[Huh. Well. Okay, then. Tim's silent for a moment as he processes, thinking.]
The physical's always been the easy part, for me. I mean, in case you hadn't figured that out yet.
[It's the rest that's difficult. The sharing. The connecting. Every time he says he's not going to, and then he does, and then...something awful happens. Something awful happens every time he cares, whether it's someone he's sleeping with or just a friend.]
But it's not the only part of a relationship, you know. There's plenty of people out there who manage without, I suppose. Might even be the least important part. The feelings are what's important to most people.
[And that's the point where he'll start drinking again. Because what is this talk, anyway? Clearly he is not drunk enough.]
[ He isn't drunk yet, not really, but he does nod along to what he says at first dutifully, the way you ought to when a friend is talking about their own experiences. When Tim continues on about relationships and all that, feelings, he decides to go for more of the drink.]
You'd be amazed at how many people equate the two.
[ There's an extra second, a thoughtful frown, before he takes another sip.]
Mmm. Perhaps not.
[ A swallow. ]
I've not been a monk, after all.
[ He has had other relationships. Not many, but they have happened. Georgie was just the one he still kept up with, the only one who, well, who understood him a bit. The big problem with their relationship had been his, er, his business there. Everyone else, well-]
But you have met me, yes?
[ Exacting, temperamental, standoffish and more likely to spend time in a bookshop than a club of any sort. Add to that the fact that he tended to feel about twenty times the amount he ever expressed directly and the mathematics of the whole thing became rather clearer. ]
Edited (slight tweaks for language) Date: 2019-02-03 07:00 am (UTC)
I really wouldn't. Maybe I'm on the other side of that, but you have any idea how many people jump straight from 'we slept together' to 'we must have deep feelings about each other'?
[The laugh is short and half-voiced, drowned by the bottle, though Tim's not attempting to finish the thing, at least. It's more...punctuation. Something to do. A reminder of other days in this office, before everything went...well, was there ever a time things weren't horribly wrong? At least they were less wrong. At least they were blissfully ignorant.
He's so tired of knowing. And yet, this is one bit of knowing he can't quite bring himself to give up.]
Yes. Yes, I definitely have. Point taken.
[He's content to let the silence rest for a long moment. God knows they have little enough of that, lately. And then, after a pause:]
D'you miss it? Having someone to talk to? To--I don't know, care about, understand, whatever?
[ He just sounds... tired. He sounds so tired, just, sick to the soul with it. And just as convinced that no one cares, and there's nothing to be done about it.
He takes a long pull from the bottle, lets it burn down his throat for a moment before putting it down and twisting the top back on. After a moment, he lets out a breath.]
Yes. And there's no... there's no getting used to it. There's just getting used to not getting used to it.
[Jon sounds like Tim feels. Exhausted, wrung-out, empty. Lonely. He
swallows down the guilt and the regret just like he swallows the
scotch--quickly, convulsively. It leaves its own bitter taste behind, cold
instead of burning. And it's a long, long moment before he speaks again,
staring off into middle distance. Seeing ghosts of a different sort,
maybe.]
Just because loss is familiar doesn't make it any less what it is. An empty
space, I guess. You just...always know it's there. Loneliness is like that,
too. Just because it's familiar doesn't make it friendly.
[A beat:]
Martin's probably written a bloody ode about all this.
[ And in the daylight hours, there's usually just blunted frustration in his voice when he says something like that. Right now, it's one of the wounded voicing his sympathy and frustration with another. They've all got their pain and their ghost and their scars. Jon doesn't know what to do with Martin's. Sometimes the other man seems so resilient and other times, other times he seems so fragile. It's confusing, and he's bad enough with people as it is.
There's something soft and meaningful he could say here. But he can't quite handle it. Instead-]
I'm buying him something other than Keats for Christmas. Just to save... save the tapes, maybe.
[ But it's not particularly funny or terribly profound and it leaves enough of a silence that the swirling void that's been slowly eating away at him most of the evening, most of the last year and a half really, manages to pull something else out. ]
I think...
I think I'm only good for one thing. Only good at one thing.
[The noise Tim makes is strangled, not quite a laugh.]
Don't think it's the tapes that need saving, Jon.
[A name, instead of a title, instead of anything else. God. He misses this. He misses this, and it hurts, and bloody masochist that he is, he leans into that hurt, lifting the bottle to his lips more out of habit than to dull that pain. He doesn't really want it to go away. He needs to remember. He's still mad at Jon, still furious...and yet. The words aren't angry. Just...quiet.]
I think you're too scared to try anything else. And I think you're too scared to try not doing it alone.
[ Hearing his name again- dammit, he'd missed hearing Tim say his name, for Christ's sake. 'Boss' had been a joke between them, how weird it'd been for his strange providence, how weird it would be to be Tim's boss of all damnable things. It'd been a joke and now it's a curse and it feels worse than a stab to the gut every time he hears it and he knows Tim knows that and he knows that's why Tim does it and that's why it hurts more.
But-]
I am. I am too scared. I'm- I'm terrified someone else is going to pay for it. Someone else.
I'd honestly rather die. I would.
[ He unscrews the cap but he pauses before taking his drink. ]
How do you- how do you do- it, life- how do you do it any other way?
[ And it's not angry, it's not a defense. It's just pure, unadulterated confusion. He doesn't know. He doesn't know. Of all the answers he's sought over the years, of all the questions he's asked, the idea of how to let people in, why they should care, what he can even do with any of that but- but ruin it all, clearly- it's the question that lives inside his skin, the one he can never pinpoint, never find, because it's too deep in him. ]
[It had been a joke. A joke, turned twisted on the tongue, a word made a knife and used to wound them both. Tim carves his scars deep so he remembers whose words he carries. It's always worked both ways. And it had made it easier to draw the line, to make himself let go, to try and save some part of his bruised and battered heart.
They had been friends once. No matter what he does, he can't make himself forget that. And isn't that exhibit A in Jon's favor? He wants to yell at him for being so stupid, for being so scared, and yet he can't blame him, either.]
You don't. You're always scared. That's the whole point. You're scared, you're absolutely terrified that you're going to hurt someone, or they're going to hurt you, that they're going to start to matter and then they'll leave you, or you won't be able to save them--
[He stops abruptly, a catch in his voice swallowed down along with another mouthful of burning liquor. He should stop. Give himself alcohol poisoning, if he's not careful. But the words are hard enough without the anesthetic. These words cut more than any of the rest.]
Ever since Danny, I've been terrified. For a while, here, I think I--forgot that. Forgot to be scared. Sasha was--
[God, Sasha.]
--a reminder. But that's the whole bloody point. Being scared, and doing it anyway. Letting people in, even if you think they might be a monster. Because maybe, just maybe they aren't. And maybe they need you just as much as you need them.
You're scared, but we're all scared, and we're all we've got. Don't you see? We're all we've got.
That's one thing he can do, that he's always been able to do, that he'a always done, really: Jon actually does listen, takes things in, with an intensity and passion and a need to know, to understand, to comprehend it, all of it, as if it's the most important thing. It's the one thing that kept him from looking like an egocentric prick, really. Because when Jon listened to you, he wasn't just thinking of how he could change the subject to something less awkward, or what pithy line he could say back. He's taking it in, he's processing it, picking it over and sweeping through it like he's just been handed a delicacy.
Nowadays, he has to wonder if that's a part of him or a part of whatever was ready to become a monster, but he can't help it, can't change it certainly. So he listens, he listens and he wants and his eyes close and the deepest, tiredest sigh escapes him, sick and sad.]
No one needs me, Tim. No one-
[ This breath out comes with a shudder and his hands tighten on the bottle. His voice is- it's sick. It's sick, and sad and so tired. ]
I'm not scared for me, for goodness sake. Do you- [ and that's a dark sort of laugh, rich with self-depreciation ] do you think I really believe I'm going to- going to make it out of any of this alive?
[ He finally takes his swig, a good long one, and it burns the whole time, at first good and then just a little painful. Maybe that's good too.]
I just- I just need to know that the rest of you- I just want-
[ He screws the cap on and squeezes his eyes closed.]
[That's one of the things he'd always liked about Jon. The way he listens. The way he looks at you like your story is the most important thing in the world. Tim can do that, too, often uses it to his advantage, but the way Jon listens is even more compelling. Except for when he doesn't listen at all, doesn't actually hear what you're trying to say.
His answering laugh is short, sharp, a sound of pain as much as it is grim amusement.]
You bloody idiot. I need you. I needed you, and you just...
[He just. Tim doesn't need to finish that sentence. They both know how it ends.
It's a long moment before he speaks again.]
We were friends, Jon. You were probably the closest thing I've had to a best friend since primary school. I needed you, and you decided I didn't.
[ Jon's head pops up like, like some sort of whack-a-mole target, eyes large in his face and shock, dismay, confusion written all over his face. The words come stuttering out almost immediately.]
What do you- that can't be- I'm not- you've had to, that is- you, I mean- [ there's a nigh-hysterical chuckle, all of it unpleasant, that bubbles up from him] I couldn't, I'm not-
Tim.
[ He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand how that's possible, how it could be possible. But like so many things of late, so many moments, it seems as if regardless of the means or the hows or the whys, it may very well be possible. Might be the truth. And he-
He's not sure what to do about that other than to feel sick. He swallows, hard, and his voice is very small. Very quiet as he continues.]
I'm not- I'm not worth that, Tim. Especially n-not now.
[Of course he freezes. Of course he stumbles and staggers and were he not probably well on his way to tipsy right now, Tim has no doubt Jon would be halfway out the door, leaving behind a cartoonish cloud of Jon-shaped dust. It would have made him angry, once. It still might, later. Right now, though? Right now he's just resigned.]
Know that now, don't I? I know now you obviously didn't feel the same, and that's fine. It's all done. I've moved on.
[He takes another swallow of scotch, but even this one can't rinse the bitterness away.]
Let's not forget the part where I hate you now, remember?
[And yet, there's no venom in it. Just a sad, faint longing.]
[ That is actually where his sputtering turns into something slightly more volatile. Because- because that- ]
What 'obviously'? Why on Earth would you think that one thing would ever mean the other? I mean, I- I've never-
[ His throat is thick with something. Not with whiskey, unfortunately, and the urge to just stick the bottle in his mouth and chug is almost strong enough to make him do it. But he can't, because there's things he needs to say and alcohol poisoning he cannot get right this moment for any number of reasons.
His voice is choked, ragged and raw and wet as he gets the words out past the knot in his throat.]
Tim, you weren't- Christ. [ He shakes his head and it doesn't make it better, there's no making any of this better, is there?] You weren't just my best friend, you were my only friend, you bloody idiot. I just-
[ He finally untwists the bottle, harshly enough that a bit of the cap bites into his hand a little. The burned one's always a bit sensitive.
He breathes before he finishes what he's saying, but he holds off drinking until after.]
If I waited for- for that sort of thing to be mutual, I'd never have- have anyone.
[ And that's when he gets the bottle in his mouth and he spills a little as he pulls off, not that it matters. What matters right now?
How could he think that? How could Tim ever think that? That he didn't feel things, that he didn't care? He's not- he knows he's unlikeable. He knows he doesn't get people and they, largely, don't 'get' him either. He's given up trying, given up on the idea that anyone but maybe Georgie and the odd cat will ever look at him with any sort of fondness. People tolerate him, because of manners or- or- or- necessity or duty.
People put up with him because he exists in the world and they have to and that's all he really expects out of them. He expects them to appreciate when he's convenient and work around him and obey the social contract long enough that he can get what little interaction he needs and wants and he doesn't- he won't ask or expect more than that.
What Tim's talking about- Christ. Christ.]
Edited (slight tweak in language) Date: 2019-03-05 12:17 am (UTC)
[Obviously he's had more to drink than he'd thought, and he should have stopped hours ago. Years ago, maybe. Years before all this, before the institute, before the archives, before Danny--
Jon can't mean what Tim's hearing. He can't. Because doesn't that make it worse? If Tim wasn't just his best friend, was his only friend, and Jon still couldn't trust him, then what was the bloody point? What was the point to any of this at all?
His laugh is harsh, half a sob as it catches in his throat, and he sets the bottle aside, pulling a leg up, wrapping his arms around it in an effort to quell the trembling in his arms, the tightness in his chest.]
I'm the idiot??? If I'm the idiot, what does that make you, leaving behind your only friend to chase bloody monsters alone? Jon, for Christ's sake, why didn't you trust me?
[His breath escapes him in a shuddering rush, and Tim forces his voice even, even if it is small.]
I didn't have anyone else. And then I had you, and we had each other, and it was--better. Even with you being bitchy half mornings, and always ranting about the state of the archives, and being flustered and overwhelmed and unsure about everything, it was still so much better. And then you good as told me that none of that mattered and you couldn't trust me and you left.
[Another one of those hollow, whispered laughs.]
Maybe I am the idiot. I kept thinking you'd change your mind. You'd remember. Shows how much I know.
[ The words are, they're raw. Pained. Shaking and scotch-fueled and honest, so honest.]
You think that I left you behind because- because I don't even know why you think I-
[ Fuck fuck fuck he wishes he was sober. He'd be able to collect his thoughts so much better. But, he realizes, this would never have happened if they were sober. It couldn't happen. So he pushes forward.]
This place was fucking with us, Tim, it was fucking with you. What if I- what if it had it's claws in you and- and- and- involving you just made it dig in worse?
Gertrude was dead and if there had to be a target on me, I wanted to find the- the shooter before he put one on anyone else.
[ He looks at Tim, really looks at him, and pleads with him silently to understand. To get why he'd done it, even if now he thinks it'd been a mistake.]
Tim... you can't- you can't give up secrets you don't know. And as long as they didn't think you knew them, they wouldn't hurt you to get them. Or worse.
You- Martin-
I thought it would keep you safe.
[ He recovers, just a little.]
And it didn't. And I'm... I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry it didn't.
It doesn't matter why, Jon! It doesn't matter that you did it to try and keep me safe, it doesn't matter that you--that you were trying to fix all this impossible, fucked-up mess, it matters that you were trying to do it alone! It matters that you just--
[The words escape in a rush, angry and raw and painful and harsh and so very, very hurt. It matters that Jon couldn't trust him. It matters that he all but walked into the mouth of the monster empty-handed.]
I was already in this, Jon. We all were. But I already knew about the monsters in the dark. They'd already got me. We could have done all that together. You didn't have to go charging in alone. Why couldn't you have just trusted me?
[The anger is only a brief burst, there and gone. All that's left behind is the sorrow and the regret and the very real desire to drink until he forgets it all. Fuck this place.]
[ The words hit like blows, and he reels a little as Tim goes, shoulders hunching in on him. His fingers hold carefully to the bottle but he doesn't even open it.]
I already knew I'd lost Sasha, all right? I couldn't-
I couldn't lose any more of you.
I thought- [ He draws in a breath.] I thought I was doomed anyway. I felt, even then- I felt like I was in too deep. The way- the way I heard Michael say 'Archivist'...
It was something I couldn't shake. And I thought-
I thought I had to do everything I could before it, this place, the monsters...
Before it all took me down.
[ He swallows and his head is still bowed.]
I didn't know, Tim. I didn't know about Danny. I didn't- I didn't know how bad it would be. I'm sorry.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2019-02-03 06:06 am (UTC)The physical's always been the easy part, for me. I mean, in case you hadn't figured that out yet.
[It's the rest that's difficult. The sharing. The connecting. Every time he says he's not going to, and then he does, and then...something awful happens. Something awful happens every time he cares, whether it's someone he's sleeping with or just a friend.]
But it's not the only part of a relationship, you know. There's plenty of people out there who manage without, I suppose. Might even be the least important part. The feelings are what's important to most people.
[And that's the point where he'll start drinking again. Because what is this talk, anyway? Clearly he is not drunk enough.]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-03 06:45 am (UTC)You'd be amazed at how many people equate the two.
[ There's an extra second, a thoughtful frown, before he takes another sip.]
Mmm. Perhaps not.
[ A swallow. ]
I've not been a monk, after all.
[ He has had other relationships. Not many, but they have happened. Georgie was just the one he still kept up with, the only one who, well, who understood him a bit. The big problem with their relationship had been his, er, his business there. Everyone else, well-]
But you have met me, yes?
[ Exacting, temperamental, standoffish and more likely to spend time in a bookshop than a club of any sort. Add to that the fact that he tended to feel about twenty times the amount he ever expressed directly and the mathematics of the whole thing became rather clearer. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-04 12:40 am (UTC)[The laugh is short and half-voiced, drowned by the bottle, though Tim's not attempting to finish the thing, at least. It's more...punctuation. Something to do. A reminder of other days in this office, before everything went...well, was there ever a time things weren't horribly wrong? At least they were less wrong. At least they were blissfully ignorant.
He's so tired of knowing. And yet, this is one bit of knowing he can't quite bring himself to give up.]
Yes. Yes, I definitely have. Point taken.
[He's content to let the silence rest for a long moment. God knows they have little enough of that, lately. And then, after a pause:]
D'you miss it? Having someone to talk to? To--I don't know, care about, understand, whatever?
no subject
Date: 2019-02-04 12:51 am (UTC)[ He just sounds... tired. He sounds so tired, just, sick to the soul with it. And just as convinced that no one cares, and there's nothing to be done about it.
He takes a long pull from the bottle, lets it burn down his throat for a moment before putting it down and twisting the top back on. After a moment, he lets out a breath.]
Yes. And there's no... there's no getting used to it. There's just getting used to not getting used to it.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-04 10:48 pm (UTC)You know--yes, I think it does.
[Jon sounds like Tim feels. Exhausted, wrung-out, empty. Lonely. He swallows down the guilt and the regret just like he swallows the scotch--quickly, convulsively. It leaves its own bitter taste behind, cold instead of burning. And it's a long, long moment before he speaks again, staring off into middle distance. Seeing ghosts of a different sort, maybe.]
Just because loss is familiar doesn't make it any less what it is. An empty space, I guess. You just...always know it's there. Loneliness is like that, too. Just because it's familiar doesn't make it friendly.
[A beat:]
Martin's probably written a bloody ode about all this.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-04 10:55 pm (UTC)[ And in the daylight hours, there's usually just blunted frustration in his voice when he says something like that. Right now, it's one of the wounded voicing his sympathy and frustration with another. They've all got their pain and their ghost and their scars. Jon doesn't know what to do with Martin's. Sometimes the other man seems so resilient and other times, other times he seems so fragile. It's confusing, and he's bad enough with people as it is.
There's something soft and meaningful he could say here. But he can't quite handle it. Instead-]
I'm buying him something other than Keats for Christmas. Just to save... save the tapes, maybe.
[ But it's not particularly funny or terribly profound and it leaves enough of a silence that the swirling void that's been slowly eating away at him most of the evening, most of the last year and a half really, manages to pull something else out. ]
I think...
I think I'm only good for one thing. Only good at one thing.
And that makes me scared.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-12 11:54 pm (UTC)Don't think it's the tapes that need saving, Jon.
[A name, instead of a title, instead of anything else. God. He misses this. He misses this, and it hurts, and bloody masochist that he is, he leans into that hurt, lifting the bottle to his lips more out of habit than to dull that pain. He doesn't really want it to go away. He needs to remember. He's still mad at Jon, still furious...and yet. The words aren't angry. Just...quiet.]
I think you're too scared to try anything else. And I think you're too scared to try not doing it alone.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-13 12:08 am (UTC)But-]
I am. I am too scared. I'm- I'm terrified someone else is going to pay for it. Someone else.
I'd honestly rather die. I would.
[ He unscrews the cap but he pauses before taking his drink. ]
How do you- how do you do- it, life- how do you do it any other way?
[ And it's not angry, it's not a defense. It's just pure, unadulterated confusion. He doesn't know. He doesn't know. Of all the answers he's sought over the years, of all the questions he's asked, the idea of how to let people in, why they should care, what he can even do with any of that but- but ruin it all, clearly- it's the question that lives inside his skin, the one he can never pinpoint, never find, because it's too deep in him. ]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-13 12:27 am (UTC)They had been friends once. No matter what he does, he can't make himself forget that. And isn't that exhibit A in Jon's favor? He wants to yell at him for being so stupid, for being so scared, and yet he can't blame him, either.]
You don't. You're always scared. That's the whole point. You're scared, you're absolutely terrified that you're going to hurt someone, or they're going to hurt you, that they're going to start to matter and then they'll leave you, or you won't be able to save them--
[He stops abruptly, a catch in his voice swallowed down along with another mouthful of burning liquor. He should stop. Give himself alcohol poisoning, if he's not careful. But the words are hard enough without the anesthetic. These words cut more than any of the rest.]
Ever since Danny, I've been terrified. For a while, here, I think I--forgot that. Forgot to be scared. Sasha was--
[God, Sasha.]
--a reminder. But that's the whole bloody point. Being scared, and doing it anyway. Letting people in, even if you think they might be a monster. Because maybe, just maybe they aren't. And maybe they need you just as much as you need them.
You're scared, but we're all scared, and we're all we've got. Don't you see? We're all we've got.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-13 01:38 am (UTC)That's one thing he can do, that he's always been able to do, that he'a always done, really: Jon actually does listen, takes things in, with an intensity and passion and a need to know, to understand, to comprehend it, all of it, as if it's the most important thing. It's the one thing that kept him from looking like an egocentric prick, really. Because when Jon listened to you, he wasn't just thinking of how he could change the subject to something less awkward, or what pithy line he could say back. He's taking it in, he's processing it, picking it over and sweeping through it like he's just been handed a delicacy.
Nowadays, he has to wonder if that's a part of him or a part of whatever was ready to become a monster, but he can't help it, can't change it certainly. So he listens, he listens and he wants and his eyes close and the deepest, tiredest sigh escapes him, sick and sad.]
No one needs me, Tim. No one-
[ This breath out comes with a shudder and his hands tighten on the bottle. His voice is- it's sick. It's sick, and sad and so tired. ]
I'm not scared for me, for goodness sake. Do you- [ and that's a dark sort of laugh, rich with self-depreciation ] do you think I really believe I'm going to- going to make it out of any of this alive?
[ He finally takes his swig, a good long one, and it burns the whole time, at first good and then just a little painful. Maybe that's good too.]
I just- I just need to know that the rest of you- I just want-
[ He screws the cap on and squeezes his eyes closed.]
Fuck.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-13 05:16 am (UTC)His answering laugh is short, sharp, a sound of pain as much as it is grim amusement.]
You bloody idiot. I need you. I needed you, and you just...
[He just. Tim doesn't need to finish that sentence. They both know how it ends.
It's a long moment before he speaks again.]
We were friends, Jon. You were probably the closest thing I've had to a best friend since primary school. I needed you, and you decided I didn't.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-13 05:23 am (UTC)What do you- that can't be- I'm not- you've had to, that is- you, I mean- [ there's a nigh-hysterical chuckle, all of it unpleasant, that bubbles up from him] I couldn't, I'm not-
Tim.
[ He doesn't understand. He doesn't understand how that's possible, how it could be possible. But like so many things of late, so many moments, it seems as if regardless of the means or the hows or the whys, it may very well be possible. Might be the truth. And he-
He's not sure what to do about that other than to feel sick. He swallows, hard, and his voice is very small. Very quiet as he continues.]
I'm not- I'm not worth that, Tim. Especially n-not now.
no subject
Date: 2019-02-27 02:37 am (UTC)Know that now, don't I? I know now you obviously didn't feel the same, and that's fine. It's all done. I've moved on.
[He takes another swallow of scotch, but even this one can't rinse the bitterness away.]
Let's not forget the part where I hate you now, remember?
[And yet, there's no venom in it. Just a sad, faint longing.]
no subject
Date: 2019-02-27 03:02 am (UTC)What 'obviously'? Why on Earth would you think that one thing would ever mean the other? I mean, I- I've never-
[ His throat is thick with something. Not with whiskey, unfortunately, and the urge to just stick the bottle in his mouth and chug is almost strong enough to make him do it. But he can't, because there's things he needs to say and alcohol poisoning he cannot get right this moment for any number of reasons.
His voice is choked, ragged and raw and wet as he gets the words out past the knot in his throat.]
Tim, you weren't- Christ. [ He shakes his head and it doesn't make it better, there's no making any of this better, is there?] You weren't just my best friend, you were my only friend, you bloody idiot. I just-
[ He finally untwists the bottle, harshly enough that a bit of the cap bites into his hand a little. The burned one's always a bit sensitive.
He breathes before he finishes what he's saying, but he holds off drinking until after.]
If I waited for- for that sort of thing to be mutual, I'd never have- have anyone.
[ And that's when he gets the bottle in his mouth and he spills a little as he pulls off, not that it matters. What matters right now?
How could he think that? How could Tim ever think that? That he didn't feel things, that he didn't care? He's not- he knows he's unlikeable. He knows he doesn't get people and they, largely, don't 'get' him either. He's given up trying, given up on the idea that anyone but maybe Georgie and the odd cat will ever look at him with any sort of fondness. People tolerate him, because of manners or- or- or- necessity or duty.
People put up with him because he exists in the world and they have to and that's all he really expects out of them. He expects them to appreciate when he's convenient and work around him and obey the social contract long enough that he can get what little interaction he needs and wants and he doesn't- he won't ask or expect more than that.
What Tim's talking about- Christ. Christ.]
no subject
Date: 2019-03-09 05:32 am (UTC)Jon can't mean what Tim's hearing. He can't. Because doesn't that make it worse? If Tim wasn't just his best friend, was his only friend, and Jon still couldn't trust him, then what was the bloody point? What was the point to any of this at all?
His laugh is harsh, half a sob as it catches in his throat, and he sets the bottle aside, pulling a leg up, wrapping his arms around it in an effort to quell the trembling in his arms, the tightness in his chest.]
I'm the idiot??? If I'm the idiot, what does that make you, leaving behind your only friend to chase bloody monsters alone? Jon, for Christ's sake, why didn't you trust me?
[His breath escapes him in a shuddering rush, and Tim forces his voice even, even if it is small.]
I didn't have anyone else. And then I had you, and we had each other, and it was--better. Even with you being bitchy half mornings, and always ranting about the state of the archives, and being flustered and overwhelmed and unsure about everything, it was still so much better. And then you good as told me that none of that mattered and you couldn't trust me and you left.
[Another one of those hollow, whispered laughs.]
Maybe I am the idiot. I kept thinking you'd change your mind. You'd remember. Shows how much I know.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-09 02:34 pm (UTC)[ The words are, they're raw. Pained. Shaking and scotch-fueled and honest, so honest.]
You think that I left you behind because- because I don't even know why you think I-
[ Fuck fuck fuck he wishes he was sober. He'd be able to collect his thoughts so much better. But, he realizes, this would never have happened if they were sober. It couldn't happen. So he pushes forward.]
This place was fucking with us, Tim, it was fucking with you. What if I- what if it had it's claws in you and- and- and- involving you just made it dig in worse?
Gertrude was dead and if there had to be a target on me, I wanted to find the- the shooter before he put one on anyone else.
[ He looks at Tim, really looks at him, and pleads with him silently to understand. To get why he'd done it, even if now he thinks it'd been a mistake.]
Tim... you can't- you can't give up secrets you don't know. And as long as they didn't think you knew them, they wouldn't hurt you to get them. Or worse.
You- Martin-
I thought it would keep you safe.
[ He recovers, just a little.]
And it didn't. And I'm... I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry it didn't.
no subject
Date: 2019-03-18 12:17 am (UTC)[The words escape in a rush, angry and raw and painful and harsh and so very, very hurt. It matters that Jon couldn't trust him. It matters that he all but walked into the mouth of the monster empty-handed.]
I was already in this, Jon. We all were. But I already knew about the monsters in the dark. They'd already got me. We could have done all that together. You didn't have to go charging in alone. Why couldn't you have just trusted me?
[The anger is only a brief burst, there and gone. All that's left behind is the sorrow and the regret and the very real desire to drink until he forgets it all. Fuck this place.]
no subject
Date: 2019-03-18 12:27 am (UTC)I already knew I'd lost Sasha, all right? I couldn't-
I couldn't lose any more of you.
I thought- [ He draws in a breath.] I thought I was doomed anyway. I felt, even then- I felt like I was in too deep. The way- the way I heard Michael say 'Archivist'...
It was something I couldn't shake. And I thought-
I thought I had to do everything I could before it, this place, the monsters...
Before it all took me down.
[ He swallows and his head is still bowed.]
I didn't know, Tim. I didn't know about Danny. I didn't- I didn't know how bad it would be. I'm sorry.