#eyesolate‚ tim.

[behld]

@eyesolate​, tim.      what are we?

in an ideal world,      this conversation would have happened at any other time:      weeks ago,      maybe,      the last time they’d pushed their desks to the side to dance around the office after everyone else had gone home,      research foregone in favor of something that is both so much simpler and infinitely more complicated.      jon has never been the best at identifying his own feelings,      but tim has made a home in jon’s heart.      cleared out a space for himself,      hummed distant waltzes that stick to jon’s ribs and feel an awful lot like love-love-love.

this is not an ideal world.      last week,      jon had been called into elias’ office.      offered a promotion      —      one he isn’t sure he wants,      isn’t sure he’s qualified for,      but is in no position to even think about refusing      —      and told to choose assistants to move down to the archives with him.      and jon had thought,      immediately,      of tim.      had asked tim,      in that glanceaway way of his that does nothing to hide how he is trying and failing to not look like he cares about the answer,      if tim would follow him there.

the consequence of that      —      that jon would be tim’s boss,      and it would be entirely inappropriate to keep doing      ...      whatever it is that they’re doing      —      didn’t bother to rear its head until that night,      the thought springing fully formed into jon’s mind and refusing to disappear no matter how he willed it away.      alright then,      he’d thought.      they aren’t dating.      it isn’t as if jon has to break up with tim,      he just has to      ...      put some distance there.

so they’ve moved their pens and staplers and exhausted selves down to the institute’s basement.      so jon’s holed himself in his office,      given himself the shield of a closed door with an archivist nameplate on it.      he has work to be doing.      it’s the work that makes him shut everyone out,      he says,      not the people behind the door      —                 jon isn’t hiding,      he just      ...      doesn’t want to have this conversation.      not now.      not when every answer he could give is a wrong one.

now tim’s standing in jon’s office like it’s casual.      like he’s asking a normal question,      here’s your papers,      boss,      like jon hasn’t been avoiding him for the entire week they’ve been down here,      but jon sees something flicker behind tim’s expression.      what are we?      jon wants an easy response.      jon wants to leave this office      —      he is laughably out of his depth here,      has nothing remotely near an archivist’s training      —      and go back to soft dances and sweet kisses and the feeling of tim’s arms around him.      jon wants      ...      but that doesn’t matter,      does it?

‘      tim,      ’            jon says,      and he hates the way he sounds;      he has schooled his voice into something prickly and reprimanding in the hopes it will disguise his floundering,      but tim doesn’t deserve that.      even so.      jon doesn’t change anything.      can’t allow himself that vulnerability,      that softening.            ‘      we both know that it would be entirely inappropriate to pursue a      —      ’            relationship,      he nearly says,      but that’s presumptuous.      who is he to say that that’s even the path they were headed down?      he replaces it quickly:            ‘      anything,      now that i’m your boss.      ’

jon keeps his desk between them.      it is not as much of a shield as he wants it to be.            ‘      i      —      i’m sorry.      ’            he tacks an apology on quietly,      like it’s an afterthought.      he cannot assume that this matters to tim,      and maybe it’s easier to convince himself that it doesn’t,      that this won’t wrench out two hearts.      if he distances himself enough,      he can convince himself it doesn’t matter      —      maybe,      maybe,      maybe.            ‘      i need to get back to work.      if that’s all.      ’

[portraiyal]

       sasha had never been one to spend too much time decorating her old flat, despite living there and only there since she had left home. there were trinkets she had gathered from corners in charity shops where things like them tended to go to die and she always had a fondness for finding a good quilt. but it was different now. she found herself looking forward to little trips where she could look at dish towels or knobs for her dresser drawers. it was a nice distraction from whatever spooky mystery the work day had for them.

        ‘ what do you think about corgi themed throw pillows for the couch? ‘ she glanced back towards tim, holding up a pillow with a very pleased corgi surrounded by flowers. ‘ i mean, i don’t want to give mr. peanut a big head, but these would go really well with the coasters we picked up. ‘

@eyesolate / starter call.

[arcvist]

[      statement of @eyesolate​      :      ❝ we’re all going to die, violently. please be nice. ❞      ]

it isn’t something he can argue against,      not really,      much as he wants to      :      don’t be an idiot,      martin,      we aren’t going to die,      we’ll be fine springs forth in his mind,      but it’d be a lie if he said it aloud.      jon is trying to be honest.      and here is the honest truth      :      he is frightened.      he would be a fool not to be,      with all he’s read about the unknowing,      but his instinct of fear for himself has been dulled in the last few months.      he is,      however,      worried so much more than he will say for the people around him.      tim and daisy and basira coming along with him,      directly in the path of danger,      and      . . .      melanie and martin,      facing whatever unknowns elias will throw at them in their own territory.

(      can he protect martin?      )      it seems almost a foolish thought,      as martin is not the one running into an apocalyptic ritual,      not the one armed with explosives and a righteous recklessness,      but      . . .      sasha is on jon’s mind,      right now.      sasha,      who he could not save      —      didn’t even notice she was gone until it was far too late,      and he should have,      should have known.      it had all happened right under his nose and he had not known.      martin’s incident with prentiss,      too      :      every time something terrible has happened      &      jon has been unable to save any of them.

‘      right.      sorry.      ’            he’s distracted,      absentminded,      too focused on things beyond the present.      a day to their departure.      jon drags a hand down his own face.      he does not look at martin.      (      what would he say,      if he did,      if he truly saw martin right now?      apologize for the possibility he may not return      —      that all of them will,      as martin said,      die violently in the next few days?      try to reassure him that they will all walk forward unscathed and be safe?      no,      likely not.      )            ‘      didn’t mean to      —      i mean,      i’m sure we’re all      —      ’            a dozen half - finished thoughts,      a heavy sigh.

‘   you’re staying here,      you’ll be fine.      ’            it comes out far harsher than jon intends it to.      something to it is reminding himself martin will be alright,      but it sounds so damned bitter in his mouth,      as if he begrudges him that safety.      (      truthfully      :      it is all he wants.      for martin to be safe.      )

[behld]

@eyesolate,   tim:      we could go anywhere we pleased, to the edge of the world if we liked, and come back when we wanted to.

christ,      tim makes it sound so easy,      so real:      like jon could reach out and touch that idealized world in which such a thing were possible.      within reaching distance here,      in this world in all its pain and hope,      is a tape recorder.      recently paused.      instructions for blindness contained within.      also within touch’s range is tim.      it is still hesitantly that jon even allows himself to think of tim as someone within his reach;      so recently,      it seems,      there was a chasm of distance between the two that was utterly impassable.      there are days that illusion of space falls between them,      catches jon in its grip with nothing to do but fall.      more often,      it’s the closeness that’s terrifying.      reconciliation is a difficult beast to master,      but how they try.

this is,      jon thinks,      the most hopeful he’s seen tim in ages.      he’s come right to tim with the tape,      hasn’t given himself time to process the information within,      but he knows his own choice.      (      perhaps it’s a sign of how far the beholding’s hooks have sunk into him;      perhaps it means tim was right to think jon was entirely different now,      tainted in some way by the eye’s influence      —      but there is so much still that he does not know.      so much he can only find out so long as he is tied to the archives.      )      it seems impossible to say that,      now.      like it would break the sanctity of this moment.      something so holy should not be interrupted.

instead,      he smiles,      soft and matching some of the rare optimism shining from tim’s eyes.            ‘      where would you want to go?      ’            maybe they still can,      even if jon doesn’t blind himself.      if he brings enough statements along.      it doesn’t hurt to dream.

[portraiyal]

@eyesolate sent: “your body told me in a dream it’s never been afraid of anything.” tim! 

          it was early in the morning and the few cold rays of sunlight that had made it through the clouds had streamed through the curtains, painting her normally yellow room a pale blue. she’d have expected him to be gone when she woke up, not because it was something he did, but it was because it was something she could do. in the future she’d remember that if they went to her place instead of his, there was nowhere to escape to.

          slowly, she cracked open her eyes to look at him, head still resting against her pillow with her hair splayed out in unruly waves. there was no skip of her heart or turn of her stomach like there had been before, but now it was just a feeling of rightness. that he belonged there. for a brief moment, she imagined what it might be like to have that feeling every morning.

            ‘ i think your dream might have been lying to you. ‘ sasha murmured, her voice soft as she moved over to gently trace a finger along his jaw. ‘ i’m a big old scaredy cat. can’t even watch ghostbusters without getting nightmares for weeks. ‘

             she managed the tiniest of smiles at that, but her eyes were honest. the thought that he dreamed about her at all was sweet and sometimes she dreamed about him too. in between dreams about worms or monsters with pointy fingers, of course.