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ollieofthebeholder · 2 years ago

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to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest): a TMA fanfic

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Chapter 49: March 2017

Days stretched out into weeks, and by the first week of March, Tim was beginning to think they’d made a mistake in encouraging Jon to stay away from the Institute.

There’d been no sign of Detective Tonner since she’d done her interviews with them, but according to Elias, she was still very much interested in Jon as a suspect. He’d assured the three of them that of course Jon is not responsible for this—although how he knew that, Tim had no fucking clue and no desire to know, although he could guess—but that until he was officially cleared, he would be out of the office. Martin had gone home early with a headache, but he’d been back to work bright and early the next morning, and he hadn’t missed a minute of time since.

It wasn’t hard to guess that he was distracting himself. They might have been teasing a bit when they’d told Martin that Jon wouldn’t lie to him, but it was definitely true that the two of them had formed an incredibly close bond, closer than they were to either Tim or Sasha. Martin missed Jon, and he also worried about him, and he knew enough about what was going on to worry more. And then there was the fact that Melanie was still off doing…whatever she was doing. Martin missed and worried about her, too, but he at least had Gerry to share that worry.

At least, that was what Tim had believed up until last night.

The first Monday in March dawned crisp and cold. Tim tugged his woolen hat a little further down over his ears and hurried his steps from the Tube station to the Institute. Chelsea was an objectively lovely area, if expensive, and ordinarily he might have stopped to appreciate the sun sparkling on the grass where the frost hadn’t entirely burnt off yet or the stark beauty of the bare branches against the wintery sky. Instead, he plowed on ahead, hell-bent on getting to the Institute.

He was a bit earlier than usual; there were a few people arriving, but the biggest part of the crowd would be getting there closer to eight. A couple of people nodded greetings to him, which he returned. Most ignored him, which was fine with him. The Archives were a world unto themselves at the best of times, and as they got more and more involved in researching the Unknowing they’d drawn closer to one another and further from the rest of the Institute. Tim couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually exchanged more than a few words with anyone outside the Archives, not that he’d had many intimate friends before that. Still, it was enough to make Tim glad they were getting along—mostly—in the Archives these days; it would have been insanely isolating if he’d had to deal with only working with people who hated him, or who he hated.

That did not, however, stop him from getting angry with them from time to time.

He hoped to get into the Archives with enough time to plan out his approach, because Tim knew himself pretty well and he knew he needed to calm down and think rationally or he was going to say something he’d regret. That hope was shattered when he stepped through the door of the Archives to find Martin coming out of the shelves with a stack of files under one arm, his nose buried in another. A slight frown creased his forehead, and he seemed totally absorbed in what he was reading.

Tim cleared his throat pointedly.

Martin didn’t react, so Tim cleared his throat again, louder and more emphatically. At that, Martin did finally glance up. “Oh—morning, Tim. Have a good weekend?”

“Have you been here all weekend?” Tim demanded.

“No.” Martin blinked. “Pretty sure I haven’t.”

That…wasn’t good. It had taken Tim way too long to catch on to the fact that Martin was always in the Archives when he and Sasha arrived, no matter how early they got there—which, admittedly, wasn’t usually too much before eight, Sasha liked to sleep in and Tim wasn’t giving this place more than he had to right now—and that he was always the last one to leave. He didn’t look like he’d been sleeping in the Archives, but he hadn’t looked like he was sleeping in the Archives when he was officially living in the Archives, so Tim wasn’t going based on that.

He skimmed Martin’s face. He was clean-shaven as always, he looked neat and professional, and there weren’t any dark circles under his eyes, but he was definitely a bit pale. And there was something about his eyes Tim wasn’t sure he liked, but he couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

“What time did you leave on Friday?” he asked.

Martin shrugged. “Dunno. It was dark by then. Why?”

Which meant it had been well after six. Tim looked at the folders under Martin’s arm. “How long have you been here?”

“Couple hours?”

“Jesus.” Tim fought the urge to yank his hair out. This had to stop, but he wasn’t sure how to bring it up without risking Elias knowing things he didn’t need to know. “How did you even fucking get in that early?”

Martin gestured over his shoulder. “There’s more than one way to get into those tunnels. Jon and I—” His voice cracked slightly, and for a moment his face betrayed his feelings, but he mastered himself quickly in a way Tim definitely didn’t like. “We found a couple other entrances while we were exploring, so I came up that way. Not like there’s anyone else down there anymore.”

Tim used the couple of seconds it took him to get his coat off and hang it on the back of his chair to try and get a check on his emotions. It didn’t work particularly well. As soon as Martin had set down the folders, he grabbed his arm. “Show me.”

“Oh, sure—r-right now?” Martin looked a little startled.

“Yes. Immediately. Before Sasha gets in.” And before I blow up on you out here where Elias can hear us, Tim added silently.

Martin made his way over to the trap door, opened it, and led the way down with a practiced familiarity that spoke to how often he’d been down there. Tim didn’t pay much attention, just let the door close behind them. As soon as they hit the bottom of the flight of stairs, he grabbed Martin’s arm again to stop him going any further. “When is the last time you saw Gerry?”

Martin froze, and when he turned to face him, Tim almost felt guilty about the look of fear that flashed through his eyes. Almost. “I—oh, Christ, it’s, not since…i-it’s been a couple weeks. Is he okay? What happened? Shit, if he’s—”

“Nothing’s happened. He’s fine. I’d have told you if something was wrong.” Tim let go of him and folded his arms across his chest. “But, fucking hell, Martin, I thought you’d be spending time with him so you wouldn’t worry about Jon and Melanie so much. He asked me how you were, said he hadn’t heard from you except in texts since Valentine’s Day.”

“We don’t—that’s not unusual, really. Or at least it wasn’t. We were all usually…busy.”

“Yeah, but he’s not traipsing around the world, and Melanie’s not doing her show, and you don’t have a life outside of this place—”

“Ouch, really, Tim?”

“—so there’s no reason you shouldn’t see him at least once a week,” Tim said, steamrolling right over Martin’s (admittedly, probably deserved) chastisement. “Instead you’re spending all your time here.”

“As you pointed out, I don’t have a life outside this place,” Martin said stiffly. “What do you expect me to do, go to poetry slams and join a knitting circle?”

“Fuck, Martin, you need to do something.” Tim scowled. “Working all the time isn’t healthy at the best of places, and this is about as far from the best of places as you can get.”

Martin gestured vaguely upwards. “There’s still a ton of work to be done, and I’m just trying to keep things running for Jon—”

“No, you’re running yourself into the ground because it keeps you from thinking about where Jon is or what Melanie’s doing and fretting because you’re not there to protect them,” Tim interrupted. “Which I’d be nagging you about anyway, but Martin, you cannot keep reading the genuine statements like this.”

“Someone has to,” Martin shot back. “They’ve still got to be recorded, and Jon’s not here.”

“They don’t have to be recorded by you!”

“If I don’t record them, who will?”

“Sasha? Me? There are three of us working down here, Martin.” Tim ground his teeth together. “We should be sharing the workload. You’re not the Archivist, it doesn’t need to all fall on you.”

“You think I want you two ending up like this?” Martin burst out. “You think I want to let you two get so tangled up in the Eye that you start, start Seeing Marks and compelling the truth out of people and skimming their thoughts? You think I want you to get to the point where even if we do figure out how to quit the Institute, you really can’t because your fucking…life force is tied to it?”

“It already is!” Tim shouted, finally letting his anger get the better of him. “You were so wrapped up in everything that you didn’t even fucking notice I wasn’t here last week. I didn’t call out, I didn’t file for leave, I just…left. Hopped a plane to Venice, found myself a hotel.”

That had been a miracle in and of itself; he’d arrived at the tail end of Carnevale and it was astonishing that there was a single spare corner not crowded with tourists. He’d managed to find one, somehow, and tried to enjoy himself. It hadn’t worked. At first he’d told himself it was just guilt for leaving Sasha and Martin in the lurch. Then he’d almost managed to convince himself it was the masks; Tim had a healthy fear of the Stranger, for a number of reasons, and he’d wondered if him being short of breath and shaking every time he stepped out onto the streets was because of the Arlecchinos and Columbinas and voltos everywhere he turned. He’d found himself touching his face periodically to make sure he wasn’t wearing a mask. He had successfully, albeit briefly, convinced himself his mid-week weakness was because he’d fasted before attempting to attend one of the numerous Ash Wednesday services at one of the cathedrals, although he hadn’t actually made it to any of them. He hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that every single statue, icon, mosaic, and stained glass window was watching him.

Tim only became aware that Martin’s face had gone tight with anger when it abruptly relaxed, leaving him pale and wide-eyed. “You weren’t—? Christ, Tim, I’m so sorry. I—you’re right, I didn’t notice, and…and I should have. I’m so sorry. You deserve better than that.”

“Fucking hell, Martin, that’s not the point.” Tim felt some of his own anger drain away, though, and he added, “I accept your apology anyway. But the thing is that…I, I wasn’t going to come back, thought I’d, I dunno, find someplace to live and get a job and maybe call Gerry to come run away with me or something.”

“He’d do it, too,” Martin murmured. “For you.”

“Also not the point. And he’d never leave you, or Melanie. You’re his fucking brother. He wouldn’t leave you any more than I would have left Danny.” Tim’s voice cracked on his brother’s name, and he held up a hand to stop Martin’s instinctive sympathetic reflex. “The point is that I couldn’t stay away. I…I started getting sick. Elias wasn’t lying about that. The longer I was there, the weaker I felt, until finally I…I just gave up and came back.”

“Tim.” Martin’s face creased in pain. “I didn’t…I didn’t want you to end up like this. I didn’t want you to end up like…”

Me.

The word hung in the air between them like a lead balloon. Tim looked into his buddy’s eyes and saw it all—the guilt, the pain, the stress of the life he’d been embroiled in for the last twenty years. The knowledge that it had been too late for him for a long time, but that the last few years had accelerated things to the point that he saw himself as a monster. He’d tried to save the others from that, and the realization that it was too late for any of them hurt him worse than anything else.

Tim swallowed hard and tried to think of how he would have phrased it if Danny had been the one to bring this to him. What he’d have thought if his little brother had survived Grimaldi and become a Stranger himself, if he’d lived to be Marked so deeply that he didn’t think he could trust himself and worried he would spill it on Tim.

“It’s not your fault,” he said at last. “I think…I think even if you’d told me soon enough that I could have walked away, I wouldn’t have. Sasha wouldn’t have believed you, and me…I wouldn’t have left if you and Jon couldn’t. It’s a big brother thing, you know? You can’t be safe if your younger sibling is in danger. It’s our job to protect you, not the other way around, so even if I had a clear path to run like hell, I wouldn’t have if I had to leave you behind. And yeah, that’s even with me trying to go to Venice. Maybe I knew it wouldn’t work. Maybe I knew Gerry wouldn’t come without you, and honestly, I wouldn’t have left him either. For very different reasons. I guess I just wanted to see if it was true. I just…got to the breaking point is all.”

Martin hesitated, then held out his arms. He didn’t say anything, didn’t move closer, just…waited.

Tim, on the other hand, didn’t hesitate for a second. He charged in and hugged Martin tightly, in a way he hadn’t hugged anyone since Danny died.

It was the right thing to do. Martin slumped against him, not really leaning his full weight on him but definitely leaning into him, and held on in a way that told Tim he needed this, too. They stood there hugging each other and feeling a lot of the tension and stress bleed away. It was still there, and Tim was still going to get on Martin’s case about overworking himself, but they’d at least cleared the air a little bit.

Finally, he realized Martin was shaking slightly and stepped back, gripping his shoulders tightly, to study him. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Fine. I’m fine.” Martin took a deep breath. “It’s just, um, I can’t be down here too long. And, and when I said I’d been here a couple of hours? I sort of did a bit more exploring of the tunnels, or tried to. I’d only sort of just come up when you got in. But it’s—we’re cut off from the Eye down here. It’s kind of a blind spot? I can be here for a bit, but honestly, more than an hour a day and I start getting wobbly.”

“Come on.” Tim practically dragged Martin back up the steps. “No more for today. And no real statements, okay? Just…I don’t know. You can do some filing, or some of the research or whatever. Let Sasha and me handle whatever recording needs to be done.”

“I—” Martin sighed. “Okay.”

Just before they pushed the trap door up, Tim stopped and looked at Martin intently. “We’re a team, Marto. We’re family. You’ve got to let us help you.”

“That goes both ways, you know,” Martin said quietly.

“I know.” Tim led them back into the Archives. “By the way, have you heard from Melanie since she left?”

“No, which tells me she’s doing something I’m going to have to yell at her for when she gets back.” Martin sighed and closed the door behind them, locked it, and pulled out the key. He handed it to Tim. “I’m going to go make us both some tea. Do me a favor and put this somewhere I won’t think to look for it?”

“I’ll trap it so that if you do find it, Sasha and I will know right away,” Tim promised, which elicited a tiny giggle out of Martin. “Go ahead. She should be here any minute.”

Martin nodded and headed off in the direction of the breakroom. Tim stood for a moment, staring at the key, then decided to go put it in Jon’s office. They’d been using the office to make recordings with as little background interference as possible, but Martin especially wasn’t the kind to go through the desk drawers without Jon’s permission. He figured if Martin wasn’t recording today either, they’d be able to keep him away from it even if he did figure out where Tim had hidden it. He bent down to put it in the bottom drawer, where Jon evidently kept a spare set of clothes in case he wound up spending the night in the Archives.

He heard footsteps too loud to be Martin’s, who had long ago perfected the art of moving near silently; it sounded like Sasha had decided to wear flats instead of heels. Tim shut the drawer and straightened, intending to to ask if she had heard from Melanie since she had left, only to find himself facing Elias Bouchard, regarding him with an expression of mild concern. “Tim.”

“Oh, hello, boss,” Tim said, trying to cover his surprise with as much sarcasm as he could. “What brings you down to the dungeons? Your office just too full of joy?”

“Not quite,” Elias said blandly. “I heard you’d had some absences. Some unauthorized leave. I just wanted to talk it through with you.”

“Right.” Tim wondered who he’d heard that from, since Martin hadn’t noticed and Sasha would have chewed off her right arm rather than report to him…wouldn’t she?

“Were you sick? If you’re sick, you really need to call in.”

Tim had to give Elias credit—if he hadn’t known he was an evil murderer, which he wasn’t supposed to know, he’d have believed the “concerned boss” act. Time to play it up. “Nope. Wasn’t sick.” He folded his arms over his chest. “Try again.”

“Well, you hadn’t booked any leave,” Elias pointed out.

“No, I had not,” Tim agreed.

“So, what happened?”

“What, you don’t know?” That…was probably pushing it a bit far, but Tim figured he could play it up if he needed to. After all, Elias had admitted the Institute belonged to the Eye, and he’d called it his master…

Something flickered in Elias’ one good eye for just a moment, but when he spoke, it was as mild as ever. “Despite what you seem to think, Tim, I am not omniscient. I suspect you were trying to leave us, but I don’t have any proof. Is that what happened?”

“Yep.” Tim gave Elias his best what are you going to do about it look. “Hopped a plane to Italy, found myself a hotel.”

Elias matched it with his best I’m not angry, I’m just disappointed look, which made Tim want to hit him. “But you’ve returned?”

Fuck it, he’d already told Martin. And Elias had tried to warn him…or threaten him, as the case may be. “I got sick. I…the longer I was gone, the weaker I felt, like I was losing myself.” He raised an eyebrow. “You gonna fire me, boss?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he remembered what Elias had said the day Martin came back—an appointment to the Archives is one for life. That definitely made it sound like he wasn’t listening…or like he was asking Elias to terminate him with extreme prejudice. He fought back the urge to walk it back and merely waited.

Elias didn’t bat an eyelash. “No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary.”

“Of course not.” Tim tried to conceal the sudden surge of relief. He wasn’t getting murdered today.

“But let’s be sure it doesn’t happen again, hmm?”

“You’ve made the consequences of me trying to leave perfectly clear, yes,” Tim said crisply.

Elias raised the eyebrow above his patch. Tim found himself wondering, again, what was under it. “You seem to be under the impression that I did this to you deliberately.”

“You mean you didn’t?” Tim was genuinely surprised at that.

Elias gave a weary, very paternalistic sigh that brought back every argument Tim had ever had with his own father, who hadn’t spoken to him since Danny’s disappearance. “Tim, this place is very old. It has all sorts of…idiosyncrasies, and not all of them are good for the people who work here.”

Tim snorted. That was one way of putting it. “I think I’d prefer asbestos.”

“I’ve always found the best way to deal with it is to lose yourself in work,” Elias said blandly. “Personally, the comfortable rigor of bureaucracy has always helped me. Perhaps doing a bit of mindless filing will help distract you.”

The strangest part of this entire conversation was that Tim had absolutely no difficulty in believing that. Elias was one hundred percent the sort of person who loved admin—filling out paperwork, balancing budgets, ordering supplies. He projected the air of someone who ironed his underpants and folded his socks, someone whose idea of a really wild night was drinking coffee after eight PM and who thought “living dangerously” meant ordering anything less than top-shelf. Looking at him, with his immaculately tailored and yet utterly boring charcoal grey suit, his hair parted severely down the middle, and his left eye covered with a patch that managed, by virtue of being color-coordinated with his tie and pocket square, to look like just another rich guy accessory, it was impossible to believe he’d murdered at least one person, probably two, for reasons unknown. He was just so…benign and inoffensive.

“Yeah,” Tim said slowly. “Maybe you’re right.”

“I’m sure I am. And no more unauthorized absences, okay?” Elias gave Tim a smile that might have been condescending and might have been encouraging and might have resulted in his teeth getting knocked so far down his throat it’d take a proctologist to find them if Martin hadn’t opened the door at that exact moment.

“Oh, uh—is everything okay in here?” he asked carefully, looking from Tim to Elias and back.

“Yes, Martin, very much so.” Elias turned the same smile on Martin, who recoiled as if he’d just bared his fangs and hissed at him, and then turned and walked out of the office.

Martin stared after him, then looked back at Tim, concern written all over his face. He silently held out the mug of tea in his left hand.

“It’s fine,” Tim said, and he wasn’t sure if he was lying or not. “He just wanted to check up on me after I was out on my…unauthorized absence last week.”

Martin scowled. “Would’ve been nice if he’d come and asked us about it. I’d have at least called to check up on you.”

“Water under the bridge.” Tim took a sip of the tea, then reached for the folder in Martin’s other hand. “Is this for me too?”

“Oh—I didn’t realize I’d picked that up.” Martin looked at the folder, then handed it to Tim. “Yeah, I think it needs to go on the tape recorder. Everything I’ve been able to find is in there. It’s…nasty.”

“Flesh?”

“Almost certainly.”

“Great.” Tim took the folder and glanced at it. “Might as well get started. Where’s the recorder?”

Martin pointed. “Right there. It’s already running.”

Tim blinked in surprise at the device on the desk, which was indeed whirring away. “Huh. I…don’t remember turning it on.”

Martin shrugged. “You’ve got a lot on your mind. I’m going to go try and put the Discredited section in some kind of order, it’s a mess. Sasha’s here. Scream if you need us.”

“Sure. Thanks, Martin.” Tim gave him a light, friendly cuff on the arm, which made him grin before backing out of the office and closing the door behind him.

Alone, Tim settled himself into the chair behind the desk, pulled the recorder a little closer, and flipped open the folder. He heaved a deep sigh as he picked up the first page. “Right, here we go. Statement of Ross Davenport, regarding…bodybuilding. Probably literally, given the nature of the sort of bullshit stories we collect here. Original date of statement, seventh August, 2013. Recording by Tim Stoker, Archival Assistant. Statement begins.”

#ollie writes fanfic #to find promise of peace (and the solace of rest)#tma #tma fanfic #tim stoker #martin blackwood #elias bouchard #arguments #profanity #manipulation #hostile work environment #scopophobia mention #masks #mentioned/referenced loss of a younger sibling

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