#poor sasha. had to try to explain an encounter with the spiral of all things. an avatar of the spiral that barely understood himself.

[somanyfuckedupiftruebooks]

Mag 27

Poor old Paul. So scared, alone and paranoid; a perfect offering for the Spiral. He really should have gotten that dog, maybe then the TMA Pet Safe Guarantee might have protected him.

Well that's fucking terrifying. Luckily I sleep with my bedroom door open so that my cat can come and go as she pleases. That will keep me safe?

Weirdly, reading this got me thinking about Jon in Season 4. Serving the Eye is almost easy compared to some of the Entities, especially if you're the Archivist. People walk into the Institute voluntarily and offer up their fear, and when they don't you have 200 years worth of old fear to tide yourself over with. Theoretically Jon barely has to do anything in order to serve his Patron. Meanwhile, check out whatever pre-Michael manifestation of the Spiral this is. Look at all the hassle he has to go through just to traumatise one isolated old man.

This is why you never call the fucking cops. ACAB.

It's a calling card of the Spiral to target victims that no one will believe, which makes it even more notable that Michael chose to approach Sasha, the most level-headed and reasonable of the Archival Assistants. It really does want them to think of it as their friend.

So I assumed that the Spiral was just making Paul think that there was something at the door, but not actually touching it. Hence the video surveillance showing nothing. I have a slightly different theory now, that I'll explain later.

For now let's focus on Paul getting so terrified of a face in the shadows that he deleted evidence and never tried again. It's no wonder the Spiral managed to scare him into a stroke.

Oh my god, this is so heartbreaking. I really wish he'd gotten himself a dog.

Aside from Sasha, Jon has never openly admitted to having an emotional connection with a statement-giver before. Maybe the job is 'making him sentimental' (as if he isn't the most emotionally driven man on the face of the Earth) or maybe being raised by his gran makes him more inclined towards sympathy for someone old and alone.

So yeah, in last relistens I have always just assumed that the Spiral was altering Paul's perception of reality to the point at which he basically hallucinated the entire thing. Now I have a similar, but alternate theory. The first time Paul experienced someone trying to get through a door into his bedroom, the room was completely dark because he couldn't turn the lights on without letting go of the handle. So what if the door wasn't his bedroom door, and the hall outside the door wasn't the hallway of his home? What if it was a doorway to the Spiral's corridors which just manifested in his home? That could explain why the door Paul was keeping closed had a lock on it, while the real door to his bedroom didn't. All of the subsequent times were just escalations of that first experience.

Another thing that I find interesting is that immediately following a close encounter with the Spiral, the very next genuine statement Jon finds is also about the Spiral. Nothing on Michael specifically, but I wonder if Jon has spent the past week or so worried over what happened to Sasha that his fledgling Eye powers helped him pull a statement that was a least tangentially related.

@a-mag-a-day

[cloudyskywars]

The Magnus Archives, Season 2

Hello again. I’ve now finished listening to Season 2 of TMA and have lost my mind. @reese-haleth can confirm. After Season 1 I wrote my “statement” regarding my thoughts on the season. I’ve done it again, even though no one asked lol. Listen, I just love this podcast a lot, okay? Enjoy my 2,000 word report on Season 2 of The Magnus Archives. 

Statement below the cut.

Continued statement of CloudySkyWars and her experiences listening to the second season of The Magnus Archives. Statement originally given 28th April, 2021. 

I… don’t really know where to begin. It has now been a full day since I finished Season 2, and I still don’t quite know what to think. So many things were revealed in the season finale, and throughout the season in general. I don’t quite know what to do with all the new information I have now. In rereading my previous statement, I was right to be nervous for Jon. I didn’t think it was possible, but his situation got worse.

Let’s start with an easier- well, not easier- but more approachable topic I suppose? Sasha is gone. I think I’ve known that from the end of last season, when her voice changed abruptly and no one seemed to notice. Her scream as she was eaten, or taken, or whatever it was, was terrible. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected her to come back from something like that. Still, it hurts me to know that she’s truly gone. 

We now know more about the being that took Sasha. I’m still not sure what it is called exactly, but for now I shall refer to it as the Not Being. It has apparently been around for ages; hundreds, possibly thousands of years. As it said itself, it wears the person that it chooses as its victim. It transforms into them, for lack of better word, except it changes its appearance, yet somehow tricks everyone into believing that that is how the person has always appeared. Well, almost everyone. It is odd how there always appear to be one or two people that the being cannot fool. In the case of Graham, it was his neighbor across the street. In the case of Sasha, it was Melanie, the ghost hunter. As Gerturde Robinson said, it is strange that a being that has the power to assume someone’s identity and change pictures and hundreds of people’s memories somehow misses just a few people that remember who the person was at first. I do not know for sure, but perhaps those that it cannot fool are somehow protected by another one of the Beings. 

That’s another difficult topic. The Beings. I don’t know exactly what to call them yet. Jon has slowly been putting the pieces together, and with the statement of the now late Jurgen Leitner, the pieces form an almost complete puzzle. From my understanding, there are 10 Beings so far that we are aware of at this time.

Here is my understanding of the Beings so far. I don’t know how correct any of this is, but I know I still have much to learn.

Being 1: Darkness. The form of darkness incarnate, responsible for the founding of the cult The People’s Church of the Divine Host. It can dim lights, and also affect the water when it is near. The head of the cult in the 1990s was one Maxwell Reiner. 

Being 2: Michael, aka The Spiral. It lies. This Being appears to be a master of deception and trickery, and has no regard to others except to watch them in its tortured games. I will discuss Michael further, but right now we know the appearance it chooses to take at this time: a tall man with curly blonde hair and bulbous, swollen hands. 

Being 3: Meat. I do not know much about this being at this time. It appears to be vicious, and quite literally thirsts for blood and meat. 

Being 4: Fire. Again, my knowledge on this particular being is limited. I believe it to be closely tied to Agnes Montague, and perhaps be an enemy of the Not.

Being 5: Not. As I stated before, this being takes the identity of its victim and warps it, manipulating almost everyone’s minds to forget the original form of the person ever existed. It always seems to miss a few though. Its one weakness seems to be the wooden table that Jon has now destroyed. Jon was under the impression that the Not got its power from the table, but the opposite was true. The table was binding it, and for a bit it seemed as though the Not had almost unlimited power, taunting Jon in the tunnels. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Not can trick photos and people’s minds, but appears to be unable to alter voice recordings of the victim as long as it is recorded on magnetic tape. This is how Jon realized that Sasha was indeed Not Sasha, as he found the tapes from Season 1 where her voice was recorded. It also seems to be unable to alter polaroid photos.

Being 6: Abyss. We don’t know much about this one yet, either. It takes the form of some abyss or another, whether it be the sky or the deep blue ocean. I am not ashamed to say that this Being is one of the scariest for me.

Being 7: Giant- I feel this is a poor descriptor for this being, but it is the best I can come up with at the moment. It is exactly as it sounds; a giant. So far we have primarily seen it manifest as a giant hand. Perhaps that would be a better name for it. Hand. 

Being 8: Thin- This is, I fear, not an accurate description of this Being. It is described as being tall and thin, with limbs like knives. Not much is known about him at the moment, however we believe that his “brother” of sorts was the werewolf creature from a previous statement. 

Being 9: The End- The Being of death and disease. I strongly suspect that this is the being responsible for Jane Prentiss, as well as John Amehurst, who has shown up multiple times so far in the series. 

Being 10: Eye, aka the Beholder- This Being is in control of The Magnus Institute, and ‘owns’ all those who work there. The Eye watches people, as its name suggests. It also apparently protects those it owns from the other beings, and the protections are strongest in The Institute itself. 

I hope that the Darkness has mostly gone away, for now. Basira claims that Maxwell Reiner, the head of The People’s Church of the Divine Host, is now dead. Hopefully this means that the Darkness will have less influence over this world for the time being. At least until it can find another host.

And that’s another thing. Basira. We were just introduced to the character this season, and already I am very attached to her. It disappoints me that she has left the police force and will no longer be able to help Jon, but I do not believe we have seen the last of her. Her leaving the police opens the door for her to help Jon more in the future, especially now that he is on the run for murder. I will… discuss that more deeply later. Basira’s introduction also caused us to meet Daisy, who I quite like at the moment, but I feel that will change quickly as she is the one investigating Leitner’s murder and will most likely be leading the manhunt for Jon. For the moment though, she is in my good graces. 

Daisy’s first statement talked about her first encounter with a paranormal experience. It dealt with the coffin from the statement of Joshua Gillespe. The moving company, Breekon and Hope, is not gone. I don’t think it ever will be. I do not yet know which Being they are associated with, if any, but they have caused problems in the past and I have cause to believe they will continue to cause problems in the future.

Now for the difficult part: Jon. He is in quite the predicament right now, and I am scared to see what will happen to him. He is on the run for murder, because Elias Bouchard brutally murdered Jurgen Leitner and has now framed Jon for it. Elias had me fooled. I thought he cared about Jon, about all of them. But he is clearly dedicated to the Eye, and anything that threatens the Beholder and what it watches, holds, and owns- Elias will stop at nothing to protect it. I do not know if Elias is a paranormal being himself or is simply an instrument of the Eye. 

I desperately hope that Jon will be alright. I think, (though I could be wrong), that he will reach out to Basira and ask for her help. Season 2 has developed outside characters more so than Season 1, and I believe it is so that Jon has connections that he can reach out to. With Basira leaving the police force, it opens the possibility that he can go to her for help. The same is true with Melanie. She and Jon have something that could almost be considered a friendship, though most of their conversations end in a verbal sparring match or fight. Nonetheless, Melanie was heading to India, and Jon was aware of that. Perhaps he will go to her for assistance, or maybe he will wise up and realize that Martin actually cares about him and ask him for help. We shall see. 

Gerturde Robinson is another character we have learned more about this season. She is hardly the absent minded old woman we were led to believe she was. In the beginning, Jon complained about her lack of organization in the Archives, but now I think there was a reason for it. She put the pieces together, and was murdered for it. She was trying to separate the pieces, to make it safe for whoever took her place, as well as attempting to fool Elias into thinking she didn’t know what was going on. She failed at that, as he discovered her knowledge and murdered her in the tunnels beneath the Archives. It was also revealed that she was working with Jurgen Leitner.

Leitner has been mentioned since the beginning, though we heard from him for the first and last time in the final two episodes of Season 2. Contrary to my assumptions, he was not making his books evil, simply trying to harness the power they already possessed. I am thankful that he saved Jon from the Not Being, as Jon would have surely died had Leitner not interfered. He is very knowledgeable in paranormal matters, and did his best to explain it to Jon. However he was murdered by Elias before he had a chance to explain all he wished to. Leitner claims that the books are the Beings in their purest form, and I am certain we have not seen the last of the books from Leitner’s extensive library. 

Martin and Tim surely think that Jon murdered Leitner. I hope that Martin at least will continue to have faith in Jon, and that he will possibly find the supplemental tapes that Jon had been recording and realize what was actually happening. Only time will tell, though. 

Another Being that we learned more about this season was Michael. He was first introduced to us by Sasha (the real one), back in season 1. At the time, it was portrayed as either a passive or helpful Being, showing Sasha how to kill the worms that came from the thing once known as Jane Prentiss, but this season has proved that not to be the case. Michael has trapped people multiple times, (notably Helen Richardson), and has since shown more aggression than before. It stabbed Jon, who then proceeded to lie about his wound because he didn’t trust his coworkers. To its credit, in the second to last episode of Season 2, Michael helps Jon get a head start from the Not Being after Jon accidentally sets it free. However it then proceeds to trap Martin and Tim in one of its corridor labyrinths for days in some sort of sick game for its enjoyment, and comments that it may also kill them. Luckily it either failed or changed its mind. Time will tell whether or not the Being that calls itself Michael will be more of a friend or foe. 

I suppose that’s it, really. There are surely many things that I have forgotten, but I have done the best I can to document my thoughts and my knowledge of The Magnus Archives at this time. I don’t know all that is going on, I don’t know how things will be resolved. I don’t even know if the mystery will be fully solved. But I desperately hope that things will be explained, that we will receive answers, and that the mystery will be solved. It has to be. I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s not.

Statement ends. 

[ollieofthebeholder]

leaves too high to touch (roots too strong to fall): a TMA fanfic

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] Also on AO3

Chapter 16: Sasha

There’s a long silence after the door shuts behind Jon Prime. Sasha stares at Martin Prime for a long moment, several possible things to say next running through her head. How did we actually die wars with how much of that really happened and a slight humorous side trip into I don’t think I’ll ever wear this shirt again, because of course she’s wearing her favorite shirt today, as well as what words did Jon say in that memory and if he was in the other fourteen why did you talk like it was an unknown subject.

What actually comes out of her mouth at last is, “Wickie?”

Martin Prime sighs heavily. “It’s…an old name for a lighthouse keeper. Comes from trimming the wicks to keep the light burning.”

“M-my—” Martin rubs his temples hard, almost like he’s trying to manually turn the wheels in his brain. “Dad used to call…us that. I’d forgotten…” He looks up at Martin Prime, and Sasha is a little taken aback at the anguish in his eyes. “Is—was it a coincidence or—?”

“No. The Keeper is…he’s part of the Lonely, and maybe a little of the Spiral. The loneliness of distance. Not just being separated from someone you care about, but the specific loneliness that comes when you know exactly where they are but can’t get to them, either because there’s a physical barrier or because you just…can’t. The fear that if you reach out to them, they won’t reach back.” Martin Prime closes his eyes for a brief moment. “So the Keeper just…knows those sorts of nicknames. A name given to you by someone you miss…or someone who misses you. Someone you can’t reach, anyway. In this case, though…he knew it because he is the one who gave it.”

Tim’s eyes widen. “Wait, seriously? Does that mean you’re—”

“He made a deal to keep me—us—safe,” Martin Prime interrupts. “It’s why he left in the first place. I can tell you the story some other time, but…maybe not today?”

“No,” Martin agrees in a very small voice. “Not today.”

Tim drapes his arm around Martin’s shoulders and nods. Sasha is more inclined to press, but she swallows down on the urge. Curiosity is all well and good, but she shouldn’t sate it at the expense of her friends, so if they say no to a topic, she’s going to respect that. For now, anyway. Time to pick one of the other avenues of discussion.

She wants to ask about the pictures, get more details about what came before those moments, but something tells her that’s a discussion that needs to happen with the Jons in the room. Also, that’s going to hurt Tim, probably, so she starts running through her other options, looking for the least volatile one.

Tim beats her to it, which is probably a good thing. “So that was the first time…your Jon found out about all that? You didn’t, like, give him a taste last night?”

“No. That…I knew he’d need it. Like I said, he hasn’t had a statement since he got back. Sitting in on your—our, I guess—statements from last night…all that did was take the edge off of things. I knew what I went through was big enough that it’ll keep him going for a bit.”

“Right, but why not at least lay the groundwork? Warn him that it was going to be…bad?”

Martin Prime hesitates, turning in the direction of the door briefly before saying in a low voice, “He can’t always…the hungrier he gets for a statement, the harder it is for him to control himself. The last few months before the world ended? I found out, sort of by accident, that he’d been going out and…pouncing random people for their statements. One of them complained to the Institute and I had to stage an intervention. He’s doing better about it, but I didn’t want to risk tempting him. He’d never forgive himself.”

“For falling off the wagon?” Sasha cocks her head.

Martin Prime turns to look at her, and really, it’s a little unnerving now that she knows he’s blind. It explains why he always looks like he’s looking through her, but it’s still creepy. “It’s a lot more painful when he takes a statement by force. Even if I was going to offer it to him anyway, if he…pounced on it like that, it’d be more intense. He hates it enough when it’s strangers, but if it’s—someone he knows…” He trails off.

“Will that happen to our Jon?” Martin asks. His voice shakes a little when he asks. Sasha wonders how much of that is residual from hearing Martin Prime’s statement and how much of it is actually about Jon.

Martin Prime doesn’t answer for a long moment. “I don’t know,” he says at last. “Probably not so quickly, anyway. Gertrude Robinson…I don’t know if she just never got as bad or if she just could control it better. You can ask Jon later.”

“He won’t pass out if we do, will he?” Tim glances towards the door. Sasha suppresses a smile at the obvious concern on his face. Honestly, Tim fusses just as much as Martin does at times. He’s the consummate big brother, while Martin is something of a mother hen.

“No. What just happened was…he pushed too hard, against the wrong subject. He can’t Know what’s going on inside the Eye. Really, trying to Know anything about any of the entities directly is beyond him, and he knows that.” Martin Prime’s voice sharpens into censure for a moment before he visibly forces himself to relax. “Usually he’s pretty good at knowing his limits.”

“So why did he do that?” Tim asks. “If he knew it would hurt him, why would he push? He’s not that…masochistic usually. That’s your job.”

“Hey,” Martin mumbles, but without any real heat behind it.

“He’s not wrong,” Sasha points out. She’s watched Martin push himself, break himself into smaller and smaller pieces, trying to be what everyone needs him to be, always putting everyone else first.

“I think part of it is that it was something he genuinely wanted to know the answer to,” Martin Prime says. “We’ve never known for sure how much the Beholding can see on its own and how much it needs its…agents to give it. It for sure can watch us at the Institute, but in a very real way, the Institute is part of the Beholding, or vice versa. Honestly, it’s not something we think about much. But knowing Jon, once he had the question in his mind, he had to see if he could find out the answer to it, despite knowing it was a dangerous idea. Part of it might have been that he was so tired, too. The longer he goes without a statement, the worse his decision-making skills get.”

“Oh, brilliant. They’re so amazing most of the time,” Tim drawls. “God knows Jon never makes poor life choices.”

Martin Prime actually laughs. “I mean, not like we can throw stones here.”

Tim laughs, too, and Martin manages a smile. Sasha wants to ask if Martin Prime considers her one of Tim’s “poor life choices” or if he even knows they slept together, but just in case he doesn’t, she doesn’t want to drag that out into the open just now. Again, she’s fond of unearthing others’ secrets, but very close-mouthed about her own; it’s probably unfair, but there you are. Lest Tim bring it up, she starts looking for the next thread to pull on.

“That was Jon, right?” she asks at last. “In the…last gallery you were talking about. Those pictures. They were all of Jon?”

That fast, Martin Prime’s smile disappears. “Yeah. Most of them haven’t happened…obviously. And one of them for sure won’t now.”

“The third one,” Sasha guesses. “That was—when Jane Prentiss attacked you all?”

Martin Prime nods. “It was the middle of the day. Jon’s the one that accidentally went through the wall—there was a spider he was trying to take out—”

“The Web toying with him?” Martin asks. He sounds a little calmer than before, but still shaken.

“Honestly, I’ve never been altogether sure about that. It might’ve actually just been a spider, but…the balance of probability is on it being the Web, yes. Anyway, Jon accidentally broke the wall, the worms got in—our Sasha and I ended up having to drag him into that storage room, but he’d already been bitten a few times, he couldn’t walk. Our Tim was at lunch at the time, he came back and—Sasha went out to save him, they got separated, and Tim wound up in the walls. He came through the wall in that storage room and convinced Jon and me to come out with him. We got separated in the tunnels, just like you all did, but Tim and Jon found the trap door and I, well, I found Gertrude. Eventually. But yeah, when Jon and Tim came out in the Archives, Jane Prentiss was there and she attacked them. They were pretty bad off before��Elias finally set off the CO2 system.”

Tim looks down at his hands—or more accurately, Sasha realizes, at one of his hands, since his other arm is still draped around Martin’s shoulders. She wonders if it’s to comfort Martin or to reassure himself. “Are we lucky, then?”

“Yes,” Martin mutters. “Extremely.”

“You’re lucky, too,” Martin Prime says. “Trust me. It wasn’t…Jon’s right, just because I didn’t come away with physical scars doesn’t mean I got off unhurt. And that was when things started going bad for us all.”

“So how do we stop the rest?” Sasha asks. “Are you all going to tell us what happened so we can avoid it?”

“Yes, I think so, but I’d really like to only have to go over it once?” Martin Prime glances in the direction of the door again. “And most of them I wasn’t there for. He’s told me about them, but…I wasn’t there.”

“But what were they?” Sasha persists. “Just how he got hurt? How he got the scars?”

Martin Prime takes a deep breath and curls his hands into tight fists. “Broadly, yes, they’re how he was scarred. They’re…they were the encounters with the Fears that marked him.”

Sasha tilts her head to one side. “Like what Michael said about you—that you’d been marked?”

Martin Prime nods. “To be marked by a Fear is to feel it, all the way through to your soul. Sometimes it’s physical, sometimes not. Mine aren’t…at least, not really.” He runs a hand through his hair, seemingly without noticing. It’s the first time Sasha realizes how much grey is streaked through his curls.

Martin swallows audibly. “How…how many fears have marked you?”

“Four, I think. Three for sure. I’m not altogether sure about whether or not the Stranger actually marked me or not.” Martin Prime tilts his head to one side. “You’ve only been marked by two, though, and…I never got the mark of the Corruption. My others were the Lonely and the Spiral, and of course the Beholding.”

“What about us?” Sasha asks. “In your timeline, I mean. How many were we marked by?”

Martin Prime hesitates. “Tim…I think he was four as well. The Beholding, obviously, we were all marked by that one as soon as we set foot in the Archives. At least I—I think that’s how that worked. Or at least as soon as we put our voices on those tapes. Then the Corruption—Jane Prentiss’ attack—and he was with me when I got tricked into entering the Spiral’s domain, so it marked him too. And I���m pretty sure he was marked by the Stranger. I can’t say when, but I’m fairly sure he had been.”

Sasha waits, then prompts, “And me?”

Martin Prime takes a deep breath. “I honestly don’t know, Sasha. If I had to guess, I’d say two. Three at most, but I don’t know if your encounter with Michael really counts as a mark. Honestly, I wouldn’t have known the Corruption had actually marked you if you hadn’t mentioned that you could hear the worms singing.”

Sasha huffs. “I’m not sure what surprises me more—that I didn’t get more marks, or that you didn’t.”

“I spent more time at the Institute than I did actually tracking things down,” Martin Prime replies. “Someone had to keep the Archives running properly, and, well, that fell on me. Our Tim was…he had a project of his own he was focusing on.”

“And me?” Sasha asks again.

Martin Prime looks in her direction for a long moment. His face is tight with pain. “You’re really going to make me say it,” he says flatly.

“Sash—” Tim begins.

“Yes,” Sasha says over whatever it is Tim’s going to protest. “Whatever reason I avoided all that…don’t I deserve to know?”

“You died, Sasha,” Martin Prime says sharply. “You didn’t get marked by more entities because you died. You were torn to pieces by a—a thing that took your place, replaced you in our memories so that we didn’t even know you were gone. We spent almost a year believing that it was you, and finding out that it wasn’t nearly destroyed all three of us. Worse was finding out that Elias knew all along and didn’t tell us because he wanted to see what it would do to Jon, and damn the effect on Tim or me.”

Okay. Sasha really should have known that. She heard him describe the painting, after all, she even thought about not wearing her favorite shirt again because of it. She knew she was dead, and Tim too; it’s obviously why they didn’t come back with Martin Prime and Jon Prime. But something in her wanted to hear Martin Prime say it out loud, and she’s not sure she likes what that says about her. She bites down hard on her tongue to keep from asking about Tim’s death. That’s not hers to ask, and she’s almost sure its going to be something the Jons need to be there for too.

After a moment of awkward silence, Tim gets up from the sofa. “I’m getting us all tea,” he says, his voice unusually subdued. “I think we’re going to need it.”

“Do you…need a hand?” Martin pushes himself to a standing position.

Tim looks like he’s going to refuse, then nods. “Sure, c’mon.”

Sasha watches them go. Martin is walking well enough, if a little stiffly, but Tim still hovers just behind him, not touching but there to catch him if he falls. It’s almost funny how flustered Martin gets when Tim looks after him, too. For a moment, Sasha is tempted to ask Martin Prime about that—if it’s Tim he has the crush on—but that feels a little bit like a betrayal of Martin, to take away his choice to tell her. And she’s still stinging a bit from the way Martin Prime flung the answer to her last question at her.

After a moment of silence, Martin Prime sighs heavily. “I’m sorry for saying it like that.”

“I shouldn’t have pushed,” Sasha replies. “Not like I didn’t know the answer. I—I don’t know why I had to make you say it when I knew I’d died during your attack on the Institute.”

“I’m beginning to see why Gertrude Robinson expected you’d be appointed Archivist after her. You’re…a lot like she was. That’s not necessarily an insult, mind, but that’s not necessarily a compliment either.”

From what Sasha remembers of Gertrude Robinson—which isn’t much—she can understand that. They sit in silence for a while, listening to the clattering of mugs from the kitchen, before she finally says, “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure, but I reserve the right not to answer.”

“What’s it like? Being blind, I mean.”

Martin Prime tilts his head to one side. “Are you asking me in clinical terms or in more general ‘how does it feel’ terms?”

“Both?”

Martin Prime smiles, briefly. “Fair enough.” He pauses for a moment, as if considering his options. “In the strictly literal sense…it’s like being in a room with really thick blackout curtains over the window. Sometimes there are…textures, maybe, to the darkness? Only if there’s a really bright light. For the most part, though, it’s just…darkness.” He takes off his glasses and holds them out to Sasha. “Here, take a look.”

Curious, Sasha does. She holds Martin Prime’s glasses up to the light, then removes her own and slides on Martin Prime’s. The strength of the prescription knocks her backwards against the sofa and makes her head swim. She takes them off, blinking, and puts them back in Martin Prime’s outstretched hand. “In other words, you were basically blind before all this.”

“It’s just that the glasses don’t help anymore,” Martin Prime confirms. He settles them back on his face anyway, which Sasha understands. They’ve got to be a comfort. “Not being able to see…I can work with that. It’s just the added layer of there not even being blurry shapes in front of me, and, well, Mum was a light sleeper, so I kind of got used to moving carefully and without turning on any lights when I was growing up. Moving around I can do, although I’m sure you noticed me running into things a lot over the last couple weeks because I don’t know there’s a table or a stack of books between me and where I’m trying to get. But it’s…it’s disconcerting to not know if someone’s in the room, or be able to see what they’re doing when there’s a silence. I can’t read faces or see hand gestures. I can still tell when someone is looking at me, but I can’t tell who, or even what direction it’s coming from. And there’s—there’s so much I took for granted that I won’t ever see again. Tim’s smile, Jon’s eyes, the sunlight sparkling on the Thames, the moon rising over the city.” He’s silent for a moment. “I didn’t even remember what you looked like. The—the Not-Sasha? It looked different, it sounded different. It had to, because whenever it takes someone’s place, there’s always one or two people who—who remember the person as they were before, only no one believes them.”

“Which is how it feeds its patron’s fear,” Sasha guesses. “The Stranger?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Martin Prime nods. “I recognized your voice when I got back, only because we—we had a few recordings you were in from before. Your statement, your teasing Jon about the pronunciation of ‘calliope’, the recording Tim did on Jon’s birthday…a couple more you were on. But even having seen that—painting or whatever, I still couldn’t put a face to the voice. I only knew what you looked like in shadow and the most terrified you’d ever been in your life. I knew the Not-Sasha wasn’t what you looked like, but…I had to get Jon to describe you last night.”

Sasha glances in the direction of the kitchen, to make sure Tim and Martin aren’t coming back, but she hasn’t heard the kettle yet. “What did—it look like? The Not-Me? What did it make you think I looked like?”

“She—it—was…well, for starters, it was short. Petite, I think, is the right word. At least a head shorter than Jon and scrawny on top of it. Blonde hair in a shag cut, green eyes. No glasses.” Martin Prime pauses. “Only drank green tea.”

Sasha, who admittedly has a serious caffeine addiction, pulls a face. “How’d she drink it?”

“With cream,” Martin Prime answers. He takes a deep breath. “Don’t tell Jon, but…actually, there was a little part of me that was kind of relieved when we found out it wasn’t really, well, you. The first day we were back in the Archives after the attack, it was just the two of us, and…I made a cup of tea for both of us, we were both stressed out, so I thought it would help. I thought I made it like I always did, but…when I gave it to her, she took a sip, all but winced, and asked me if I’d made it for Jon or Tim. That’s when she ‘reminded’ me that she only drank green tea with cream. It—it threw me. Badly. I spent the next three months second-guessing myself at every turn, about the stupidest things, because if I could forget something like how one of my friends like their tea, what else was I forgetting? What else was I doing wrong?” He shakes his head. “Honestly, it was hard to shake that even after we knew it wasn’t our Sasha, but at least I could convince myself that there was no good reason for me to know how it would like tea. Even though, supposedly, it replaced all our memories of her—you—with the ones it wanted us to have.”

Sasha hears the unspoken question and considers leaving it, or forcing him to actually say it aloud, but honestly, she’s put him through enough already this morning. “I can’t stand green tea. I’m more one for coffee, actually, but when I do drink tea, it’s black with lots of sugar. Tim suggested once that you just heat up a cup of syrup and call it a day.”

Martin Prime’s face lights up at that. “I did remember it right then! Christ, thank you. You have no idea…it’s been eating away at me for ages. I know it’s ridiculous in the grand scheme of things, but…”

But a big part of Martin’s identity is wrapped up in his ability to care for others, and naturally thinking he got it wrong would set him atilt.  “Why leave you that, though?” Sasha asks curiously. “If you couldn’t remember anything else about—me—why remember just how I like my tea?”

“Well…I mean, I worked with you every day, if I’d remembered all about you, I’d have gone to Jon straightaway, or—probably not to Elias, but maybe. I didn’t…know I shouldn’t trust him then. If I’d laid down Amy Patel’s statement in front of Jon and pointed out the parallels, there’s a chance he’d have believed me, which would’ve ruined everything for it. So the one person it chose to remember you as you really were was someone who didn’t see you every day, or at least didn’t work with you closely enough to be suspicious. And—” Martin Prime swallows. “Part of the Stranger is that fear that you—you don’t know someone as well as you ought to. So what better way to make me afraid than to make me doubt such a fundamental part of our interaction? I-I mean, it wasn’t human. It might not have liked tea at all. Maybe it just picked something at random that was so different from what you liked that it would throw me off-balance.”

Suddenly, Sasha gets it. “That’s why you said you might have been marked by the Stranger! You don’t think that counts? If it made you that…paranoid and afraid?”

“Maybe? It was worse for Jon. It made him so paranoid he thought one of us was trying to kill him, and that didn’t count as his mark, if we’re going by the paintings.”

“Oh, please.” Sasha waves a hand. “Jon’s probably paranoid because of finding Gertrude’s shot-up body in the tunnels. That’s not a supernatural death, that’s something provable and possibly human. Was I—or the Not-Me—his top suspect?”

“No?” Martin Prime’s forehead puckers in a frown. “Actually, you—it—was the one he suspected least. At least at first. That doesn’t mean he trusted you, mind, but he did at least think you the least likely suspect.”

“Then the Not-Me didn’t mark him because it wasn’t what made him paranoid,” Sasha says. “If he’d been in his right mind, he’d have suspected me most of all because I put in for the Archivist position, so the logical conclusion would have been that I killed Gertrude Robinson in hopes of getting it and then might be out to kill him so I could take the job from him. He was on edge because of what happened, and what I’m guessing was the general atmosphere of mistrust and tension in the Archives at the time probably made it worse—but it wasn’t the Not-Me’s doing. You, on the other hand, were directly targeted by it, so any paranoia you felt was because of it. Hence the mark.”

Martin Prime blinks in her direction. “That…God, you’re right. I never thought of that before.” He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. “Do me a favor?”

“Don’t mention that to Jon, either?”

“Don’t—yeah. He’s got by all this time by reassuring himself that he wouldn’t have acted like that if the Not-Sasha hadn’t been there, but…” Martin Prime sighs and looks up at her. “I will tell him. It’s not fair not to. But just…let me do it?”

“Of course,” Sasha promises. “Despite how I’ve been acting tonight, I can keep my mouth shut.”

“I know. You knew I’d lied on my CV and never said anything.”

The kettle whistles from the kitchen, making Martin Prime flinch slightly. Sasha looks briefly over her shoulder. “They’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Martin Prime hums in acknowledgment. “Anything else you want to ask me while it’s just the two of us?”

Sasha can’t help but laugh. “Are you sure you don’t remember me?”

“Hey, I didn’t say the Not-Sasha was completely different from you, necessarily. It just looked and sounded different.”

“Fair point.” Sasha considers. She looks in the direction of the kitchen again and thinks of the paintings Martin Prime described. She looks back at Martin Prime and says softly, “Did we suffer? Either of us?”

Martin Prime swallows hard. “You, yes. The—the Not-Sasha bragged about how much it hurt you. Tim…I don’t know. The actual moment of his death might have been quick, but he was definitely suffering beforehand. Maybe not physically, but still, he was hurting and neither Jon nor I could do anything to fix it. Believe me, I tried.”

Sasha bites her lip and nods before remembering he can’t see it. “If you couldn’t fix it…I don’t think it was something that could be fixed.”

Martin Prime smiles. “Thanks, Sasha.”

A moment later, Tim pokes his head in the living room and announces, “Here we come. Tea’s up.”

He and Martin come into the room, Martin concentrating hard on holding onto a mug with each hand and Tim carrying two in each hand like it’s no big deal. He sets them down on the coffee table, then picks one up and hands it to Sasha with an overdramatic flourish. “Your hummingbird food, milady.”

“Why, thank you, kind sir,” Sasha drawls, accepting the mug. It’s not the one she had her coffee in earlier, thank God, but she does wonder just how many mugs Tim has.

Martin sets down one of his mugs, then sits on the sofa with the other carefully cradled in his bandaged hands. Tim picks up the other mug and presents it to Martin Prime. “And here, this one’s yours. We picked a mug with a sculpted handle, so you should be able to tell it apart from the others if you set it down.”

“Oh, thank you.” Martin Prime reaches out hesitantly. Tim meets him halfway, settling the cup on his palm and turning it slightly so that it brushes his fingers and he’s able to wrap them around the handle. “As long as you’re not making me drink out of a horse’s ass.”

It’s probably a combination of the fact that it’s a joke at just the right time and the unexpectedness of Martin Prime using a profanity, even a mild and correctly-applied one, but the heavy mood shatters like spun sugar. Sasha and Martin both burst into giggles at Tim’s exaggerated expression of shock as his eyes go back and forth from Martin Prime to the white mug with a sculpted face and painted horn on one side and a sweeping, rainbow-colored tail for a handle on the other.

[cucumberkale]

Us Against the World

"And that bleeding wound where Danny had been ripped from Tim’s chest had begun to heal."

Tim had come to The Magnus Institute with one goal in mind: finding out information about the thing that had destroyed his family. What he hadn't planned for was finding a new family in Jonathan Sims and Sasha James. But after their little family is relocated to The Archives, it all seems to start to fall apart.

And Tim isn't willing to let what he's found go without a fight.

Written for @do-not-feed-the-archivist as part of the @tma-valentines-exchange

https://archiveofourown.org/works/29438268 

Out of everyone working in the Archives, Tim had known Jon the longest. When Tim had first joined The Magnus Institute as a new researcher, with his heart still bleeding from Danny’s death, he hadn’t planned on making friends. His only goal had been to find answers and to get revenge for his brother’s death. But on his first day, Tim had seen Jonathan Sims slip into the breakroom, his eyes down and head held low, as he tried to avoid attention. Tim had heard the whispers and gossip from the other employees. He knew what they said about Jonathan Sims. He knew what they thought about Jonathan Sims. Jon was The Institute’s biggest skeptic and Tim had come looking for answers to the supernatural that Jon didn’t even believe in.

But Tim couldn’t help but want to be friends.

He soon found himself working hard to get in Jon’s good graces. Hard work and dedication seemed to be Jon’s love language and, after five years in a publishing house, Tim was used to hard work and long hours. He stayed late and came in early, when he could, to help with the graduate students’ papers and researchers’ pet projects. He lent a helping hand whenever he could. He stood up for Jon in the breakroom to the other employees when Jon wasn’t there to defend himself.

The progress was slow and almost unnoticeable. Tim thought it was like trying to lure a stray cat into a house. Every time Tim thought he had a breakthrough, Jon put up more walls and pulled away. He seemed just as determined as Tim had been originally to not make friends.

Eventually, though, the stray cat that was Jonathan Sims came inside. Tim had earned a genuine compliment from Jon on one of his reports. After that, it was easier between the two. Jon had laughed at all of Tim’s poor “Dad Jokes.” Jon had agreed to eat lunch with him. Tim had earned Jon’s hard-won trust, and Jon’s hard exterior had broken down.

Then Tim met Sasha James.

The two hit it off together instantly. Sasha loved to joke and laugh, and Tim loved the feeling of making others smile. And Sasha was just as dedicated to her work as Jon was to his. It didn’t take long after meeting her for Tim to realize that Jon and Sasha would get along well. It took even less time for Jon to grow fond of Sasha.

After that, it was the three of them spending early Monday mornings at work and late nights at the pub on Friday night and lazy Sunday afternoons at Tim’s flat together.

And that bleeding wound where Danny had been ripped from Tim’s chest had begun to heal.

Jon was quick-tempered and sharp with his tongue but cared deeply for his friends. Sasha was knowledgeable and curious but loved to pull practical jokes. And Tim had his own little family again.

All of that changed when Jon had been offered the promotion to the Head Archivist position. Jon had given them the news over pints at the pub that Friday night, asking Tim and Sasha to join him as his assistants. Sasha had smiled and congratulated Jon on the offer. Tim had bought the next round and made a toast to Jon’s new job. But in private, Sasha had complained and ranted and yelled to Tim how it hadn’t been fair, how could Jonathan Sims have been given the position when Sasha had worked at The Institute longer. “He doesn’t even believe in this shit!” Sasha had yelled.

Their little family had changed: Jon wasn’t an equal anymore, he was their boss. Everything in Tim’s life had changed again.

And without telling any of them, Elias had given Martin Blackwood the third assistant position. Martin had been thrown into the mix and, after “The Dog Incident,” Jon made his displeasure for this stranger known.

It had been only a month and things between the four of them seemed to only be getting worse. The statements, the Real Statements, left them all feeling drained and anxious. Even though they had evidence, Jon still refused to accept that any of the encounters in the statements could be real. He went as far as to create ridiculous scenarios to try to explain them away.

And Jon had been getting worse.

Tim had seen Jon at his lowest. More than once, Tim had to calm Jon after waking up in the middle of the night, screaming from a nightmare and disoriented from waking up in Tim’s flat. Back in Research, Tim had seen his own dark, tired eyes reflected at him from Jon. But it had gotten worse. Jon had started working long hours, even longer hours than his time in Research. The dark circles under his eyes had only grown larger and dark. He had started to lose weight, his cheeks growing gaunt and his eyes sunken. And when alone, Jon held himself smaller, hunching his shoulders in as if trying to shield himself. It seemed like Jon was at the beginning of a spiral that Tim had already been down, and he didn’t know how to help.

Now, Jonathan Sims was running late.

And Jonathan Sims never ran late.

Tim had been blankly staring at the same page of the statement he had been working on all morning, unable to understand what he had just read. Instead, he found himself anxiously glancing at his phone screen every few minutes to check the time. As the morning dragged on, and Jon still hadn’t arrived to work, Tim found it harder and harder to focus on anything else. He was trying to be discrete about it. Tim had caught a concerned glance from Sasha more than once that morning. Every time, Tim had flashed her a reflexive grin before trying to look occupied with his work.

There wasn’t anything to worry about.

Jon was fine.

In all the time that Tim had known Jon, Jon had not been late for work without giving an advance notice. Jon had a daily routine that he liked to follow. He arrived early to gather the assistants’ assignments for the day and to deliver them to their desks. On most days, by the time Tim arrived at a punctual nine o’clock, Jon was already in the middle of a project of his own.

Tim knew he shouldn’t worry. He tried to remind himself that Jon was a grown, competent, adult man.

But Jon had broken his daily routine of the past month.

And Jon had been slipping lately.

It was now half-past eleven and Jon still hadn’t arrived to work.

Martin walked back into the assistants’ bullpen, balancing three cups of tea. Sasha took hers, giving Martin a quick “thank you” and a small smile as she turned back to her own work. Martin handed Tim his cup slowly, a look of concern spreading across his face as he looked to the old clock hanging on the wall.

“Is Jon in yet? I haven’t seen him all morning,” Martin asked.

“Not yet,” Tim said, taking a sip of tea. “I guess that means you haven’t heard from him yet either, then?”

Martin shook his head. “I doubt he would call me first, anyway,” he said, rubbing his thumb in circles around the cup. Martin glanced over to Sasha, “Have you heard from him? Did he say anything to you?”

Sasha sighed, looking up from her work. “Nope. I’d have let you both know, anyway, Martin.”

“I know you would, but…” Martin paused for a minute, looking between the two of them. “This is weird, right? Jon not being in. I thought he had a reputation about not missing work. Did Rosie leave a message that he called off?”

Tim shook his head. “I ran up to ask her earlier on my break and she said she hadn’t heard from him. Elias hadn’t said anything either. It’s nothing to worry about, he probably got caught on the Underground or something and doesn’t have any service.”

Sasha let out a quiet laugh. “Honestly, if something bad had happened, letting Elias know would probably be the first thing Jon did. At the very least, just so we’d all know he wouldn’t be at work.”

Martin didn’t look convinced though. He frowned, his round face pulled into worried lines, reaching up to rub at the back of his neck nervously. “I…I guess I’m just on edge. Those statements, the ones that don’t record properly, they make my skin crawl. I had to start doing research for the Vittery case this morning and, ya know,” Martin made a face, like he had just tasted something sour.

Sasha glanced at Tim, meeting his eyes for only a moment before she turned back to Martin. “Yeah, we know,” she said. “But Jon hasn’t gotten himself into anything spooky, I’m sure.”

“Yeah,” Tim said, trying to make his voice light. “He’d probably give a lecture to any monsters about how they don’t exist. He’d logic his way out of any trouble.”

“Do you think we shou-” Martin started to ask, when the heavy oak door of the Archives slammed into the wall, the sound of hurried footsteps echoing around the quiet Archives. A few moments later, Jon had rounded the corner, looking haggard and worn. He was wet, scowling as he peeled off his sodden jacket and hung it up to dry on the coat rack near the entrance to the Archives. Strands of dark, wet hair, usually neatly combed, were plastered to the sides of his face, with a few curly wisps sticking up at odd angles. His glasses were smudged with raindrops and his cheeks flushed. He was breathing heavily from running.

“Jon!” Martin said, his voice high and tight. Jon shot him a glare, opening his mouth for a retort.

Before he could say anything, Tim cut in. “We’ve been worried. You alright, Boss?”

“Martin’s just made tea,” Sasha added, holding up her cup to demonstrate. “It’s really good today, you look like you could use a cup.” Sasha gave Martin a pointed look. He jumped up nodding, slipping past Jon to the breakroom.

Jon let out a huff of air at watching Martin go and started for his office. Before he could get there, Tim stretched out an arm to stop him. Not touching him, Tim never touched him; Jon did not like to be touched. “Seriously, Jon. Take a seat and have a cup of tea. You look like you need it, it seems like you’ve had a morning.”

Jon glared at Tim, his whole body tensing as Jon’s chest puffed up. Shit, wrong words, Stoker. Before Tim could try to put the fire out, Jon sighed, pulling his glasses off and running a hand down his face. “Yes, alright,” he said, sounding tired. “That sounds nice.”

Tim smiled, grabbing a chair from the empty desk, and pushing it over to Jon. Jon had begun to run his fingers through his hair, trying to bring it back to some semblance of tidiness and professionalism. “Lay your earthly woes upon us, Boss.”

Martin came back, handing Jon a steaming cup of tea. Jon took a small sip and let out a long sigh. “I’m sorry about being late this morning. I…I was in Bournemouth this weekend. I had planned to be back in London last night, but there was a delay with my train, and it was delayed until this morning. Th-there weren’t any buses leaving last night, either so I had to take a train this morning, and with morning commuters, it had taken longer than I had planned. I was taking the Underground back from the station, and of course, you know how that can be, and I didn’t have any service.” Jon took a quick breath before taking a long drink from his cup, his glasses fogging from the heat of the tea. “I hope I didn’t cause any delays in your schedules.”

Sasha shook her head, “We all were just working on the projects you gave us on Friday. But what were you doing in Bournemouth this weekend? It’s a little too early in the season to be going to the beach.”

“Oh,” Jon said, adjusting his glasses. “I…I was raised in Bournemouth.”

“Have a fun family weekend, then?” Tim asked, elbowing Jon’s side.

“Uh, act-actually,” Jon stammered, his face flushing ever darker than before, “I was in Bournemouth for a church service.” He swallowed, looking down at his shoes. “It…the anniversary of my parents’ passing was this weekend. My grandmother always liked to attend their memorial mass. And, well, now that she’s gone too, it didn’t feel right to…to not go.”

The Archives fell silent. “Oh,” Tim said flatly. “Oh, Jon, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”

Jon shook his head, taking another sip of his tea. “It’s alright. I don’t really tell anyone. I don’t really tell anyone because I know how they all act. I was too young when they died to really remember either of them. How can you miss something you don’t remember, right? But I know it always meant a lot to my grandmother, so I still try to make it to their service every year. And hers as well, of course. I’m the only one left, so someone has to do it.”

“You,” Sasha started, looking at Jon with an unreadable expression on her face, “You don’t have any other family?”

Jon looked over at her, his shoulders stiffening. “No, it’s just me now.” Martin made a choked noise, reaching a hand up to cover his mouth as he turned away. “It’s fine,” Jon said, his voice growing harder as he looked to Martin, sitting up straighter, his shoulders curving in slightly. “I’ve been on my own for a while now. And I’m certainly not looking to be pitied.”

“I wasn’t-” Martin began, but Jon cut him off as he got to his feet.

“That’s enough. I have work to finish, as do the rest of you. Martin, I want the research for case #0150409 on my desk by the end of the day. Sasha, I want you to try and get into contact with Mrs. Rosswood from case #0110711. And Tim, I want you to keep working on the statement I gave you last week.” Before any of them could stop him, Jon had placed his half-drank cup of tea on Tim’s desk and had hurried into his office, the door slamming shut behind him.

After their conversation that morning, Jon hadn’t come out of his office for the rest of the day. Tim had offered to stay late, to make sure that Jon went home. When seven o’clock had come and gone, and Jon was still in his office, Tim gently knocked on the door. “Jon,” he called, hoping for an answer. The office was quiet; Jon wasn’t recording a statement. “Hey, it’s getting late. You want to walk out together?”

There was a moment of silence before Tim heard the scrape of Jon’s chair against the stone floor. In a moment, the door to the office pulled open, Jon peeking his head around the corner. Tim didn’t know what he expected Jon to look like after an entire day in his office, but Jon looked fine. Normal. Like nothing had happened at all that day. “I’m sorry, Tim,” Jon said. “I need to finish looking over these reports for Elias before I go home. You should get going.”

“Are you sure?” Tim asked, keeping his voice quiet. It was just the two of them in The Archives. Tim could hear the clock in the assistants’ bullpen ticking loudly. “I don’t mind waiting, or if you need any help, I could lend a hand?”

Jon shook his head, talking a half-step backward as he began to push the door close. “No, it’s alright Tim. There’s nothing about it that you can help me with. I just need some time to finish it. I had planned to finish them this morning, but well, you see how that went. Good night, Tim.” Jon closed the door.

“Night, Jon,” Tim said. He got ready to leave slowly in case Jon had changed his mind. Tim dragged his feet as much as he could but, eventually, he had to give in that Jon wasn’t going to be leaving anytime soon. “Night!” Tim called loudly, with his foot on the first step out of The Archives. He hoped Jon would shout back for Tim to wait, that he was coming, and the two could walk to the Underground together, like they had done back in research. But the office was quiet. Tim let out a sigh, turning and walking up the stairs alone, his footsteps echoing in the quiet. Life in The Institute wasn’t as simple as it used to be.

Tim arrived at The Archives early the next morning, cursing under his breath as he pushed open the heavy, wooden door to the basement. He was balancing a carrier tray full of Styrofoam cups of tea and a brown paper bag filled with muffins and bagels from the cafe on the corner that Sasha enjoys, and praying that he wouldn’t spill anything.

Tim headed straight for the breakroom, gently placing the carrier tray on the sticky plastic table. Tim debated for a moment before grabbing a muffin from the bag and heading back to the bullpen. He hadn’t planned on arriving so early, but he thought he would have to wait in line at the cafe for breakfast and planned to leave his flat early.

He wanted to talk to Jon about yesterday. Tim wanted to talk to Jon to make sure he was alright, that he wasn’t slipping, and that he knew that he had friends. That even if Sasha was upset that she hadn’t been given the Head Archivist position that she still liked Jon. That Tim was there to support him. And even Martin wanted to help.

Jon had been pulling away more and more and Tim was afraid that soon it’d be too late to get him back. Had they been back in Research, if Jon had told either him or Sasha about his parents and grandmother, Jon would have been invited back to Tim’s to spend the night, just so he didn’t have to sit with his thoughts alone. Tim knew what that was like, to grieve alone. And Jon was grieving; he had snapped back at all of them so quickly, Tim knew him well enough to know he was deflecting. And Tim decided that having a treat for breakfast when everyone arrived to work might help to soften Jon up.

Tim sat at the breakroom table, absentmindedly scrolling through his phone as he waited for the others to arrive. Martin came first, looking surprised at Tim’s earlier arrival, and then Sasha. Tim asked each of them to stay in the breakroom with him instead of sitting at their desks and explained his plan. They were going to show Jon just how much they cared. Tim wanted this conversation sooner rather than later.

As nine o’clock approached, and Jon still hadn’t arrived, Tim started to get nervous. He was thinking about trying to call Jon, when Jon walked into the breakroom, two files in his hands. He looked surprised, his dark eyes growing large at seeing the three assistants in the breakroom and not at their desks. Tim hadn’t seen Jon arrive and hadn’t heard him all morning. Tim didn’t think Jon was stealthy enough to make it past all three of them without being noticed, but then Tim realized that Jon was still wearing the same outfit from the day before. “Jon,” Tim said, seriously. “Did you sleep here last night?”

Jon fidgeted for a moment before leveling his glare at Tim. “Good morning to you as well, Tim. Yes, I did. There is a cot in document storage that I used. It was too late last night after finishing my work for me to justify going home, so I simply stayed. Now, if you’re all finished with your breakfast-”

“We’re not,” Tim said, firmly. “And this breakfast is yours too. Take a seat, let’s chat.”

“Tim,” Jon said, his voice flat. A warning. Jon expected a fight.

“We’re friends, Jon,” Tim pleaded. He wanted Jon to remember the late nights they had spent together in research and the too-early mornings with a hangover after a late night at the bar. Tim’s little family had been falling apart at the seams and he needed Jon to remember what they had been. “You can talk to us.”

Jon shook his head. “Tim, there really isn’t anything to talk about. I don’t understand why you’re so insistent about this?”

“Because obviously you’re hurting,” Martin said softly. “Even if you don’t want to admit it to yourself. Especially about your parents and grandmother. You hid in your office all day yesterday. That means something is wrong.” Jon bristled, pulling himself up to bite back, but Martin continued. “It isn’t healthy to just keep feelings bottled up. And you don’t have to talk to me, or well any of us, but if you want to, all of us are here to listen.” Sasha nodded, giving Jon a smile.

Jon looked between the three of them. Tim had made sure that their little intervention was in the breakroom so that Jon didn’t feel cornered. It was even ground and Jon could run if he wanted. But Jon didn’t run. He shifted his weight back and forth, looking uncomfortable. “This,” he started, raising his head to look between the three assistants, “this isn’t a big deal. There are plenty of individuals who have lost their parents or don’t have family left. There are plenty who have it worse than me.”

Sasha nodded, “That might be true. But that doesn’t lessen your pain; that doesn’t stop you from being upset. And you deserve to feel happy, just like they do.”

Jon didn’t take his eyes off Sasha, but he wrapped his arms around his stomach, curling his shoulders in slightly. He looked so small, Tim thought. His glasses had slid down to the tip of his nose, a few wispy strands of gray hair hung loose by his ears. The four stood in silence for a few moments before Jon started to speak again. “I…I was a deeply annoying child.” Martin made a noise of protest, but Jon raised a hand to stop him from talking. “I was, I know I was a…handful, especially for my grandmother. She was my father’s mother and she raised me after my own mother passed. I was so young; I really can’t remember my own parents very well. Just from photos my grandmother showed me and some memories that I genuinely can’t tell whether they were just dreams.

“I missed them, of course. And as long as I can remember, once a year, my grandmother would take me to a church service that was celebrated in their memory and then to visit their graves. It, when I was younger, it all upset me so much. I…I cried through almost every service. And there were other people from town who came to the services. But, well, my memories of my parents started fading and I grew up.

“When we went to the church service, I didn’t cry. I was there more for my grandmother’s sake than anything for myself. And there weren’t as many of our neighbors from town, anymore. It was just me and my grandmother and a few people who attended regularly, they didn’t know my family. It wasn’t even a proper mass, just a small service.

“I…I think I’m…I’m an awful person for feeling like this, but the service never really meant as much to me as it did my grandmother. I’m not very religious; praying never helped me, it never made me feel anything other than foolish. But my grandmother found peace with it. After I moved away, I tried to make it back for the service, but if it didn’t work, I didn’t feel badly about it. But then, my grandmother died and it…it didn’t feel right to not. Like, I was letting all those years of care my grandmother put in go to waste and,” Jon paused, taking in a shaky breath. He had wrapped his arms around his middle and had curled into himself. “It hurts,” Jon said, his voice high-pitched, “that she would put so much care into remembering my parents and not as much into caring about me.” His breath hitched, and Jon doubled over, trying to keep himself from crying. Tim didn’t move. Martin reached out a hand to try and comfort Jon, but Tim brushed him away. Jon didn’t like to be touched, not without his consent.

“And I still went to the service, even though it doesn’t mean anything to me, not like it did for her. And what did I get for it? A writeup from Elias for being late and now the three of you…the three of you, standing here, and…and watching me…”

“The three of us standing here and caring,” Sasha said. “Jon, you aren’t alone. You’ve got the three of us. You’re going to keep having the three of us.”

“Yeah, Boss” Tim said, trying to keep his voice light. “You’re stuck with us. ‘Till death do us part.”

Jon glanced up to Tim, then to Sasha, and finally to Martin. Martin smiled, looking away from Jon’s gaze. “My mum, well, she isn’t always the most…caring person either. I think I know how you feel. But you’re still doing it, I’m sure your grandmother would be proud.”

“And you’re no less of a person for having your own desires from your grandmother,” Sasha said. “You’re okay.”

Jon sniffled, though he still didn’t look convinced. Tim took a hesitant step forward, “Do you want a hug?”

Jon didn’t hesitate before nodding. Tim moved forward, wrapping Jon in his arms, and pulling him against his chest and laying his chin on top of Jon’s head. “More?”

Jon nodded again, pushing himself closer into Tim. Tim laughed, reaching out an arm to invite Sasha and Martin. Sasha swooped in, wrapping herself around Jon’s right side. Martin hesitated for a moment, unsure of whether he was invited or not. Jon shifted against Tim, turning his head to look at Martin. Martin took that as his invitation and moved forward, surrounding Jon on his other side. Martin was large, taller than the other three, and his hug enveloped all of them. Jon’s whole body shuddered, and he began to cry. Tim could feel his shoulders shaking as he let go.

“You’re not alone in this,” Tim said, shifting to rub between Jon’s shoulder blades. “Not in The Archives, not outside of The Archives. You’ve got us. Nothing you do is going to chase us away.”

“Our little family of four,” Sasha joked. “Us against the world.”

“Us against the world,” Martin repeated.

The four of them stood there for a while, holding each other, and being held. There were still problems they had to solve, and Tim knew there were still monsters outside, but for a few minutes everything was alright.