Work Text:
and the dialing of the phone
is no longer fun
since you’ve been done with me
and you don’t want to talk with me at all
why’d you take it all away?
i did nothing wrong
i don’t believe it, i don’t believe it
i don’t believe your reasoning
now i understand you’re a human
and you’ve got to lie, you’re a man
and you’ve got to get what you want
how you want it, but so do i
and i wanted to try
why did you not want to try?
why did you take it all away?
// fiona apple, ‘drumset’
“Tell me you love me,” Jon murmurs, shame pooling heavy in his gut, so much sickening guilt holding him down like a physical weight in his body. He doesn’t look away from Tim’s eyes. He doesn’t grant himself that reprieve.
It used to be that when he needed lifting up, Tim’s jokes could pull him from his gloomiest moods. When Jon felt bogged down, his mind like the heavy burden of sopping clothes in an unexpected rain, Tim’s voice was a balloon tied to his wrist by a string, carrying him above the clouds. Jon remembers it with a sick feeling in his chest, like something twisting until it breaks.
Tim’s bitter, humorless laugh comes out with half a snort. His fingers tighten on Jon’s biceps as he leans in impossibly close and hisses, “Why would I do that?”
There’s no right answer to that question; there’s no right answer to any of Tim’s questions, these days. Jon just can’t seem to figure out what Tim wants from him, and if he only knew – he’d do anything. He bites down on his lower lip hard enough to bruise, trying to stifle the quivering of it that threatens to give way to deep, shuddering, sobbing breaths if he doesn’t keep it under control.
He blinks up at Tim, so many answers coming to mind, fleeting and delicate and crumbling to ash as soon as they appear. Because I love you, he thinks. Because I need you. Because I asked you. Because I miss you. It’s all selfish, it’s all shallow, it’s all useless.
Finally, he takes in a ragged breath and tries in a broken whisper, “Because it’s true?”
Somehow, Tim’s dark eyes harden even further, focused with a singular fury that cuts down to the very center of Jon’s existence. He lowers his voice to a dangerous, silken tone, the way he always seems to be able to do without any effort at all.
“Just because it’s true,” he hisses, and the words feel like venom spit in Jon’s face, “doesn’t mean it has to go on the record, Archivist.”
Jon recoils, shrinking against the wall. “Please don’t call me that,” he says, voice all cracked and pleading, and immediately he feels like a monster for asking Tim for anything at all.
“Why not?” Tim sneers. “It’s what you are.”
“It’s not – it’s not who I am,” Jon protests weakly. He’s not sure he believes it.
Eyebrows shooting up dramatically, mouth falling open in a mockery of surprise, Tim gasps. “Oh, no?” he asks, his voice echoing that same melodramatic faux shock, all breathless wonder and fluid curiosity. “Who are you, then? Please enlighten me.”
The question hits Jon like a heavy blow, making him flinch violently and screw his eyes shut tight. “I’m… I’m just me, Tim,” he whispers. “I’m your friend.”
Tim grits his teeth, the tendon in his jaw tensing visibly. "Please," he scoffs, "we were hardly even friends before you lost your mind."
"That's not fair," Jon retorts immediately, still shrinking back against the wall, still speaking as if he's expecting Tim to hit him. "We were friends. We were… more. I don't know, Tim, but you can't – you can't just pretend it didn't happen, that's not fair."
"Don't tell me what I can't do," Tim snaps at him. "Maybe I'd prefer to forget all of that, you ever think of that? If you cared about me at all, you’d let me deal with this my way, but you can’t – you have to see everything, control everything, have to dictate how I handle my own losses."
"You haven't lost me," Jon whispers desperately. “I’m still here.”
Running a hand through his hair, Tim smiles widely, rolls his eyes loudly. It looks like how he used to react when Jon would try and fail to make a joke, but now it’s devoid of the endearment it used to carry. “The thing is,” he laughs, “you don’t even know. You really think that’s true.”
Tears spring to Jon’s eyes, persistent and hot. He can’t respond to that, can’t think of anything to convince Tim that he’s the same person he’s always been, that he’s not the bad guy here, so he tries instead: “I’d do anything for you, you know? Anything you asked.”
The steel in Tim’s expression grows colder, his brow dark and angry. “Fine,” he declares in a tone which says he doesn’t believe a word of it. “I want you to tell me what you think you’re accomplishing here.”
“I’m just trying to – you’ve read the statements, you’ve heard the tapes, you’ve experienced it for yourself,” Jon tells him desperately, frantically. “I just want to do whatever I can to prevent more of this horror from happening.”
“You can’t,” Tim bites out, sharp and snappish. “You’re not daft, you know you can’t change any of this shit.”
“But who would I be if I didn’t try?”
“You’d be a fucking human being.”
Jon braces himself against the wall, fighting the weakness in his knees, struggling to keep himself upright under the weight of his despair. “What do you want from me, Tim?” he asks, raising his voice finally after shrinking himself for so long. “Do you want me to just leave all of this alone? Let the world end? Let them win? Do you want everything we’ve been through to be for nothing?”
“It is for nothing! All of it!” Tim is yelling now, too, making Jon flinch back again. “You can’t tell me there’s a reason for this, you can’t tell me any of this means anything. I lost that faith a long time ago. You tore it out of me.”
“I did, did I?” Jon raises his chin and narrows his eyes, shrewd and defiant.
Tim’s voice drops down to a dangerous hiss, his breath hot on Jon’s skin, close enough to his face that Jon can see the ring of grey-green around his brown eyes, his thick lashes fanned out over his skin. “Any part of me that believed something good could come of this died when I lost everyone and everything and nobody gave a damn.”
“I don’t believe any good can come of this,” Jon says, and it pulls Tim up short. He tries not to feel a twinge of vindictive satisfaction at the look of surprise on Tim’s face. He tries not to feel the heavy sorrow in his gut or the sharp pang of want that shoots through him when he looks at Tim’s slightly parted lips. “I don’t. I believe that this is a mess and there’s a lot at stake and the least I can do is use what little ability I have to mitigate the damage.”
“The damage is done, Jon,” Tim mutters, half under his breath but he’s so close that Jon would be hard-pressed not to hear it.
“Is that what you think? Why, because of your brother? Because of Sasha? Because you’re trapped here? Because I’ve made decisions that you don’t agree with, and Martin won’t go along with your hatred of me wholesale?” The questions come in rapid succession, words like bullets from Jon’s chest, almost without thinking. “Has it occurred to you for even a moment that maybe it’s not all about you and your feelings, or are you just such a slut for tragedy, such a self-centered martyr that you can’t even conceive of the notion?”
For a moment, Tim looks as if he’s been slapped, then he draws up to his full height, squaring his shoulders. "I'm a martyr?” he shoots back. “While you're on your whole crusade to sacrifice everything about yourself for the barest chance of maybe making this shit show slightly less shitty?"
A lump rises in Jon’s throat, tasting like bile and blood. He swallows hard, squeezes his eyes shut tight. “I think,” he whispers, small and broken, “that it would all be less shitty for everyone if we at least – tried to stay together.”
Tim laughs again, bitter and icy. “What, just pretend like nothing has changed?”
“No, not that, obviously we can’t do that,” Jon answers miserably. “Just… I don’t know, Tim. I don’t know. I can’t do everything right all the time, and I don’t think it’s fair for you to write me off after everything we’ve been through.”
“What would you have me do, then?” Tim snaps at him.
“What… what do you want? Really?” Jon struggles to keep the compulsion out of his voice, but he manages, just hardly.
Tim’s breath comes harsh and rough for a few seconds as he looms over Jon and tries to resist the insistent urge that Jon can see in his eyes, growing more solid by the second. It’s all his own desire, they both know, and Tim doesn’t want to give in, doesn’t want to give Jon the satisfaction.
Of course, he can’t hold back for long. Tim’s hand finds its way to Jon’s face as if magnetically attracted, his fingers curling soft against Jon’s cheek, and he moves closer at a glacial pace, gives Jon plenty of time to stop him. Jon uses that time instead to look up into Tim’s eyes, to read the heat and hurt and helpless hope burning within them.
When Tim’s lips meet his, Jon lets out a sharp breath, a heavy sigh from deep in his chest, like a dam bursting. His eyes flutter closed and a whimper escapes him, quiet and unbidden; suddenly, the only thing keeping Jon on his feet is Tim’s other hand settling warm and firm on his waist.
Tim presses into his space boldly, kisses him with a crushing force, and Jon brings his hands to Tim’s shoulders to hold himself steady as he reciprocates. It’s something easy and familiar for them, though it’s been a while, this is a deep-set stain in both their hearts, a painful skill they can’t forget. They kiss as if they just kissed yesterday; they kiss as if they’ve never kissed before.
Jon lets Tim take control of everything, lets him take what he needs, lets him give what he wants. For all their relationship has deteriorated, he trusts Tim implicitly – with his life, with his body, with his heart. Tim takes Jon’s lower lip between his teeth, gently, and tugs; Jon opens his mouth, slack-jawed, to let Tim lick behind his teeth, hot and fervent and frenzied.
Jon’s arms wind around Tim’s neck and pull him down, closer, deeper as Jon sucks his tongue like he’s desperate for it, like he could taste Tim’s forgiveness if he tries hard enough. Tim gives him plenty of tongue, a few sharp nips of his teeth, but there’s no forgiveness here.
By the time Tim reluctantly pulls back, Jon is out of breath. He heaves in a few deep inhales and opens his eyes to see Tim, gorgeous and just the right amount of debauched, cheeks flushed, lips swollen and kiss-slick, a few stray tears caught in his thick, dark lashes.
As soon as Tim catches his eye, he sniffs and turns his face away, his expression crumpling under Jon’s gaze. His one hand tightens its hold on Jon’s waist while the other migrates from his cheek to his temple, brushing a lock of hair from his face. Jon flinches at the motion.
“Do you think I would hit you?” Tim asks, suddenly, bluntly.
Jon looks up at him, furrows his brow deeply. “I mean… wouldn’t you?”
“Never,” Tim says, fierce as anything.
“I appreciate that, I suppose,” Jon mutters a bit petulantly, “but it might be easier to believe if you weren’t angry with me literally all the time.”
“I am angry, Jon,” Tim states matter-of-factly. “That doesn’t mean I don’t have – it doesn’t mean I would hurt you.”
Tears well up in Jon’s eyes again, and he swipes them away with the back of a hand. “You’re hurting me every day, with how you’re acting. It hurts that you can’t trust me. I’d almost prefer if you wanted to hit me.”
Rolling his eyes, Tim snorts half of a laugh. “I’d prefer if you were just straight up evil,” he says bitterly, “then I wouldn’t have to feel conflicted about it.”
“I miss you,” Jon tells him abruptly, his voice soft and small. “I miss the way things used to be.”
“Me too.” Tim takes a small step back as he speaks. “But that doesn’t make it all okay.”
Jon closes his eyes and nods painfully. “I know. I know it’s not all just – magically fine. But I’m trying.”
“We could leave.”
“What?” Jon’s head whips around to give Tim a wide-eyed stare.
“We could leave,” Tim repeats, as if it’s normal, “me and you. Get the fuck out of this place.”
Jon frowns, shakes his head, lets his back slide down the wall until he’s sitting on the floor, looking up at Tim. “We – we can’t. You know we can’t. I would love to, but it’s not possible.”
Kneeling down next to him, Tim reaches out and takes his hand in a gesture that could almost be called tender. “We could figure it out. Try, at least.”
It’s all Jon can do to blink at him, eyes wide and sad and confused. He takes a long moment to wrap his head around the concept before he can bring himself to respond. “But what about… what about Martin?” is all he manages to come up with.
“He can come, too,” Tim replies immediately, not a trace of irony or hesitation, just a reassuring murmur as he strokes a thumb across the back of Jon’s hand. “We’ll get out of here, the three of us, we can find a way to get out and just go far away.”
“How would that work, exactly?” Jon asks, his somber tone just barely colored with amusement. “Sounds like the worst kind of odd couple comedy. I’d be dead within a week.”
“Just – I’m serious, alright?” Tim says, bordering on a whine. “I want us all to be safe.”
“Now you’re starting to sound like him,” Jon tries to tease, but it falls flat. “He’s got the right idea, I think. He’s… Martin’s good. He deserves that. You deserve that.”
Tim clenches his jaw, closes his eyes for the length of a deep breath. “You’re doing it again,” he says coldly. “Trying to be all self-sacrificing. It’s not a good look.”
Jon pauses, biting his lip, before venturing to say, “I’m sorry?”
“Yeah,” Tim mutters, “sure.”
“I just don’t think… with the way things are right now, I don’t think that fantasizing about running away is really the most productive –”
“I don’t give a shit about what’s productive,” Tim snaps, cutting him off. “And I’m not fantasizing. I’m planning. If you don’t want to be a part of it, that’s fine, but it’s on your head.”
Swallowing hard, Jon steels himself to still the trembling of his lips and try to speak evenly, rationally. He thinks very hard about what to say, but he doesn’t have it in him anymore to be the voice of reason – not that he was ever very good at it to begin with. “Please… Tim, please don’t leave without me,” he begs, his voice cracking. “Please don’t take him away, too. I can’t do any of this without you.”
Tim’s grip on his hand tightens for a split second before he pulls it away entirely. “I don’t think you can do it, regardless,” he says, and it feels like a knife to Jon’s chest. “I don’t want to watch you kill yourself. And I sure as hell don’t want to help you do it.”
“I’m sorry,” Jon whispers brokenly.
“I know,” Tim replies.
His hand newly empty, Jon wraps his arms around his knees, looking stubbornly forward at a spot on the carpet in front of him. Beside him, Tim rises to his feet, huffs out a long, wistful sigh, and Jon fights back tears for what feels like the thousandth time. Tim just stands there, unwilling to leave without a word but unable to think of what to say.
Eventually, Jon bites the bullet and breaks the silence. “I love you,” he murmurs, not looking up.
“Yeah,” Tim answers, all the anger gone from his voice, sounding just utterly drained. “Yeah, I know.”