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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 1 year

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Corrupted, Chapter Five: Found - a Malevolent x TMA Fic

Tim is depressed.

John is up to something.

Gertrude is here to make it worse

AO3

———-

A few kabobs later, Tim feels a little better. Stable blood sugar is a hell of a thing.

He still hates not being able to see. It’s awful. It’s terrifying. John is doing a really good job of keeping him safe, Tim tells himself this will be over soon because he has to—no matter how hard that is to believe.

Tim also tells himself not to think too much about Bouchard’s description of John.

That was… not a safe -sounding creature. And maybe Tim is just being some sort of speciesist, but he finds himself wondering yet again why John had been bound in a book. Job is inhuman. John is also manipulative and controlling, and Tim is more than fine with both of those things in certain circumstances, but depending on the guy to stay alive is definitely not one of them.

What did he do that got him put in there?

It also brings to mind the question of what else is in there. Tim believes Bouchard. Something else is. He wonders if it’s safe in the backpack. “Hey, John?”

The shop we need is about twenty steps ahead and to your right. Yes?

“Is the book safe? Should I, like, wrap it in a belt, or something, so it doesn’t open in the bag?”

It won’t matter if it opens in the bag. It could fall down a cliff and flutter completely agape, revealing its inscriptions to the seagulls, and nothing would happen. It must be opened by a living, fully sapient being.

“Wow. If they could go that far to protect whatever’s in there, you’d think they’d put some kind of lock on it, yeah? A safeword, or something.”

John sounds amused. You mean a fail-safe? Or a password, perhaps?

“Sure, whatever. Still, that’s good to know. Wouldn’t want to release Cthulhu in the middle of London.”

No, we wouldn’t want to do that, says John with absolutely no inflection at all. Store to your right, now.

That wasn’t a spooky response at all. “What do you think he saw in the book?”

Nothing. There is nothing else bound here. He was fucking with us.

Sure.

Tim sighs and tries to get a hold of himself. John’s not Cthulhu, and whatever remains in the book isn’t, either, since Cthulhu was an old-timey story told by a crazy dead racist. (Speciesist, Tim’s brain adds.) He’s safe, he tells himself. It’s still early morning, even if he can’t see the daylight. It’s not like weird gray-skinned monsters are going to come at him on a busy London street.

The store turns out to be a health-food, raw sugar, vitamins-the-size-of-thumbs kind of place. There, John directs him to buy just… stuff. A block of salt. Six small candles, unscented. Various herbs. A hand-built clay bowl. Matches. Distilled water. Rubbing alcohol.

Then they leave. A Siri-search brings them to a hardware store, and John directs him to buy a length of rope, a hammer, six cleat hooks, and two copper pipes.

Tim has played games and read books and seen movies, and cannot for the life of him figure out what all of this is supposed to do.

Very good, Tim, says John, who has obviously figured out Tim likes to be praised. Now we need a place to cast. I do not suggest your apartment, as we need to keep that location completely uncompromised.

“Cast?”

Yes.

“I’m going to cast a spell?”

We are.

Tim gawks. “How?”

My power can just barely be lent to you—not much, or it would hurt you, or break your mind, and I have no desire to do either—but enough to cast a minor spell.

“Did you just say you can break my mind?”

Of course.

Since last night, Tim’s been running from cultists, gray-skinned claw-monsters, an eyeball god and its creepy priest. He finally realizes he could be in serious danger from John. “Fucking spooky antler-genie,” he mutters as if it’s a joke, as if the threat hadn’t landed.

It landed.

Now, Tim, soothed John. If I were going to simply break you, I’d have done it already.

“Oh. Good,” said Tim. “Absolutely reassuring. Don’t take a job in any kind of therapy, yeah?”

I’ll keep it in mind. Angle right—you’re going to walk into a mailbox.

Tim sighed and adjusted. “So you’re going to cast magic through me. I’ll be actually magical for five minutes, or something.”

Less time than that. As I said, I don’t want to hurt you, and unless you have an affinity for magic, it would harm you with longer exposure.

“Yeah, I doubt I have an affinity for it.”

Well, we don’t know yet, do we? Have you ever tried to cast before?

Tim snorts. “Have I ever tried to cast the thing I didn’t believe in twelve hours ago? Yeah, no.”

Then we’re going to find out, and I’d rather that not result in your harm. Now, as I said: we need a place where we won’t be disturbed.

Tim thinks for a moment. His heart pings painfully, and he has to wipe his eyes again.

Tim?

“Sorry, just… Danny. Exploring derelict buildings was his last dumb hobby before whatever this one was. Urban exploration. He called it Urbex , and I made fun of him because that sounds like a drain cleaner, or something.” He laughs weakly. “I was merciless. Brothers. You know.”

I do know.

John has family. Wild.

Tim keeps talking, and isn’t even sure why. “It’s what I thought he was still doing when he showed up ranting about cultists, but… anyway, he knew some places. We need to go back to my flat and get his laptop. For his pictures, and all of that.” His voice cracks.

Mister Smooth is back in the building. Of course, Tim. Whatever we need to do.

“Look, don’t… don’t do that.”

Do what? Even smoother.

“You’ve got one hell of a set of pipes, and we both know it, but you whip out that voice every time I get upset. And I don’t think you’re doing it to comfort me.”

Why else would I be doing that, Tim?

It’s not a flat tone. John’s not angry. Which is good, because Tim doesn’t want him angry. He needs John to fucking navigate. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to be manipulated. I know I’m all kinds of fucked right now, okay? Fragile. So maybe I’m being prickly, but…”

I have no reason to wish you any suffering, Tim. If I have chosen to speak to you in a soothing manner, perhaps you should ask yourself what it is I’m trying to achieve.

“To control me?” Tim says dryly.

Perhaps I merely wish to see you soothed, says John like oil on skin.

Tim rolls his eyes. “Right. The D.B. Cooper of the demon world wants me soothed. ”

Is it so hard to imagine I might prefer you happy?

What a fucking thing to say. “Maybe.” Like a thread in a sweater, pulling that sentence has begun to unravel a lot of things.

When was Tim last happy?

Well. I do. Shall we go back to your apartment?

It’s been a long time. At least since mum died. And after Danny…

All of this should be more frightening than it is. It really should. Tim does not feel great; the numbness is worrying, or it should be. It isn’t, though. It isn’t.

He isn’t even feeling the kind of thrill he should that he might be able to do magic. That should be huge! Momentous! Incredible! Exciting!

He doesn’t feel anything. “How depressed am I?” he murmurs.

What was that?

And Tim flips the humor switch, because he can deflect even better than the antlered monster in his head. “Are you telling me I could actually be a wizard some call Tim?”

John laughs. It’s a real laugh, not a chuckle—a deep and genuine guffaw. It’s also possibly the wickedest sound Tim has ever heard. There’s something terrible in it, cruel, a sound so bottomless he could fall into it forever.

“Shut up, you are not familiar with Monty Python, too,” says Tim, still deflecting.

Oh, Tim… the things I could tell you.

Was there a hint of regret in that tone again? “Okay,” says Tim, slowly. “So tell me.”

In time.

Sure. John was never going to tell him. “Let’s go the hell home. Need the map?”

No. Turn around. The closest stop that will take us back to Woking is four blocks behind us.

John remembered that?

Had he already been looking for a bus stop? Tim knows that if he’d been in the position of having to navigate through someone else’s eyes, he wouldn’t have been planning far enough ahead to catch that.

John is… scary smart, actually. Combining that with the manipulative tendencies, the bossiness, the obviously good memory…

Tim?

Tim knows he’s in danger. “Sorry. Right.” It should matter. It doesn’t.

A few more steps. Stop. It looks to me like a bus in our direction will be along in a few minutes. You’re going to be all right, Tim.

“You don’t know that.”

How about this, then: you’ve shown yourself worthy of reward, in my eyes. I will see that you get it.

Right. After all the casual humor and the relatability of shared media, John has casually dropped another abjectly terrifying sentence. “Glad to know I’ve fit your standards?” Tim says after a moment. “Though there’s not a lot you can do to make that happen.”

Not yet. But the time is coming soon.

Oh, fuck me, Tim thinks. “Um… how?”

Would you like to know why I was in that book?

“You did promise you’d tell me that.”

Then let’s go back to your apartment and choose a location. We do this conjuring. If you handle the magic well, Tim, I’ll show you why.

Was it his imagination, or was something… bad about the way he said that? “And if I don’t handle it well?”

Then I will just tell you.

And John sounds like that would be disappointing.

Tim exhales slowly. He can’t ignore his instincts any longer. He is in trouble. ”So will this conjuring find some other power to help us? Something that’s not an eyeball.”

Something like that.

It’s logical, isn’t it? It was this or go back to Bouchard, and Tim would rather lick the sidewalk. “All right.”

Bus.

They’re both quiet on the way home. Without meaning to, Tim dozes until they’re about twenty minutes from his stop.

John lets him rest.

Danny’s laptop has what they need. John describes a farm not far from Woking that’s been abandoned for a while, judging by Danny’s photos.

Oddly appropriate, John says as Tim eats the last of the peanut butter and drinks some water. Why, it’s even been a spot for some zombie movies.

“Rusty farm equipment? An abandoned hangar? Perfect place to do some magic.” And Tim says what he knows he’s supposed to say: “I hope I have an affinity. I mean. That would just be neat, you know?”

Oh, so do I, says John, and there is something hungry about it.

Tim can’t bring himself to care.

It really feels, he thinks as he trespasses in broad daylight, like he is soil that’s been tilled. He’s still and quiet and ready for planting—but on his own, he’s functionally dead.

Depressed, he thinks, which is true. He’s slipping back into the bad place he’s been in since Danny’s death—the place he was only briefly pulled from by fear and adrenaline.

He feels neither now.

There seems to be no security on this run-down, abandoned farm. John spots the hangar—a traditional arch-style steel building. Keep going. We’re heading right for it.

It is, Tim thinks, the perfect place for a murder, and he wonders why he’s still going along with this.

Yes, he might do magic. That’s a great lure, isn’t it? Who wouldn’t want that, especially after the events of the last day?

But something doesn’t add up. Tim’s gut says this is a trap, and he’s walking right into it.

It’s not like he’s stuck. He could turn around. Leave. If John refuses to help him anymore, he could just call the fucking police, a medic, something.

Hell, he could even call Bouchard.

He has options, even if they’re not great. Why is he still going along with this?

“I really am depressed,” he verbalizes after a moment.

Oh?

John sounds chipper.

I am definitely walking to my death, Tim thinks, and still isn’t sure why. Then he decides, fuck it , and shoots his shot. “I’m about to die, aren’t I?”

John is silent for one, long beat. What makes you say that?

Ah-ha. Flat tone.

Score one for intuition, Tim thinks. “Don’t know that I care as much as I should, is all. Hence the ‘depressed’ comment.”

Tim. I’m not going go to hurt you. What makes you say that? Two steps left; there’s some piece of rusted metal sticking out of the ground.

John didn’t deny this would kill him, either.

He navigates, and figures out what's wrong as the question leaves his mouth. “This conjuring is supposed to help, right? So why didn’t we do this first?”

The pause is so slight that if Tim hadn’t been listening for it, he wouldn’t have caught it. We probably should have. I’d hoped you already had a resource we could use without risking you.

“No. You’re too smart for that. Wanna know what I think? I think the second those eye-worshiping freaks saw you, you panicked, and the gloves came off. Whatever this is, it’s a last resort,” says Tim.

Such a smart young man.Regretful again. Just the type of acolyte I prefer.

“Deflecting. Also, not an acolyte.”

Not yet.

“Not ever. I’m not the priest type, accidental or otherwise.”

Yet you’re doing something at my request when you say you think it will kill you, says John casually.

Tim doesn’t know how to explain.

For some reason, the image of a life stretching before him—empty, no Danny—working some stupid job, going home to an empty apartment, rinse and repeat for the next sixty years, seems untenable. Absolutely distasteful, obscene.

Tim keeps walking, crunching through winter grass, hands in his pockets, backpack heavy. He sighs. “Are we there yet?”

Almost. So: you think you’ll die, and you’re still going through with it?

“I don’t know. Maybe I don’t care.” That’s the truth, too.

I’m not going to hurt you, Tim.

So whatever this is will be painless. Tim believes him. I got Cthulhu’s favor, lucky me, he thinks, and almost laughs. There were worse ways to go. Being beaten to death in an alley by cultists, for example.

And hey, John also hasn’t actually said it would kill him, either. Maybe it won’t, and all this drama is for nothing.

Maybe John’s not sure what it will do. That’s an odd thought to have.

We’re inside.

“Do I even get to know what spell this does?”

Possibly nothing. As I said—if you have no magical affinity, it’s a nonstarter.

“What happens if I am magical?”

It’s dark. Give me a moment to see… ah. Perfect. Ahead of you, Tim, is a space that probably held farm equipment once, but now, it’s only got junk around the perimeter—a hand truck, a suspiciously stained armchair, an unsafe ladder. Move straight ahead, slowly.

So John wasn’t going to tell him what it did. If Tim were playing this in a game, he’d have some guesses about his body and John’s place in it. Though maybe not; it’s a good human body, but a far cry from what Bouchard described John once having.

If Tim was right, though, would he still be inside it when all was said and done? He suspects he’ll just be gone. Maybe he’d go to wherever Danny is. That doesn’t seem so bad. “Where do we go when we die?” he says.

We go to the Dark World.

“What’s that? All of us?”

All.

“Good, bad, ugly?”

There is one world that accepts all after death, and that is its name.

Sounds a lot simpler than he’d feared. “It’s a whole world? Can you travel there? Leave?”

Some can. Flat. Why?

“Have you been there?” Tim says.

No, and I don’t ever intend to go. Tim, this is the spot.

And this is the moment of decision. “What’s this going to do, John? Really.”

I told you. Help. Take the rope out first.

Tim decides to do it.

Maybe he’s wrong. Maybe it won’t kill him. Or maybe he’s leaping off a cliff, chasing Danny, chasing anything to feel something other than numb inside. Either way… yeah. He’s depressed, and going along with it because it’s the direction he was already moving. “Sure.”

Good. As best you can, lay it out in a circle. I know that will be a challenge since you can’t see, but together, we’ll figure it out.

“Sure.”

The bowl goes in the exact center; inside that is distilled water, and then the block of salt.

The six candles are placed equidistant inside the rope. The hooks, equidistant outside it.

The herbs are scattered over the whole thing, rubbed to small, irregular pieces between his fingers, and—he thinks—staining his hands.

The hammer is left beside the bowl—apparently, it doesn’t matter exactly where, though Tim gets the weird feeling it is within reach .

The pipes are placed by the bowl, pointing north to south above, and east to west alongside. Then Tim opens the rubbing alcohol, and, per instructions, leaves it open just outside the nearest hook.

“Well, it sounds cool,” he says, trying to picture it all in his mind.

Are you ready, Tim?

John is eager.

“Hold on. I can’t see, and I don’t want to fucking trip.” Tim carries his backpack a little distance away, leaving it by the manky old armchair. Then he returns to the circle.

He sighs. Maybe for the last time. Maybe it’ll all be over. He'd like to rest, if he's honest. Maybe Danny's got a new hobby in the Dark World. Tim wipes his eyes. “I'm ready,” he says, and he means it.

I won’t hurt you. Step inside the rope.

Tim wonders if there’s anyone he should say goodbye to.

No one comes to mind. That’s not great, but it fits this moment. Tim takes a breath and steps.

The gunshot is so sudden, so startling, that he jerks back and falls over sideways, knocking over the bottle of rubbing alcohol, startled into pounding heart and gasps.

What the fuck? Tim, it’s that woman!

“What woman?” he says, scrambling backwards.

“Sorry for interrupting,” says a voice he heard earlier today.

It’s that old lady. The one from the Institute who’d been about to do something before Bouchard intervened.

“What the fuck, she followed us? ” Tim blurts.

“I did indeed,” says the woman. “Calm down, now. This is happening no matter what, I think you know, but it doesn’t have to be painful.”

Tim feels like he’s been hit by a baseball bat, right in the head. “What? What’s happening? What are you talking about?”

Fuck. She’s got a gun trained on us, and her hand is steady. Fuck. We’re too far away to get to her.

“I haven’t seen a ritual quite like this before,” says the woman. “I’m surprised you’re trying it all on your own. They usually need more people.”

“What?” says Tim, who no longer feels like he was hit by a bat, but rather by a different genre of literature entirely. “What the hell are you talking about? What do you want?”

“What do you serve?” she says.

A beat.

“Huh ?” says Tim.

“I can see that thing in your head. I simply don’t recognize it. Let’s have no nonsense, now. What do you serve?”

She… she’s fully armed. The gun’s not all she has. I can see two knives, another gun, and the pockets of her jacket carry slim books that… oh. Power is wafting off them. Tim, be careful.

“Okay,” says Tim, still on the ground, raising his hands in surrender. “Okay, I think there’s been some kind of misunderstanding, here. I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”

She sighs.

She’s raising the gun!

“Wait, look, I’m not serving anything!” Tim shouts.

“What. Is in. Your head.”

“I don’t know!”

She almost sounds pitying. Almost. “You probably know my reputation. One way we do this will be painless and quick. The other will not. I do hate that second way, but if you force my hand, that's on you. So, one last time: what is in your head?”

She sounds like a grandmother.

She sounds like a schoolteacher.

And suddenly—

Without warning—

Out of nowhere—

Tim is furious.

Enraged.

Frothing.

So many things have tried to kill or eat him in the last day that it’s abruptly become absurd. The fact that the Cthulhu in his head is offering the merciful option compared to this random woman is enough to make him feel insane.

“You can go fuck yourself!” he says.

Tim!

“Your reputation?” Tim continues. “What the hell? I don’t know your reputation! I don’t have a clue who you are! What, does Bouchard have a pet serial killer, for some reason? Go to hell!”

Tim, I doing know what’s gotten into you, but calm down . We can’t do anything if you—

She is completely unmoved. “Tell me, when I kill you, will it die?” she says.

“How the fuck should I know? He’s been there for, like, twelve hours!”

“You poor thing.” And now, she almost sounds compassionate. Almost. “It’s taken your reason, not only your sight. I wonder if there’s any of you left in there at all? Well, no matter. Move away from the circle, please.”

Still down, Tim scrambles backwards through scraggly grass and litter, puffing angrily, helpless and enraged.

If he had a bomb right now, he’d blow it.

If he had an axe, he’d throw it.

It’s the most he’s felt anything since Danny died, and he’s drowning.

He can hear her inspecting the items he put down. “What was this going to do, exactly?” says the woman. “Not that it matters, but all knowledge is good knowledge, as it were.”

“Fuck you, I don’t the hell know,” he snarls.

What is the matter with you? You’re smarter than this! Stop antagonizing her!

“And you were doing it anyway?” she says, and there is such contempt in her voice, such utter, disrespectful dismissal, like he’s a child, like he has no reason to feel the way he does or be depressed or want the hurt to end.

How dare she judge him?

How dare anyone?

She doesn’t know what he’s been through.

She doesn't know what he’s lost.

She’s writing her own narrative all over his life like some kind of terrible graffiti artist.

“Fuck you!” he says again.

Tim…

“Do you kiss your mother with that mouth?” she says, clearly amused with herself.

Tim’s hand touches the armchair, and he stills. He’d accidentally scuttled right up against it. That means his backpack is in reach.

He can hear her messing with the salt, the water, and the bowl, the very center of the setup. That means she’s not looking his way.

As quietly as he can, Tim reaches around and takes out the book.

Tim! Don’t!

John wouldn’t tell him what the spell was for. Tim is mad about that, too.

(This is a bad idea. This won’t make it better.)

He knows that. He can’t care.

His world fell apart, he discovered magic, he lost his sight, he’s possessed, and elderly Lara Croft has decided to stop him from making the one choice he actually wanted to make?

Rage. This is rage. And it is divine.

Tim!

She must have looked up. “Drop it!” she snaps, as if he’s a brat with a slingshot.

That, in the moment, is why he opens the book.

It’s the third time he’s opened it.

The first gave him John. The second called gray-skinned monsters to his parents’ house. The third seems to summon a storm.

Unable to see, he cannot grasp what is happening. Something immediately buffets him—something like wind but not, something like heat but not—expanding so fast that its bulk shoves him across the weed-strewn ground until he slams against the corrugated wall.

She tries to shoot it, whatever it is.

Fuck! John is shouting. Fuck! Go right! There’s a table! Tip it over and we’ll have some shelter, you fucking idiot! What’s wrong with you? Are you out of your fucking mind?

Tim scrambles where told, pushing against what feels like excess gravity, and finds the table—just one of those cheap folding deals, probably nothing that will protect him from anything, but what does he have to lose? He tips it over and throws himself behind.

I thought you were smart , John is snarling. Thought you might be worth a little kindness, though it would cost me , but no! Whatever mercy you earned has dried up!

(That hurts, it does, but only for a moment as that tiny grief is burned up in his rage.)

As if anything John says could upset Tim now. He laughs, cackling like a fire, and stays behind his table on purpose so John can’t see what’s happening.

The woman is shouting—not spells, nothing like that, but certainly not in pain, either. In fact, it sounds like she’s reading poetry? And shooting. And moving. And doing… something that sounds a lot like a flame thrower, at least if the movies are correct.

Elderly Lara Croft, he thinks again.

The whatever-it-is he released from the book is making horrible noises, painful bass sounds that carry no words but so much meaning his head hurts trying to understand. Tim covers his ears, and discovers they are bleeding.

The woman is still alive, and somehow, still shooting. How many bullets does she have? It can’t be legal, to have bullets like that, and the fact that legal amounts of bullets even enters his head in a moment like this makes him laugh like a loon.

Damn it , Tim! he’s able to hear, and all sound suddenly stops.

In the abrupt and terrible silence comes a new voice, disturbingly energetic, unnervingly delighted.

“Oh, oh, oh, there you are, Dagster! Dag-Man! Dag-o-Rama!” The voice drops an octave. “It’s been so very long.”

And whoever said that—whatever chipper, knife-bright being said that—must be a monster, because John’s fear rises like a flood, like an absolute tsunami, and briefly, Tim can feel nothing else.

#Tma #malevolent #tma fic #malevolent fic #tma crossover #malevolent crossover #tim atoker #kiy malevolent #gertrud robinson #kayne malevolent #tma spoilers #corrupted fic

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