through the entrance they’d made. Jon’s head tipped back, unblinking eyes cast to the clear night sky and whole form shaking with barely suppressed and hysterical sobbing.

The classic rock Tim listened to on the three hour drive back to London was interspersed by Martin’s calm reassurances and repetitive commercials both. After stealing through the dark deserted streets of Great Yarmouth, Tim passed Jon off to Martin in the back seat of the rental, digging through his overnight for a water bottle, a blanket, a basic first aid kit, passing them off before driving away from there as quick as he could without attracting the police. Eyes fixed firmly on the road in front of him and gripping the wheel so hard it hurt.

“Slow sips, love, nice and slow.” Cajoling.

“Touch...touching me.”

“Just for a little while, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no.” Spent and wanting.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Tim risked a quick look back, meeting Martin’s devastated stare for a split second.

“N’no, s’you, s’you. If’s’you.”

“I don’t understand.” Stricken, the idea of causing him any more harm making Martin physically sick.

“You.” Damp and wet, insistent and desperate.

“Oh. Oh, okay, okay. I’ve got you. Hush now, we’ve got you, you’re safe.” Tim listened to Jon cry, to Martin soothe, until it drifted into hiccuping, into hitching sighs, into the long deep breaths of the exhausted. In the rearview Tim caught Martin pressing lips against Jon’s forehead before gathering him beneath his chin. The glimpse of black he caught under Jon’s closed eyelids was cavernous.

“How is he?”

“Not well.” And the next question hung between them. What to do now?

“I’m not letting him out of my sight. No hospitals.”

“Tim.” Martin exhaled, resigned, as though he was dealing with a particularly petulant child.

“We can handle this.”

“We don’t know what else might be wrong.” There was no way Tim was going to leave him somewhere again. He’d been wrong about him, about this, about everything.

“We’re going back to mine.”

“Alright, okay. We’ll see. If we can’t, if he needs something we can’t provide.”

“I’m sure Basira has someone we can call.”

“S’m...don’...” More soft sounds, fabric rustling, Jon murmuring brokenly. “S’st…”

“Almost there.”

Jon was exhausted. Sick with it, dizzy and confused with it, and no matter how deep he tried to gulp for air it never seemed to reach where he needed it to go. The only thing he could parse for sure was that he wasn’t there anymore. He was elsewhere. A space, small and safe and only big enough for him and.

Martin. Broad and soft and warm under him, cushioning bones and joints aching from laying on cement for so long. Too long. Long enough almost to--

He choked himself off, relished Martin’s attention gentling him more than anything.

Tim was there and not there. A voice in Jon’s tiny space. More than that.

A vehicle. None of them owned vehicles.

He was taken in a vehicle.

He was taken in a vehicle.

This could be a trick. Again, Martin calmed his disconnected attempts to communicate, the nonsensical noises pouring out of his clumsy mouth in no discernible order.

Safe.

Safe. They would keep him safe.

Martin said. Tim said.

His friends.

And safe with his friends, Jon let himself go.

Chapter Text

Martin watched him sleep as though at any moment he might be spirited away again and as loathe as he was to admit it, Tim was right. They couldn’t put him back there again and risk Bouchard cooking up something else. The whole thing was sinister and Martin was so grateful to have back up in the form of one of Jon’s oldest friends. He looked young, swaddled tightly in the blanket, Martin’s jumper just peeking out below it and following the line of his narrow jaw. Gently, he stroked his strangely soft cheek, sick with the knowledge of how it came about, pulling up the blanket just a tiny bit more to hide him from the yellow sodium light of the streetlamps. Beneath his chin Jon’s coiled hand tensed as he shifted, lips parting in a sweet sigh. It was good he could rest gently, safely, for a little while before they had to deal with whatever had happened. He reeked of the lotion they’d coated him with and Martin wasn’t ready to know why.

“Almost there.” Tim’s whisper was almost concussive in the thick silence. “I’ll call the rental place, keep the car for a couple days, just in case.” Mercifully, at this early hour, there was street parking close by to Tim’s flat and they took a moment to gather their thoughts before making the decision to move.

Jon’s eyes snapped open, unseeing and brimming, overflowing with terror as he struck out like a man possessed, catching Martin in the face and Tim in the shoulder, sending them reeling long enough for him to start swiping, clawing at his skin leaving red welts behind. A strangled scream fought its way out of his throat and was swallowed by the dark around them.

“Hey, hey, hey, shh, shhh.” Martin edged closer, trying to catch his hands and stop the damage. “Jon, you’ve got to calm down.”

“Someone’s going to hear him.” He hated this, hated it. Using his greater strength Martin held him down, covering his mouth and wincing when Jon’s teeth scraped his palm in a futile attempt to bite, crying out behind his hand, so many tears he was slipping against his skin.

He was falling apart.

Crumbling to dust, tearing at all his fragile seams and soon they’d see how empty he was, how hollow and, and--

“Hush, hush, I’m sorry.” He bucked under the myriad constraints, the things holding him down all over everywhere he was losing it, losing it, losing it don’t touch don’t touch

If he cried any harder he’d suffocate behind the iron bar bolted over his face but he just wanted it all to stop stop stop

He’d dreamt he was safe. That Martin and Tim rescued him from Nikola but it was a lie wasn’t it? A trick? Some new game and their hands their hands oh god he was going to die here alone and be turned into something worse his skin paraded around as she danced the Unknowing

“Jon!” It echoed uncomfortably, loud and booming in his ears filled with blood carried like he was carried-- “Jon.”

Martin.

It wasn’t a dream.

"I'm here, I'm here, what do you need?" Tim’s flat came into slow focus and he realized they were on the floor, Martin folded around him like a pretzel and Jon went from struggling like hell to clinging like a limpet, frantic, words bubbling up out of him like a spring.

"Don't let go, don't let go, I'll fall apart into pieces, don't let go. Please, please, please." He could barely understand himself trying to crawl his way into Martin’s ribcage to hide, pressing his face, burying his face, messy, filthy, tearstained, into his neck. “Hold me together I can’t do it by myself.” A rushing waterfall of syllables.

“Okay bud, we got you.” Tim was knelt behind Martin suddenly, steadying his head, cleaning him up with a damp flannel, lovely and cool over his blazing skin. His breathing steadied, slowed, following chest to chest, wrapped up tight, knuckles skipping firm over his ribs. “There’s a good man.”

“We need to get this shit off him.” Tim continued to watch Jon melt into Martin, held his eyes with his own as he blinked slow like a cat, pretty sure he couldn’t hear him, not really. He dug his fingers into Jon’s lank curls, pleased when his blown pupils rolled back and he went lax and loose.

“He’s worn out, poor thing.”

“Don’t let him catch you calling him that.” Pleased again when Martin chuffed a laugh, tension easing out of him under Jons weight. “I don’t want him to wake up covered in this again.” He knew Jon would appreciate being clean, starting to rid himself of the physical reminders of his captivity, but how to go about it? “I’ll run a bath.”

“Not too hot.”

“Not too hot.” Tim repeated. Wouldn’t do to raise his temperature even more. “See if you can get something into him. Explain that we’re going to help.” Martin nodded, standing with ease even with Jon’s wiry bulk. “Help yourself to anything!” He called after them before starting the water running and picking out the softest towels he could find in the stack, getting everything ready and going so far as to pull out some well worn clothes Jon could use as pyjamas. He took a moment to collect himself, drawing his palms roughly down his face. Christ, all of this was so fucked up.

After they got Jon settled, Tim was going to pour them both a drink. Possibly two.

Jon was calm and quiet this time but no less wary or watching, head pillowed on Martin’s shoulder as he was held in a secure bridal carry. Tim wished he could tease them more than anything. It would mean things were normal. Things were good. Half lidded eyes tracked Tim’s movement around the small space.

“Bubbles, Tim?” Martin grinned wide, dipping a hand in to test water, Jon balanced on his knee like some bastardized version of the Pieta.

“I thought for, you know, modesty’s sake.”

“I think he’ll appreciate it.”

“And maybe a little pampering.” Martin’s smile turned soft and sweet and he cupped Jon’s face to get his attention.

“Do you remember what we talked about?”

“Mm.”

“It’s up to you. Everything is up to you, anything you want.”

Anything you want.

When was the last time Jon did anything for himself? Made a choice for himself? Did anything that wasn’t him being led around by a dread power bigger than all of them?

Tentative, Jon reached out for the rim of the bath, dropping his arm with a grimace when it began to shake.

“Okay, okay.” When Tim moved in to help, Martin stopped him with an upheld hand. “Can we help you?” Noisy, somewhere beyond words, Jon exhaled, inhaled, the choked sound of indecision excruciating in the silence. “We can figure out another way.” And as impatient as Tim was he recognized the importance of giving him the time to figure out what he wanted. Jon was an intensely private person unwilling to share his vulnerabilities with anyone save for his closest friends.

Friends he no longer had as far as he knew.

Gingerly, Jon shifted, uncoordinated fingers picking at the blanket’s hem and Tim assisted as little as possible, touched as little as possible, until he was ready to step into the water. The weakness in him was profound and left Jon panting as he slid beneath the surface, the lines of pain and tension on his face easing. Tim passed him a lathered sponge.

“Mind if I do your hair?” Jon hummed, focused now on scouring every bit of his bruised self he could reach without moving overmuch, finally succumbing to Tim’s fingers in his curls, his wrist in Martin’s sure grip as he scrubbed methodically up and down his arm in smooth strokes. He twitched when he made it to the soles of his feet and Tim made an undignified noise while Martin looked up at Jon.

“T’ticklish…” he slurred, voice thick with exhaustion. He could barely keep his eyes open, even when Tim dried him vigorously with soft towels and Martin slipped loose limbs into borrowed clothes, settling him into the pillows. When flickering movement caught the corner of Tim’s eye his surprise alerted Martin to whatever Jon was trying to do. He was reaching towards him, grasping for something, and Tim caught it up, twining their fingers together and running a thumb over delicate bones like dry kindling. Gaze unfocused, Jon pushed insistently forward, looking through him like he wasn’t even there.

“Hey bud, what do you see?”

“S’there…all tangle’up.” little more than a soft sigh, “web’nd…’nd shadow.” Dull brown drifted distant beneath heavy lashes, following what they couldn’t guess. “S’tricks...lies. Bu’Martin...trap’traps…”

“We don’t understand, Jon.” Martin tried. “What’s there?” But his eyes rolled back under heavy lids, and he was asleep between one trembling breath and the next.

Together they finished tucking him into Tim’s bed and left the door cracked just in case.

“How ‘bout a drink.”

There was blood in his throat and screaming in his ears, keen and sharp and Jon didn’t realize it was him until the hands were on his body, holding him down, pressing, touching, grabbing and his eyes snapped open and the leering faces of a dozen grins painted forced and horrible appeared in front of him. He fought, bucked, kicked, like a wild horse, welcoming the screech of magnetic tape surging in his veins and offering up its promises.

I can make them stop

I can make it so they never stand in your way again

Trust me, Archivist

“STOP!” Gathering clouds before a deluge. Buffeting wind before a squall. The drawing back of the entire sea before a tsunami. Until the concussive blow of Jon’s compulsion threw off the mannequins.

No. Not--

Martin.

Tim.

Oh god, Tim.

Narrow chest heaving like a bellows, shadows threatening, reaching, from the corners as he stared at the popcorn ceiling of Tim’s flat.

Tim.

Who was going to kill him.

He couldn’t make his body move, pinned there, a moth under glass, hyperextended fingers digging into the bedclothes so hard he might tear them in his panic.

Frantic, Jon swallowed, jaw working, mouth forming the shapes of his apologies, his pathetic pleading stuck in his throat, silent.

Paralyzed.

One of them smoothed a damp flannel over his eyes, blocking his sight and with it whatever he’d been seeing, real or not. The cold shocked him, slowed his breath and cleared away the cobwebs leaving behind only familiar self loathing

He was tired of it, of this, of himself. Always a bother, causing Martin and, and Tim no end of trouble, tying them up further with him, trapped, entangled, caught. This wasn’t their job. Babysitting him wasn’t their job. A broken cry tore its way with ragged claws up and out of a throat tight with the effort of holding back the sea.

“Jon?”

“St, st…” Static filled his chest to bursting and he tasted bitter ink behind his clenched teeth. He’d compel them again as he was and he cut himself off, pain spiking behind his eyes at the abject denial. Manic, the idea of tearing his own throat open, making Daisy’s mark into a crude doorway and reaching through it to his voice box flitted over his mind like the sordid caress of plastic fingers. Ungainly, bones and sinews replaced with hollow reeds and shredded rope, Jon struck blindly, half tumbling off the couch? bed? soft place he didn’t deserve, to press himself, wedge himself, beneath a table.

“Okay, okay.” That tone. That voice. Manipulating, telling him lies, because it wasn’t okay. It wasn’t it wasn’t it wasn’t--

“Hey, Jon.” Flinching back from the blinding lights, he threw his gaze into every corner, willing himself to see whatever might still be here in this room. There was only them. Martin kneeling in front of him. Tim a few paces behind, worry plastered over with a pale graffiti of nonchalance. His heart was hammering against his breastbone attempting a painful escape and he was sure Martin could hear it.

“T’Tim.” Bare more than the first consonant of his name. “M’so. M’so sorry.”

“It’s alright, Jon.” He crouched. Made himself smaller, and Jon hated that it alleviated some of the fear where he was tucked away.

“It’s. It, it isn’t.” He felt raw, flayed open. Throat sore and raspy from his screaming. Tim didn’t acknowledge it beyond offering him a tense smile.

“Sounded like a hell of a nightmare.” Jon nodded, hiding his face in his knees. He couldn’t really remember it now but the aftershocks of the whole thing were devastating.

“What do you need, Jon?” Soft and patient. Martin probably wanted to get him off the floor and back into bed but he didn’t know. Jon had never been good at articulating his needs because his whole solution to craving love and not having it was to work harder at needing it less and they didn’t have time for these hysterics.

“Marto and I were having a bit of a night cap.” Jon had forgotten he was even there. “Would you like to join us?”

Jon ended up in the middle of Tim’s tiny beat up couch, pressed against human body heat bracketing him on either side and sharing the duvet between them. The telly was just a low murmur, some mindless documentary, and that sound was only broken by the muted clink of ice when Tim or Martin took a sip. Exhaustion tugged at his eyelids and Jon let himself fall into Martin’s side, not protesting when his untouched glass of cheap whiskey was lifted gently from his hands.

Chapter Text

“Tell us why we should believe you.” Jon sighed at Basira’s hard edges, looking at the strange walls of the tunnels under the Institute instead of her, Daisy, or Melanie. He didn’t know for sure, but he felt less watched here. It felt safer here, considering what they’d encountered prior. A warm hand touched his arm. Martin. He’d been scratching. He did that now. Skin crawling with a thousand phantom sensations. It was enough to drive him mad. If he wasn’t already.

“I. I was. Taken.”

“Elias had you taken.” Martin interrupted.

“Uh, yes. I suppose.”

“Taken?” Melanie scoffed, “what? As in kidnapped?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m. I’m not sure and I really don’t want to think about it right now.” Elias was smug as ever, so glad to see Jon “safe” and “sound” back in the Archives. Buoyed by the knowledge that Tim and Martin were outside the heavy door, Jon asked his questions, demanded his answers, and Elias deigned to give them. Even gave Jon some leads to follow at other establishments around the world. A tiny part of him hoped that Tim or Martin would want to accompany him. The idea of going off on his own was not appealing right now. “But I have some bad news.”

“As if there’s anything good happening lately.” Basira crossed her arms. “Okay then, out with it. Things can’t be worse.” Jon winced, folding his hands into fists so tight he could feel each individual crescent embossed on his palms. This time it was Tim who reminded him, a soft ‘hey,’ and he tangled them up in Martin’s jumper instead, playing with the knit just over his stomach.

“You know you’re. Trapped here. Um. Because, of, of me.”

“No reminder needed, thanks.” Daisy all but growled and Jon resisted reaching for his throat but it was a close thing.

“It goes beyond? Um, well. That is to say...deeper?”

“Losing patience here.”

“Proximity. We. We have to come onto the grounds regularly or we. I.”

“Get sick. We start to feel sick.” Martin picked up the thread and Jon was so grateful for it. “Tim and I noticed it. Starts off small of course but if we could have taken anymore time away we would have.” Jon shuddered at the aching, empty feeling still persisting in his belly. Nothing worth complaining about, considering they were all suffering the ill effects of their time away. No need to remind them further of their short tether. Melanie snarled, flashing her teeth.

Jon flinched but stood his ground, drawing himself up to his full and diminutive height.

“The Unknowing is coming. We know where it’s going to take place. We need to prepare for it. So, I’m going to do some traveling, see what I can find out from our sister institutions.”

“We are doing some traveling.” Tim swung an arm around him. “Marto’s gonna hold down the fort and we’re taking care of the legwork.”

“Y’yes.” Jon was secretly glad he didn’t have to do this alone. “Legwork.”

China was a bust. Disappointing. Not surprising.

And listening to Jon read a statement in perfect Mandarin was a little unsettling but considerably tame compared to the threat of being skinned by a sadistic clown. Of course, Jon didn’t seem happy about it but that was to be expected. This wasn’t a spooky little game anymore. They’d lost people, good people, to whatever it was Elias was playing at. The thought of losing someone else made Tim’s hands clench into tight fists. He only realized his nails were biting sharp enough to bleed when Jon touched his arm, tentative and careful.

“T’Tim?” Jon’s fathomless, hungry brown eyes flicked back and forth from fists to face.

As if.

As if the knowledge he was just that much more monstrous would goad Tim into hitting him.

Shame broiled hot in Tim’s belly at the poorly disguised dread suspicion in Jon’s expression. The minute quivering of the hand now fully wrapped around his bicep. Before. A lifetime ago, Tim would have been angry at the sight of it, disgusted with Jon’s cowardice and his thinking only for himself. Now though--

How much did it take for Jon to reach for him?

“Tim?” Jon asked again and he felt the tug of a compulsion shut down before it could take hold. He pretended not to feel it, the scar drawn red and yawning across his bobbing throat reminder enough of how people tended to react to his mistakes.

“M’alright.” Jon raised a brow, the apprehension and wariness still there, but less. “Really! Just. Angry. Not at you, not at you!” Lord, rebuilding their soured relationship was taking a lot more work than tearing it down had. But they were trying, both of them, in their own way. “Dead ends. Elias. Would love to find him down a “dead end,” if you take my meaning. Jon chuckled in agreement.

“Come on then, we’ll miss our flight dawdling here any longer.” Tim rolled his eyes, the tension between them evaporated like mist.

“Lead on, boss.”

They touched down and Jon was more than ready to be off of this plane. Unlike Tim he never seemed to sleep well on flights and he was exhausted, eyes dry and burning with fatigue. It was because he was so tired and wrung out that Jon stared harder than ever at the police officer across the way. There was something about him, something Jon couldn’t place, and he was jolted out of his musings by a friendly bump from Tim. When he looked back, the figure was gone.

“Whatcha staring at?”

“Thought I saw something.” Murmuring, he combed the crowd with no luck, lashes growing heavier by the moment. The weight of the very air was pressing him into the ground and gravity stuck his trainers to the pavement, every movement three times harder than it should be as he actively resisted the urge to lay on the filthy ground.

“Paranoid again?”

“Must be.” Jon deadpanned, waiting for Tim to scoff or shout, utterly surprised speechless at the next words out of his mouth.

“Still, better safe than sorry.” He left it there, instead fussing with the printed itinerary in vain hope for the address of their hotel. Clumsy, Jon somehow made it worse and had to be rescued from himself by Tim who perused the pages with ease, laughing. “Really? A paper schedule.” Jon would let him have that first crack at him, already working out a pithy reply should he take a second shot. But Tim merely hailed a cab, loaded their carry ons, and directed their driver.

Jon woke up the next morning with only a dim memory of falling into bed.

Their next “lead” was a dead end as well.

But...

“We’re being watched.”

“Jon--”

“No, we. It’s the same man I saw in the airport. We’re being followed.” He looked like a regular beat cop but they’d both learned to be cautious of “regular” things. What if it was the Circus come to steal him away again? He was grateful when Tim glanced around surreptitiously, taking him at least somewhat seriously.

“Watch yourself, stick close. We’re out of here soon anyway.”

If Tim were making an honest assessment, Jon, chattering away into the tape recorder he’d toted along with them, looked about ready to drop. He’d gone pale, drawn, like a stiff breeze would be enough to do away with him and he suspected that the only reason he was keeping his feet was his obsession with this dead bloke Gerard Keay. They were literally chasing ghosts here.

At least they were away from that hospital. At least Tim didn’t have to watch Jon make use of the strange power he wielded anymore. He was more than unsettled by Jon’s ability to pull answers out of people just by asking even if it did ensure their honesty.

“Shif’...” Tim jumped, surprised by Jon’s hoarse voice almost in his ear, and rushed to comply. Jon was standing next to the single bed, swaying a bit, and wasn’t that disconcerting?

“Jon?” He’d flopped boneless to the mattress, draping a thin wrist over his forehead with a melodramatic sigh of relief.

“Need some sleep.” Must do if he was admitting it so freely.

“Feeling alright?” In lieu of an answer, and now Tim was wishing he had spooky powers, Jon turned on his side, pressing close to the warmth of his extended legs and burying his face in the starchy pillow and relaxing into sleep almost immediately.

“You sure we have to go now? Can’t this wait?” Jon shook his head, winced, rubbing at the bruises under his eyes with trembling fingers. He didn’t look well.

“Mm. Yes. Uh, no. It can’t wait.” Maybe he’d caught something on the plane? Though a niggling feeling in Tim’s gut implied he hadn’t. “Officer. The, Rebecks. Have a, an appointment.”

“Jon--”

“S’important.” Tim huffed, frustrated with him.

“Always is, with you.” Of course, this venture didn’t lead to any answers anyway. Just more questions, always more, infinitely more, and Jon was going to run himself into the ground chasing down every single one of them. They could at least agree that Keay hadn’t deserved his lot. Nothing about the last few days of his short life was fair and as prickly and infuriating and selfish and snobby and all-knowing and rude Jon could be, Tim could begrudgingly admit he cared enough about them to not wish them harm.

“Thing’I saw the, the man again. One from. From Chicago.” And at this point Tim was certain he had! Probably hallucinating! Now wasn’t the time for a fight. Not here just outside the station.

“I’ll keep a look out while we wait for the taxi.”

“Thanks, Tim.” Jon seemed to fold inwards, stare distant, as though he’d handed off the watch and could rest a bit. Tim could do this for him. Play into whatever delusion it was long enough for Jon to relax. He was softly pliant when Tim nudged him into the car, somewhere between sleep and waking.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Tim was nailing him to the floor with a baleful stare, examining Jon with a critical eye as he rallied just slightly and reached for the tape recorder.

“Rec’cording our findings?” Ridiculous. Worry churned his stomach uneasily.

“Come on,” he tried to be gentle, coaxing, channeling Martin from the other side of the world and helping him sit. “What’s wrong, Jon? Y’look peaky.”

“M’fine.”

“Not what I asked.” He fidgeted, sluggish. Avoiding his eyes and shuddering.

“Are you, uh. We’ve been away and...”

“I’m not feeling it yet. You’re saying you are?” Jon nodded, neck stiff, head heavy, like it pained him even to move.

“S’pretty awful…” At Tim’s flat he’d likened it to a hollow pit trying to swallow him up piece by piece, aching and demanding in equal measure. Punishing. It had been bad enough that Martin insisted they at least try going back to the Institute on the off chance it would provide a modicum of relief.

“Must be, if you’re complaining.”

“Thing’it’s statements.” Jon curled up in the hotel armchair, shivering with chills and barely able to keep his eyes open. “N’need one.” He could probably tell by the look on Tim’s face the news wasn’t ideal. “Sorry.”

“No, no, just thinking is all.” About how much more Jon was changing in ways they didn’t understand. About how much of what was left was human. “Up you get, Jon. This isn’t the place for you right now.”

“Mm.” Tim helped him up and nearly carried him to the bed, tucking him under the scratchy quilt and touching his forehead almost out of habit.

“Low grade.” Tim mused. “Are you sure?” Jon shrugged because how sure was he or any of them about anything these days? “We don’t have anywhere to be for a little while. You rest, yeah?”

“Mhm.” He was down deep in seconds, like he’d needed only someone’s permission.

Well shit.

“You’re sure it’s from Elias?” Martin’s voice was tinny over the phone, worried and fretful. Tim rang him after picking up the envelope. It had heft, like it was stuffed with paper. He could guess what it contained. “How’s Jon?”

“Still sleeping.” Which in itself might as well have been a neon warning sign. It wasn’t peaceful by any stretch of the imagination, but Martin didn’t need to know that. Not when there was nothing he could do about it.

“Tim?” Weak and bleary, and he was transported back to the start of this. Jon, bloody and concussed and squirreling away into the stacks to pass out on floors just for the chance to feel safe.

“Gotta go,” to Martin, “hey, how’re you feeling?” The noise Jon made could have been born as a laugh in another life.

“Spin...spinning.” The gesture he attempted fell flat and he grunted in dismissal, heaving a difficult breath. “Ev’rythin’ alright?”

“Elias sent us a letter.” Tim refrained from relaying the message, figuring Jon wouldn’t appreciate the man rubbing salt into his wounds and reminding him that apparently he needed these now. To tide you over. Protectiveness surged, Tim seethed.

“Wassit?” But god, Jon was fading in front of him.

“Statement, pretty sure.” And the way he perked up made Tim’s heart fall, his mouth go dry. Raw anger crawled with grasping claws up his throat and he placed the package in Jon’s shaking hands, watching him swallow, wondering if he was salivating over his care package.

He couldn’t be here. Not right now.

“I, um. Can I?” Jon’s hesitance was painful, the gleam of hunger in his eyes frightening, as he waited for what? For Tim to tell him it was okay? To go on ahead and feed the thing responsible for all this? Why not?? He wrestled with the hot flood of resentment, trying to funnel it away from his friend. His friend who respected him enough to ask. To wait. While the hurt continued to eat him away inside, the very cure to what ailed him unopened and clutched to his chest.

“‘Course, Jon.” Tight muscles went visibly lax. Glassy, feverish brown lit up as he hurriedly tore into the envelope with measured speed. Controlled desperation. An attempt to belay the obvious signs of his need. “I’ll just be in the shower, yeah?” Distracted, already thumbing through the pages as if perusing a menu, Jon nodded.

Tim stood under the hot spray until it ran cold, long after the low drone of Jon’s voice died away, and when he emerged cautiously found that Jon was dead asleep. Gone were the blackest shadows around his eyes, the wheeze on his breath had disappeared, the hectic flush of the high fever he’d developed so suddenly faded into the soft, scarred brown of his skin. The statement was nowhere in sight and for one absurd moment Tim was sure he’d physically eaten it. But no, it was sealed up and tucked away, a corner of the package peeking out from the unzipped mouth of his bag.

When Tim slid under the duvet Jon didn’t even move.

Tim moaned, rolling over away from the sun pouring into the window and encountering an empty space. A familiar chuckle coaxed his eyes open. Jon was sat at the small table, surface crowded with their research as he familiarized himself with their scant findings.

“You look better.”

“I feel better.” He ducked his head before steeling himself to pin Tim with his stare. “I’d love to rattle off a list of potential reasons for this.”

“But you can’t.” It wasn’t a question.

“It looks like the recording of statements has now passed from a psychological compulsion into a more.” Here, his face screwed up in disgust. “Physical dependence.

“Can you die from it?” Jon chuffed, beaten down.

“I don’t think I can be killed in any way that truly matters, now.”

“Elias knows.” Tim steered them away from that line of thinking. “Figures. Just more taunts.” He pressed the heels of both hands against his forehead. “I really hate that man.”

“On that we agree.”

“What next?” Jon sighed, ponderous.

“We go back.” He gathered the research, packing it away carefully. “The Institute needs us there. Not jetting around the world. This was a fool’s errand and I, as ever, am the fool.”

“No arguments there, boss.” Now Jon truly laughed. It was a nice sound and one Tim didn’t even know he missed.

“I’ve a Greyhound booked to D.C. tomorrow. Quick stop at the Usher Foundation and then we fly home.”

They were sitting in the café when the occupant of the car following their bus sauntered over, sliding into the booth without invitation.

“Tim, don’t.” Jon’s terse warning made the woman across from him flash a grin containing far too many gleaming teeth. A truly awkward introduction revealed her name to be Julia. “Uh, our, our bus is leaving.”

“Let it. You’re riding with me.”

“Like hell--”

“Then try to run.” She wanted them to, Tim could feel it in the hollows of his bones. “Go on.” He guessed Jon could too because he leaned back, staring at the water-stained ceiling.

“So. Kidnapped. Again.”

Tim thought Jon should really sound more put out than he did.