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And If Thou Wilt, Forget: a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 38: Who has redeemed and not abhorred

“—one more time, I’m going to rip his intestines out and strangle him with them.”

It probably wasn’t a serious threat. As small and scrawny as Jon was, Sasha was even smaller, and she kept her nails extremely short and smooth, so she likely wouldn’t have what it took to scratch him enough to bleed, let alone do any serious damage. Still, the combination of words with the tone she said them in touched off the hair trigger on Tim’s increasingly irritating urge to protect Jon, and he bristled instinctively as he jerked his head around to find her.

As usual, she was not dressed for the weather; she must be part polar bear, or else she was just that stubborn. Her only concession to the near freezing temperatures was to switch out her sandals for penny loafers and throw a shawl over her shoulders. The bright red spots on her cheeks were probably from anger and not cold or fever, though. Martin, who was walking with her, was much more sensibly dressed in the cornflower blue jumper he’d taken to wearing more often in the last month and a pair of scuffed but sturdy Doc Martens he’d managed to score at a swap meet because his feet were smaller than most men’s and there hadn’t been much competition for them. His expression was somewhere between frustration and anxiety, which was more or less his default expression when thinking about Jon these days. The way his hands were jammed in his pockets told Tim that, whatever Sasha was saying, he didn’t want to agree with it, but he did.

“Look,” he said, obviously trying to sound reasonable, “he’s—i-it’s been hard on him, you know that, he—”

“It’s been months, Martin. Whatever…whatever trauma it is he’s trying to work through”—oh, the sarcasm she put on those two words—“it doesn’t give him the right to do what he’s been doing. You know I’m right. Didn’t Elias tell you the same thing?”

“What?” Tim’s tongue freed itself at that and flung out the word much more sharply than he meant to.

Sasha and Martin both looked up at him at that, Martin flinching backwards and Sasha with an expression that indicated she was thankful to have an ally in whatever it was. It was Martin who spoke, though. “It’s Jon. He’s…” His shoulders slumped, and he looked suddenly exhausted. “He’s getting worse, Tim. I, I mean, I think he’s as healed as he’s ever going to be physically, but…”

“He’s ridiculously paranoid,” Sasha said, gesticulating wildly. “I caught him going through my desk a couple weeks ago. And he lied about it, but I know he’s been following me, too. You weren’t here last week when he went after Martin, but—”

“Not like that,” Martin cut in swiftly. “Not—I, I mean, he didn’t attack me or anything, I…”

“Martin,” Sasha and Tim said in unison.

Martin, if anything, slumped even further. “He accused me of killing Gertrude.”

“He accused you?” Tim exclaimed. If he was trying to throw suspicion off of himself, Jon had picked the worst possible candidate for that. “Why, for God’s sake?”

“He found a letter…well, he found a statement. Remember Trevor Herbert, the vampire hunter? I told Jon he died after he gave his statement, but apparently there was more than the one he found, and, and maybe he didn’t actually die? I dunno.” Martin rubbed at his face for a moment. “But then he said he’d found a letter I wrote to my mum and…”

Tim sighed and shook his head. “Okay. So he’s paranoid. I get that. He was stalking me, too. What was that about Elias? Was he asking you about Jon?”

Martin winced. “I, I went to talk to him.”

“Martin!”

“I know! I know, it’s…I don’t want him to get fired or anything. But he’s not listening to us, Tim. Somebody’s got to do something.”

“Maybe he should get fired,” Sasha said, not quite under her breath. “If he’s going to keep going on like this.”

Tim ignored her. That could easily be spite on her part; despite her claims, and despite how long it had been, he didn’t think she was actually resigned to not having got the Archivist position. He also wouldn’t put it past her to knife him in order to get it. Martin, on the other hand, was genuine—and genuinely miserable about it. He wanted to help Jon. He’d just chosen the worst possible way of going about it.

Clearly it was going to be one of those days.

Focusing on Martin, Tim tried to keep his tone neutral. “What did you say to Elias?”

Martin looked miserable. “I just told him what’s been going on. And that maybe we should…I dunno, do something about it.”

“I talked to him, too,” Sasha interjected. “He agreed with me that Jon’s behavior is out of control and it needs to stop. He’s been doing it to you, too—don’t you agree?”

Tim ground his teeth. “Maybe, but—”

“Ah, Tim. May I have a word with you, please?”

Tim turned to see Elias standing a few feet away, hands folded in front of him and an expression of infinite patience on his insufferable face. He inclined his head towards a door to his left, which led to the small meeting room that got used for department head meetings rather than the more formal room to impress donors and trustees. “We needn’t go up to my office, we can just step in here.”

Since telling Elias where he could shove it would necessitate removing both his head and the stick already lodged in there, and saying that he would sooner chew off both hands at the wrists and wear them as earrings than lodge a formal complaint about Jon’s behavior with the head of the Institute would send Martin into a worse anxiety spiral than he was already in, Tim flashed Elias a huge, completely insincere grin and stepped into the meeting room as requested.

He waited until Elias actually came into the room and indicated that he should do so before he took a seat. The table was a long one that could easily seat a dozen people, set so that whoever was at the head of the table could see anyone entering; Tim, rather deliberately, selected a seat along one of the longer sides and pushed back from the table a bit, just to see what Elias would do.

Rather than sit at the head of the table with his hands folded formally on its top, Elias actually chose to sit in the chair next to Tim’s, which he also pushed back from the table. He propped one leg across the other knee, rested his elbows on the arms of the chair, and steepled his fingers. It was the most relaxed posture Tim had ever seen the man adopt, including when he’d come to Jon’s birthday surprise and very pointedly sung Happy birthday, dear Archivist directly in Tim’s ear—an open, casual, this is just an informal chat sort of posture.

Tim distrusted it instantly.

“I’m certain your colleagues have spoken to you about Jon’s behavior,” he said in an even, reasonable tone. “The paranoia, the constant suspicion of the three of you, the accusations, the surveillance, the…clandestine recording. Certainly I doubt Martin would have brought it to my attention except as a last resort, although, perhaps, I should have noticed sooner.”

“How?” Tim said pointedly. Not that he expected an honest answer out of him. “We’re in the basement. None of us come in the front door if we can help it. Nobody from up here comes down, and there’s no CCTV coverage in the Archives. I know you say nothing escapes your notice, but how exactly were you meant to notice Jon’s behavior if nobody came to complain?”

Elias gazed at him steadily. “Yes. Why have none of you come to me, by the way? If the situation is truly becoming…”

“Untenable?” Tim supplied, echoing Elias’s words from the discussion about his own behavior. He clenched his fist to keep from visibly working at the ring on his finger and stared Elias down, pressing against his mental barriers to keep them upright. “If you’re asking if I told them not to come to you, then no. We haven’t talked about it like that. Would I have encouraged them to talk to you? Absolutely not. If they’d told me they were planning to, I’d probably have tried to talk them out of it, because I am not sure anything you can do will help matters.”

“I do have the CCTV footage from the day of the murder,” Elias said thoughtfully. “The presumed day of the murder, anyway.”

That right there? That was bait. Elias definitely wanted Tim to ask about the footage, to hook him in and make him enter into whatever bullshit game he was playing. Tim crossed his arms over his chest. “You’re asking why I didn’t come to you about the way Jon was behaving towards Sasha and Martin? It’s because I was handling it. Or I thought I was. I didn’t know how bad it was affecting them because Martin was trying not to get him in trouble and Sasha was waiting for him to push things too far to walk back before she said anything, which tells me you spoke to her first.”

Elias’s eyebrows lifted, just slightly, and Tim immediately threw up a few extra wards to keep him from probing deeper. After a moment’s pause, Elias continued in the same reasonable tone. “All right. Why did you not come to me about the way he is behaving towards you? I presume there have been…incidents. Martin mentioned seeing pictures of your house on Jon’s desk.”

“Yeah, he was following me a couple weeks ago,” Tim said with a shrug. “Badly, might I add. I took care of it. And it didn’t happen on Institute property or company time, so really, it was none of your business.”

“Did you take care of it?” Elias asked pointedly. “Or do you just believe that whatever you said to Jon did the trick?”

“I haven’t seen him since I called him out, which means he’s either leaving me alone or he’s learned how to stalk people less conspicuously, so yeah, I’d say it did the trick,” Tim shot back.

“Or he’s simply decided you’re none of his concern.” Elias paused. “Yet.”

That was also bait, but it was bait Tim had to grind his teeth very hard to avoid chomping at. He knew damn well what Elias was implying, or trying to imply, in such a way that if Tim tried to use his words as justification for whatever he did he could plausibly deny he’d said anything of the sort. With anyone else it might have been something of the “you’re not important enough to matter to him in the grand scheme of things” variety, which could spur an impulsive hothead into action, but Tim heard the underlying concern loud and clear: Jon, if Jon had been the one to murder Gertrude Robinson, might be focusing on Martin and Sasha as his next victims to begin with. Tim might be too much for him to handle…yet. The subtle threat made him bristle a little, and he had to remind himself to settle down, to not jump down Elias’s throat. To not let him know how close he’d come to striking a nerve.

“Or,” he said instead, “you made a shitty choice for the replacement Archivist, and the combination of duties and responsibilities and��obligations…that comes with that position is eating away at his mind and slowly driving him insane.”

Elias’s expression never changed, but Tim knew the remark had struck home. Not the part where he was critical of Elias—Elias expected that, it would be suspicious if Tim wasn’t insolent and borderline subordinate at this point—but the part where he suggested that Jon’s mind wasn’t up to hosting the Archivist. There were dozens, possibly hundreds, of statements in the Archives from people who’d got too close or too deep too quickly and ended up losing their sanity, and ultimately their lives. Depending on how far and how fast Jon went down that route, it could be a disaster for just him, or for the entire staff.

Luckily, at least luckily for Tim, that wasn’t what was happening. Jon’s behavior came from him, not from the Archivist, and a big part of Tim’s job was keeping Jon from biting off more than he could swallow. Hell, he hadn’t even started compelling people properly. He was a lot more resilient than people, even Martin, gave him credit for. But Elias didn’t know that for certain and Tim had just introduced a healthy bit of doubt into his current world view. Whatever was going on, he hadn’t picked Jon out of desperation; he needed him, specifically. Tim didn’t know why and wasn’t going to ask, but he realized, as he waited for Elias to respond with a raised eyebrow and an insouciant posture, that he’d just bought them all a little time.

“I had intended to have a…disciplinary meeting with Jon,” Elias finally said slowly. “Similar to the one I had with you a few weeks back. But I think, in light of your…observations, perhaps it’s best if we do something a bit more informal.”

“We?” Tim repeated.

“How do you think Jon would respond to an intervention?”

Badly, was the answer. Exactly how badly would depend on how the intervention was staged, how they phrased it, what time of day they went for it, and whether or not Elias or Sasha or both goaded Martin into saying what he was actually thinking instead of being diplomatic. It didn’t take an expert to know that Martin’s opinion of him was the one Jon was most dependent on and keenest not to lose. And while Tim was…admittedly less certain than he previously had been that Jon had been the one to murder Gertrude, that was by no means certain, and if he had there was every risk he would take that as a sign to eliminate those who opposed him.

On the other hand, maybe they’d get lucky and he’d go for Elias first.

“Best get it over with now,” he said, putting his hands on his knees and making like he was going to stand. “He doesn’t usually go out for lunch, but maybe if we convince him he’s being an idiot first he’ll actually eat something.”

Elias actually looked momentarily startled at that, like he hadn’t expected Tim to actually agree, or maybe like he’d expected to have a little bit of time before they actually did it. Nevertheless, he rose to his feet. “An excellent point. Let’s see if Martin and Sasha are still outside the room.”

“They are. They think you’re going to fire me. Or at least Martin does.” Tim rose, too. “But we both know better, don’t we…sir?”

Elias stared at Tim for perhaps half a second longer than was strictly necessary. “Quite.”

At this point, Tim wasn’t even surprised to see that he was right. Martin and Sasha were indeed hovering a few feet away, one anxious and the other impatient, and both straightened when they Tim and Elias emerge. Tim ignored Elias, walked over to them, and clapped both on the shoulders. “It’s okay. We’re going to stage an intervention.”

Martin visibly relaxed, which told Tim he’d been right—he was genuinely afraid, especially after Tim had called him out for going to Elias, that Jon was going to be fired and it would somehow be his fault. Sasha, too, seemed to relax a little, probably because she took the it’s okay to be for them, not for Jon. Either way, they fell into step willingly behind Tim, who graciously allowed Elias to go first down the steps.

He only gave a tiny, fleeting thought to pushing him down them, which could probably be considered progress.

The door to the Archivist’s office, unsurprisingly, was shut. Elias raised his hand as he approached it, clearly preparing to knock, but Tim ducked under it and grabbed the knob. Jon’s paranoia about being discovered doing…whatever he was doing was one thing, but he genuinely hated it when people knocked on his door—especially twice—and the last thing they needed to do was set him on edge right from the get-go, even though something told him that had been exactly Elias’s intention for whatever fucking reason. He opened the door stepped into the office, and bowed theatrically, sweeping one arm forward in the most ostensible, dramatic fashion he could.

“Yes, thank you, Tim.” Elias sighed and strode into the office, Martin and Sasha in his wake. “Jon. We need to talk.”

Jon squared his shoulders almost defensively. As Tim shut the door, he reached over for the tape recorder and, without breaking eye contact with Elias, pressed the RECORD button.

“You don’t mind if I record this, I trust?” he said, a slight edge to his voice.

“Well, to be honest—” Elias began.

“That’s kind of one of the things we wanted to talk about,” Tim interrupted smoothly. When Jon’s eyes flicked over towards him, he quickly rolled his pointer finger over a couple of times in what he hoped would be interpreted as a keep going sort of gesture. Elias almost certainly wanted him to shut it off, and yeah, it was probably bothering Martin and Sasha—especially Sasha, for some reason—to have their every interaction recorded, but eventually they were going to start turning themselves on for Jon automatically the way they sometimes had for Gertrude, and sometimes did for Tim, which he hadn’t mentioned to anyone. One way or another, this was probably going on record, and it would make Jon feel better if it was voluntary for now, at least on his part.

“This is an intervention,” Martin said, in as gentle a voice as he could.

Not gentle enough. Jon rose to his feet, eyes blazing. “Excuse me.”

“If you’d rather this was an official disciplinary hearing, Jon, we can arrange it,” Elias said pointedly.

Jon looked momentarily like a scolded child, then seemed to visibly force himself to calm. “Fine. Say your piece.”

Martin licked his lips and glanced at Tim, then Elias, but Sasha beat him to the punch, her voice dripping with sincerity. Tim didn’t believe it for a second. “We care about you, Jon. And you’ve been rather erratic since the Prentiss incident.”

“And we’d, we’d really like…” Martin began, then stuttered, obviously not sure where he was going with it.

“To not have to fire you,” Elias put in.

The look of fear that flashed through Martin’s eyes made Tim want to punch Elias for that, but he recovered quickly and turned back to Jon. “To make sure you’re okay,” he said, emphatically.

“Look, I understand that I’ve been a bit distant lately,” Jon began.

Oh. Oh, no, that wasn’t going to work. Either Jon actually had no idea of what they all knew, or was hoping they wouldn’t say anything. Tim spoke up, pointedly. “You were watching my house.”

“You followed me on my lunch break, and searched my desk,” Sasha pointed out.

So she had known that; Gerry would be interested to know, Tim thought as Martin finally blurted, “You said I was lying about a murder!”

From the suddenly startled look on Jon’s face, Tim realized he was right—he hadn’t actually realized they all knew that. Or at least hadn’t realized they’d talked about it. “I, uh, uh, that is to say—” he stammered.

“You think we killed Gertrude,” Sasha broke in.

Martin genuinely flinched at that, and Tim put a supportive hand at his back as Jon sputtered, “No. It’s…I…” He swallowed, and then suddenly his chin came up in a determined, belligerent defiance. “Maybe. Maybe you did. I don’t know.”

Either Sasha had just given Jon a brilliant idea, or he really did believe that, and Tim genuinely wasn’t sure which. Elias shook his head, almost sadly. “Jon, this is absurd. This goes far beyond an unhealthy work environment. I'll admit it's partly my fault for letting it get this bad. I, I should have stepped in earlier.”

Jon puffed up slightly, and Tim decided, no. No, this was where he needed to step in, he needed to stop this now or someone—either Jon or Martin or both—was going to get hurt. “What’s your evidence? Or are you just going on gut feelings?” He gestured at Sasha, Martin, and himself. “You’ve done your research. What are the red flags? You can’t build a case on maybes.”

“It’s not right,” Martin insisted.

Jon’s eyes snapped to Martin, and there was a flicker of something in them that told Tim he badly wanted to agree, but couldn’t let himself. “We’ve gone a long way beyond right or wrong, Martin. There are monsters out there and I don’t know who or where they are or if any of you…” His hand went, almost unconsciously, to his upper arm, where the stab wound he’d refused to explain was giving him yet another scar. “If you want me to trust you, then I’m sorry, but I need evidence.”

Elias sighed heavily and handed Jon what he’d been holding. Not, Tim realized, a folder. A DVD case. “Here.”

“And this is?” Jon asked, but he took it.

“A copy of all the CCTV footage from the week Gertrude disappeared,” Elias replied. “The police finally finished cleaning it up and examining it, and returned a copy.”

Jon gave Elias a suspicious look. “There aren’t any cameras in the Archives.”

“But there are everywhere else, including all of the entrances into the Archives and across all the feeds,” Elias pointed out. “It provides a remarkably detailed account of all of our movements over that week, even yours.”

“And you think this gives everyone an alibi?” Jon demanded.

“The police certainly do. Everyone who was here, at any rate. But feel free to check it yourself.”

Jon pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, but all he said was, “Thank you. I will.”

Sasha stuck her hands on her hips. “And let’s have no more of this paranoia.”

Tim was pretty sure he was the only one that noticed the recorder shut itself off before Jon reached for it.

He followed the others out of Jon’s office, went over to his desk, and unlocked the top drawer—locking it was unnecessary, the same key worked on all the desks and honestly you could jar it loose with a good hefty shove of your hip, but he did it so nobody would suspect he kept the really important secret stuff he didn’t want anyone to know about in his bag—then rummaged around until he found what he was looking for. Ignoring Martin and Sasha, and not even caring if Elias was still there or not, he stalked back into the Archivist’s office and tossed a stack of papers on to Jon’s desk. “Here.”

Jon, who had been examining the DVD case, started and looked up at Tim, his expression somewhere between annoyance and suspicion. “What is this?”

“Receipts. Hotels, plane tickets, train tickets, round trip ferry ticket, meals and the occasional purchase receipt. Everything I expensed back to the Institute.” Tim cocked his head at Jon and indicated the DVD. “I won’t be on that recording. I told you a while ago, I was away when she was killed, on official Archive business. But, here, you can track my movements anyway. Maybe make a few phone calls, although I can’t tell you how many people I talked to will even remember me. I was trying to be careful.”

He’d either just made things better or made things a hell of a lot worse, he thought as he headed back into the Archives proper to try and get some more work done. Either way, it was done. The die was cast; let the chips fall where they may. Or as that old American television show had put it, the avalanche had begun—it was too late for the pebbles to vote. He was just going to have to keep his head down, keep doing his job, and hope he’d done the right thing.

It was all he could do for the moment.

#ollie writes fanfic #tma fanfic #the magnus archives #and if thou wilt forget #sasha james #martin blackwood #tim stoker #jonathan sims #elias bouchard #hostile workplace conditions #stalking #complaints #anger #accusations #manipulation

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