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English
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Published:
2022-02-06
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824
Chapters:
1/1
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25
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A Lesson in Grammar

Summary:

“Beholdinged?” Melanie asked.

“Yeah, you know.” Basira gestured to her eyes and made some spooky hand motions. “With The Eye. Beholdinged.”

“No, I know what you’re talking about, but… it’d be Beholded, wouldn’t it?”

Notes:

So a while ago mag22 made this post on Tumblr, and I have no self control.

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Work Text:

"Have you seen Jon?" Martin asked. "He forgot to give me Ms. Mullen-Jones's address for the follow-up."

“Oh, uh, I think he’s taking a nap,” Basira told him.

Tim looked up. “Mr. ‘eighty hour work week’ man, napping on company time? Must be the end of the world.”

Martin frowned, concerned. “Is he okay?”

“Yeah, he’s fine. He was doing some followup on the… oh you know, the pottery murder one. Apparently he Beholdinged a couple of guys to get into the prison.”

At this, everyone turned to stare at Basira. She frowned. “What?”

“Beholdinged?” Melanie asked.

“Yeah, you know.” Basira gestured to her eyes and made some spooky hand motions. “With The Eye. Beholdinged.”

“No, I know what you’re talking about, but… it’d be Beholded, wouldn’t it?”

Tim put down the statement he’d been pretending to annotate. This looked like it was shaping up to be far more interesting.

“Well, no. Because he’s using the power of The Beholding. He Beholdinged them.”

“No, I get that, but Beholding is the present tense.To make a past tense verb, you take future tense, and add ‘e-d’ to the end. Beholded” Melanie turned to Martin and Tim. “Back me up here, guys.”

Tim and Martin shook their heads. Melanie rolled her eyes. Basira smiled. “Hah!”

Melanie shook her head. “I am like five hundred percent sure it’s Beholded.”

“And I’m five hundred percent sure you’re wrong. Care to weigh in, boys?” Basira looked pointedly at Martin and Tim.

“Tim, do something!” Martin whispered.

“I think we just have to let this play out, Martin,” Tim said. In truth, he could go wake up Jon and ask him to settle the argument, but ever since Sasha had left to be an archivist in the London Courthouse, he’d been starved for wacky, time wasting nonsense like this.

Martin sighed and rubbed his forehead. “For what it’s worth, I think it is Beholded.”

Melanie smiled triumphantly. Basira shook her head. “I will have Daisy taser you both.”

Like magic, Daisy emerged from the stacks. “Who am I tasering?”

“Martin and Melanie think the past tense of Jon’s powers would be Beholded.”

Daisy frowned. “Beholding? No, it’d be Beholdinged, wouldn’t it?”

Tim saw Melanie’s eyes narrow. This was no longer a disagreement.

This was now war.

Tim couldn’t be happier.

Basira pointed at Daisy. Melanie shook her head. “I guarantee you it’s Beholded.”

Martin fidgeted nervously. “Does it really matter which one it is?”

“Yes.” Melanie and Basira said in unison. They were staring at each other intensely.

“I see.” Martin sat down. This was going to be a long day.

Tim couldn’t be more thrilled.

----------------

The conversation went on like this for about two hours (not that Tim was timing or anything) before Daisy hit the desk hard enough to knock the pencil mug to the ground. It shattered loudly. Tim was grinning like an idiot. This was the most exciting thing to happen in the archives since Jon got kidnapped three times in one month.

Then Jon woke up.

“What, precisely, the fuck is going on here?”

Everyone shut up very suddenly. No one spoke for a minute, meaning it was up to Tim to make sure the shenanigans continued.

“Past tense of your Beholding powers,” he said. “Beholdinged or Beholded?”

“Seriously?” Jon asked. “You’ve been yelling about that for two hours?” He shook his head. “It’s clearly Beholded.”

Daisy and Basira looked scandalized. Melanie slapped the desk triumphantly. “I told you! I told you it’s Beholded.”

“I swear, if you say Beholded one more time…” Basira growled. Tim noted that Daisy’s eyes had turned yellow. This is the best day ever.
“Tim, we have to do something!” Martin whispered frantically.

Tim realized Martin was right. He took out his phone and started recording a video. This was going on the Institute Facebook page later.

Just when it looked like Daisy was actually about to commit archivistcide, Tim’s phone dinged. It was a text in the group chat. But that didn’t make sense, they were all there…

“It’s from Elias,” he groaned. Probably telling them to get back to work. He opened it and nearly dropped his phone.

“What does it say?” Martin asked. Tim didn’t answer. It took all of his effort not to throw his phone across the room.

“Tim,” Jon said. “Read the text.”

Tim read the text. “Beheld.”

Everyone stared. Then the shit hit the fan.

Basira threw her computer off her desk. Daisy shouted and tore the file she was holding clean in half. Melanie stabbed the desk with her knife- where the hell was she getting all of those knives? Martin turned around and kicked the nearest bookshelf so hard it toppled over, scattering the files all around the room.

After the destruction was done, they all just stood there, staring at Elias’s text.

“For the record,” Martin said, “I still think it’s Beholded.”

“Oh, who even cares,” Daisy said tiredly.

Notes:

Basira's right, by the way. It's beholdinged.