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late-to-the-magnus-archives · 2 years ago

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Burn - a Magnus Archives fic

An AU Somewhere Else - part of the Magnus Monsterverse series.

Spoilers for the whole podcast.

There's a lot to take in.

Jon is doing his best...

And so is Timothy Stoker.

AO3

------

I had only been free for a month and change.

It didn’t feel like a month and change. A thousand years felt like nothing, like one bad night’s sleep, filled with unpleasant dreams and little rest. A month and change, on the other hand—of physical therapy (because maybe I needed it?); of long, confusing tests: of questions I could not answer; of a hospital bed and beeping sounds; of learning to walk again like a normal person instead of some lurching beast; of communicating and speaking as an I and not a We or It…

That felt like a thousand years.

I dozed a little on Martin’s shoulder on the way back. Was it actual sleep? I wasn’t sure; I hadn’t been able to sleep during the apocalypse, and I certainly had not for centuries as floating eyeballs.

But this was… this was good.

Peace.

Martin rested his head on mine. I think we both rested.

Jared opened the car door. “Like a couple of cats, right? I’d leave you in there, but I got places to be.”

His weird Corruption hookup. Well, whatever floated his boat. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be. 'S nice to see.” He shrugged. “Lonely and Eye. Wouldn’a predicted it.”

He was hoping he could find this same togetherness, though Flesh and Corruption were often at odds. He found this person quite attractive, and they made him laugh, and never made him feel stupid or crass, and—

What are you doing? I asked the Eye, who was showing me this, who wasn’t trying to give me all of Jared’s mind and life story, but certainly more than I could know on my own.

Romance! It wordlessly informed me.

(Its delight was known to me. Known like the sound of my voice from inside my own head.)

This wasn’t new. I’d thought it was because interacting with this as myself was new, but It had been… like this… for at least a few years.

Funny. I hadn’t been afraid of the Eye in a very long time; whatever we’d reached in my doomed world, though wicked, had been… good, at least for me. Should I be afraid now? Was there a point? It almost seemed absurd to be afraid of the One who kept me so carefully for so long in the only way It knew how.

“Thanks,” said Martin, and tucked me under his arm as we headed back between the rectangles.

Just my luck—Jane wasn’t outside anymore. “Does Leitner own all of this?”

“I genuinely don’t know?” said Martin. “I don’t even know how he made money again when they came through here. For all I know, he pod-peopled his alternate self in this place.”

“Pod-people?”

“Jon—”

I chortled. “I understood. I’m teasing you.”

“Oh, I see,” he said, sounding far too pleased by my machinations. “So I’ll have to go more modern, then. Face Off, maybe?”

The Eye plastered strange images in my head of Nicolas Cage and John Travolta being increasingly bizarre, and I stuttered. “What in blazes did you just reference?”

“We’re watching it tonight,” he said with fiendish delight. “Popcorn and everything.”

I laughed, face against his arm. “Must we?”

Martin kissed me. “Human activities. It’s a good choice.”

And heaven help me, I tried to flirt. “I’ll give you human activities.” I sounded like a moron, and my face went hot.

He started giggling.

I muttered, “I don’t think that’s how flirting works.”

“Only the best kind,” he said, still snickering, and brought me inside.

He’d done beautiful things with the rectangle that was his flat.

Painted the walls like sea, with frothing waves near the ceiling, and such fine detail in color progression and distant bubbles that, for a moment, my breath was taken away. I felt enveloped, out to sea, gloriously free. Incredible.

“Oh!” I breathed.

“Mike helped me,” he said, popping off his shoes, walking over thick and lovely throw rugs that somehow seemed like sea floor. “It’s a little more Vast than I wanted, but it still feels like home.”

I’d found his gills. I’d kissed them. They were delicate, sensitive. “Do you wish you still lived in the sea?”

“Well, yes and no. Yeah, because of course I do, no, because I’d never come out again. I’d be lost.”

Even his bulb choices were perfect—no harsh lighting, but gentle, like sun diffused through water. And… “It’s so quiet.”

“Oh—yes, the Lukases helped with that.”

“The Lukases!”

He sighed. “They paid for soundproofing in the walls. Sort of said I’m an honorary member, or whatever.”

“Wait just a damn minute. I was told they didn’t have the big groups here—the Magnus institute, Solus Shipping, Pinnacle Aerospace, all of it.”

“Sure, but there’s still the Lukas family, who’s a lot friendlier than they were, and also a lot more religious?”

“ More religious? Please don’t tell me they fund Leitner.”

“Oh, no, he’s got no backers—he’s rich on his own, though I don’t know how.”

“But the Lukases?”

“They sought me out. Offered me their home.”

I stared at him.

He had his back to me, fussing with a bookshelf.

“Are… they didn’t hurt you?”

“No. Anyone Lonely is family to them.”

“That’s literally the opposite of how that works.”

“You know that, and I know that. They’re not the same.”

I tried to picture this and could not. “I don’t know what to make of this,” I admitted.

“We’re all here,” he said, suddenly turning to me. “Trapped here, saved and brought here… trying to make it work after we made the worst decision any of us ever could have.” And he looked so vulnerable, eyes shiny. “Given what we all did, none of us deserved that second chance. You know that, don’t you?”

“Deeply,” I whispered.

“So we all find a way to make it work here. And we all have one another’s back here. Jane makes sure that we aren’t spied on—her little creatures check all the walls all the time, all the wires, the plumbing, everything. Callum Brodie uses his shadow creatures to make sure that none of us are followed. And—”

“Brodie?”

“A seriously depressed teenager now, but we’re helping him.”

“He was alone,” I whispered. “A child.”

“Being fed on by the Dark. Yes.”

I shook my head. “But Leitner knew when we left the complex.”

“Yes, we let him have that—a general camera in the courtyard, observing when we leave the buildings. It’s a compromise.”

I stared. “This is why no one knows how to respond to me yet,” I said. “They don’t know if I’m… part of this… this…”

“Found family. That’s the term. And by gods, none of us deserve to have found it, but we’re here. We’re here.” Tears spilled down his cheeks, dampening his collar.

I came to him, then. Came to him in his ocean apartment and held him tight, compressing, keeping, protecting (yes We would do anything to save him), and he sobbed on my shoulder, and I didn’t know what to do other than what I already was.

It was enough. He held me back, clutched, clung, and it was enough.

His tears faded, and we breathed.

“Sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?” I whispered back, and kissed his neck, under his collar where some of the gills hid.

“I’m supposed to be helping you adjust, but here I am, doing this.” He didn’t sound that upset. Of course not. We were together.

“Oh, yes,” I murmured, lips on his skin. “We can’t possibly be there for each other. That would be madness.”

He went so still. “I said that to you.”

“You said that to me.” I confirmed with a kiss.

“In the cabin. After it… after everything.”

“Not quite after everything.” This was important. “After Lukas. After we got away, made it north. After you… struggled to stay with me.”

“It was so hard,” he whispered. “So hard to stay out of the Lonely.”

“Yes. And you did it—you… you did it.” Another kiss. “And then one night, after we found Daisy’s 21-year Dewar’s whiskey and got into it, I ended up crying on your lap all night about my grandmother’s plants.”

His laugh is wet, but real. “Gods, I’d forgotten that.”

“I didn’t. Definitely not one of my better moments.”

“Well, it was only fair,” he said, stroking my hair. “You weren’t there when she passed, and that wasn’t your fault at all, but her plants died before anyone even knew to check on her. I know, Jon. You felt awful about it.”

“I still do. How pathetic; it’s been a long time.”

“It’s not pathetic. It’s one of the things I love about you; you don’t stop caring, no matter what burns you, or bites you. It matters, Jon.”

“Even… in your ending?”

He went stiff.

I waited. Maybe I shouldn’t have asked. Maybe I just ruined everything. Maybe I—

“Yes,” he whispered. “Even then. Because you became a god, Jon, and you were going to end the world your way—but the moment I… the moment you realized that meant I would die, you changed course. You steered the whole thing away from total destruction. Even then, you cared.”

It was my turn to be still. “I wasn’t a god.”

“You were. Sasha thinks you might be now, too.”

I laughed. “Right. A god.” I pulled back, expecting his matching grin.

He was not grinning.

“I’m not a god. I’m going to need an income, for crying out loud.”

Martin didn’t blink. “You became something else—something that wasn’t an avatar. Something none of us were. You changed the first time like all of us did, but then you changed a second time. That’s the difference.”

“Martin, I didn’t—”

“It wasn’t another version, so don’t try that. It was you. Just you. But you’re right, anyway.” The tension was gone. “We are here for each other.”

So we were putting talk of deification in the ‘later’ pile. All right. “Someone very wise said that to me,” I complimented unnecessarily, since we’d literally just discussed the moment. I sighed. “I am very bad at flirting.”

“I like the way you do it,” he said, and kissed me.

And then there came a knock at the door.

We both jumped.

“Hang on,” he said, and headed for the door.

“Wait!” I said.

“If it was someone bad, we’d have been alerted,” said Martin, and opened the door.

Tim.

Tim stood—

Tim, wearing a Hawaiian shirt and a scowl, with old burns on one arm and a gaze that slid right past Martin and onto me.

Oh, gods. Oh, gods.

“So it’s true,” he said. “They did find one of you.”

And it was not his playful voice, and it was not his on-the-edge-of-flirting voice, and it was not his before-the-worms sharp and loving joy, and as he pushed right past Martin and came my way, I knew he was going to hit me.

I was going to let him.

(I don’t forgive you—)

It had been my fault, all of it. Not being a good enough friend. Not being a good enough Archivist to save him.

(You really think he wanted you to give more of yourself to the Eye?)

(Yes because he SAID—)

And even though this Tim had obviously not died in the Unknowing, I’d hurt him, and (I don’t forgive you) I would let him do whatever he wanted.

Whatever he had to do.

“Wait—” said Martin.

Tim embraced me.

My mind, too shocked, catalogued the differences between his body and Martin’s, the unrelenting firmness of him, the unfamiliar triangle shape, the—

“You asshole,” he choked, tears in his eyes.

And then he hit me, anyway.

Me-shaped bags of eyes could still get knocked on their arse even if their boyfriend thinks there’s been deification, and I went down like a sack of wheat.

“Tim!” Martin shouted, tackling him, late because he honestly never understood how much Tim hated me, and had thought to the end that we could work it out.

Tim pulled away from him, slid to his knees, and yanked me off the floor. Cartoon imagery flashed through my head of rubbery victims being punched to the ground and springing back up like Weebles, but he didn’t hit me again.

He gripped my shoulders and stared into my face.

“Fuck’s sake, Tim!” Martin said.

“It really is you,” Tim said. “You.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

He stared at me. Red streaks richened his brown hair. His eyes, too, were lighter—sort of a flame gold, rather than his familiar chocolate-brown. “What?” he said.

“For everything?” I added pathetically.

“Moron, I hit you.”

“Great, Tim, just great,” said Martin, marching past us both to his second room. “I just get into explaining the kind of community we’ve built here with blood and sweat and tears, and you blow in and do this!”

I’d forgotten just how good a puppy face Tim had. “So my timing was spectacular, as usual?”

“Magnificent.” Martin muttered.

“Sorry!” Tim called after him, sounding anything but.

I stared at him.

He looked back.

“You’re alive.” I couldn’t help the tears, the hitch in my voice. “You’re alive!”

“Uh,” said Tim. “You’re gonna mess up that shirt.”

“Oh, go to hell,” I said, and wiped my face on my sleeve.

“Yeah, no,” said Tim. “Already did that. Took the world with me. Not a good time. Zero stars, would not recommend.”

“Oh, gods, I missed you,” I said thickly. “You can hit me again if you want. I get it.”

“I’m good,” he said, settling back on his haunches. He wasn’t smiling at me, but it wasn’t a look of hate, either. (My heart swelled.) “I just had to do that once to see how you’d react—and because of what you did.”

“Only once? What did I do in your world?” I said. “Besides completely failing you.”

Tim sighed. “Table that for a second, boss.”

That took me a moment. “I am far from your—”

“When we were about to take out the Circus, you fucking shoved me out of the way,” he said.

I blinked rapidly at him. “I what?”

“You kept your head in the Unknowing,” he said. “You kept all of us clear. Even Basira, though she decided she’d done it herself after you were gone, but whatever. You… you took the detonator from me.”

Wait. “I kept my head?”

“Yeah.”

“The way Jonah…”

“Who?”

“The way… Elias wanted me to?”

“Yeah. You did. And you made some fucking deal with Helen, and you shoved me into her door, and you took my revenge from me.” His jaw tightened, muscles working along the sharp angle.

I swallowed. This was a lot to take in.

In his world, I’d been more in the Eye.

In his world, I’d been the better Archivist.

In his world, I’d given everything to try to save him.

And… I’d still failed. “What happened?”

“You died. You knew just where to set the plastic explosives. There wasn’t anything left of you after the theater blew.”

Had I done that on purpose?

I suddenly knew that I had. I’d known what Elias was trying to do, and, seeing no other way, I’d removed myself from the equation.

Gods, that worked out well. Ugh.

All the blood drained from my face. I had to know. “What did Elias do then?”

“Do?”

He didn’t even know? “For Archivist.”

“Oh. Basira.” Tim shrugged. “Not that it mattered.”

“Why… why didn’t it matter?”

“Because I burned the whole fucking world a year and a half later, so yeah. It didn’t matter.”

His look was challenging now. Hard. Yet…

I knew he feared my response. Why?

“I’m not sorry I hit you,” he said.

“It was due,” I said. “I lost you in my time. I would’ve given anything for you to have that chance.” And it just tumbled out: “We were friends. And then Sasha… and everything happened, and I never hated you, but I’m terrible at interpersonal communication, and I could’ve tried harder to talk to you, but all we did leading up to the Unknowing was fight, and I thought… I thought I’d have more time.”

“Sounds about right,” he says, low.

“I wasn’t enough to keep anyone’s head clear. Not even my own.”

His eyes went huge. “You werent?”

(The Eye offered to show me.)

(Oh, gods, I needed to know, this was Tim, I needed to know.)

Please don’t take all of me, I asked It, and—

Saw.

Saw Tim, falling into rage too bright to be depression and too dark to be anything else. Living in the Archives for months like some kind of troll, physically attacking anyone who came near. Obsessing over what I’d done, what I’d taken from him—his revenge, his closure with Danny, his death.

His glorious death, which he’d wanted, like some fictional barbarian.

Saw his irritation at Basira, whose arrogance knew no bounds (and that tracked—she’d thought she had just ‘reasoned’ her way out of the Unknowing after spending months in the Archives, feeding the Eye). Saw his rage at Elias, whom he knew had something to do with all of this, and his irritation because Elias knew better than to come anywhere near him.

(Because Elias put Elias first. Elias never got his hands dirty. Elias stayed out of danger. Elias—)

I saw Tim encountering a tale of Desolation one day, as he did filing literally out of boredom, and his entire self surging in response to the sensation of burning-eating-sizzling up his hands and his arms and his throat and—

He burned the Archives down, did not even know if anyone survived because he walked away and did not look back.

Walked away into Chelsea, into places he could never afford, filled with people who looked down on everyone like him, and he burned that, too.

Jude found him three days later, sitting on the banks of the Thames near Tilbury, bubbling the mud like lava, and took him under her flaming wing.

All of it, in an instant, and then a beautiful thing: It nudged me gently back into myself.

I’d lost no time. I’d lost no thoughts. He was still looking at me, waiting for my response.

Thank you, I thought at It.

I swallowed again, tasting bile. Tears stung my eyes. “I wasn’t as good an Archivist, I suppose.” I swallowed around the lump in my throat.

He looked a little haunted. “Wow. So. Not all sold out, then.”

“Not then, I wasn’t. I tried to stay human, and that’s why I couldn’t save anyone. You did it, in the end. You used the detonator. And… you died.”

“So I got them,” he said, suddenly vicious and hungry. “You’re saying I got them.”

“You did.” (I don’t forgive you—)

“Then I don’t care about anything else.”

My face must have said more than I intended.

He sighed. “Please don’t tell me you walked around feeling bad because I got exactly what I wanted?”

“I… of course I… You said…” No, I couldn’t go there. How unfair would that be? He’d have to say he forgave me just out of social expectation. I changed tack. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. “You must have been so angry to do go the way you did.”

“Yeah. I was. But it’s been a long time, boss. I was… it was just me, feeding the Desolation, for years at the end. Had a lot of time to think. Had to think. Part of how it fed on me was making me think about everything I did wrong.”

“That’s so cruel,” I whispered.

He shrugged. “They are cruel. All of them. And…” He sighed. “After we lost Sasha, I lost myself.”

“I think we all did, a little. And again, Tim, I’m not your boss.”

“Yeah, wel, you didn’t completely fail, either, so you’re just going to have to be flexible today.”

“I did fail! You have no idea what I did.”

“Pretty sure moping was involved,” he drawled.

“Now, that is not fair. Also true, but that is beside the point.”

He actually grinned.

It wasn’t his grin of old, free and wild and asymmetrical. But it was there. Tim Stoker grinned at me.

Tears stung my eyes again.

“Right. If you’re done being stroppy?” said Martin, carrying a tray.

“I’m still angry,” said Tim.

“Isn’t that your secret? You’re always angry,” said Martin.

Tim pointed at him with both index fingers. “I understood that reference! But yeah, he’s… he’s not my Jon. I’m okay.”

Ouch.

He caught the look on my face. “You’re the Jon I was friends with. Not the sanctimonious prick at the end who knew better than everyone and wouldn’t listen to anybody.”

“I did that?” I blinked at him.

He stood and offered a hand. “He did. But not you. I swear, if you’d been that guy, macking all over Martin and negging him while you were at it, I really would have killed you.”

I stared at him. At his hand. At him.

He was not joking.

I swallowed. “How do you know I’m not?”

“His body language and yours. Look. You get into Desolation… you get into the thing where your whole hunger is destroying anything that makes a person human, and creating bodies out of wax, you get real damn good at reading people. Knowing just the perfect moment to strike, or when you’ve already lit the match that’s gonna leave them in ruins.”

My eyes felt huge. “G… good for you?”

He snorted. “Yeah, you’re fine. Get up, boss. Martin made something, and we’re gonna eat it.”

I don’t know why I took his hand. I half-expected him to burn me like Jude, but he didn’t. “You walked in here ready to murder me?”

“Yeah. You’d do the same for him.”

He was right. If the situation were as described, I absolutely would.

Martin had made a lovely little tray of scones and sandwiches and tea. He’d added a few flowers, though I had no idea where they’d come from.

Was his second room converted to a kitchen? I’d have to look later.

He smiled at me. “Human things include eating.”

“I suppose,” I conceded.

Tim watched me. We weren’t good yet; but we were better. I’d accept better.

Better could be grown into good.

(I don’t forgive you… but thank you for this.)

Maybe we could even grow good into great.

Maybe this really was our second chance.

Maybe I needed to grab it with my eye-filled hands and hold on with all my weird little might.

“Cheers,” said Martin, toasting me with a scone.

“Gods, I love you,” slipped out, and I obediently dug in.

#tma #tma fic #tma spoilers #tma au #the magnus archives #magnus monsterverse #magnuspod #jonathan sims #martin blackwood #tim stoker #jared hopworth #desolation!tim

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