It was about a week and a half after getting discharged from the hospital that Tim worked himself up enough to go back and pay Jon a visit at last. He’d been staying mostly indoors, courtesy of Erik who wouldn’t let him out of his sight whenever they were both in the house, which, since they were both injured, was more often than not. Tim had been growing sick of being trapped in the same space, despite how grateful he was that Erik was even letting him stay there in the first place, especially since he’d done enough by saving his life.
The restlessness seemed to apply to everything else as well. He couldn’t bring himself to do much other than just taking care of his wounds, eat, and then go back to laying down on the couch like it was his only comfort.
Thoughts were swirling uninvited in his head, reminding him of what happened during the Unknowing and how undeserving he was to be the one to have lived. Ever since the night where Alealani disappeared abruptly, he hadn’t been able to cry. It all clogged up in his chest and made his shoulders shake until it drained all his already low levels of energy.
So, he mainly stayed on the couch, and sometimes on the air mattress Erik had let him sleep on. Ridiculous. It should’ve been Jon lying there, but no. Instead, Jon had to be turning into a monster and it was Tim’s fault, because he killed him and he hadn’t asked for it and-
He let out a shaky breath. It wasn’t good to think about this. He was supposed to be visiting Jon, not selfishly lamenting the fact he was still alive and hurting.
But he was hurting, and his mind wouldn’t let him forget. It had taken all the effort he could physically put into an action to get himself up that morning so he could even make it to the hospital. If Erik hadn’t been there to help him, he probably wouldn’t have changed his bandages. He also hadn’t felt motivated enough to go through the pain of walking more than he needed to, which made it so he hadn’t gotten his eyepatch yet like Alealani had recommended. His heart panged, but it didn’t matter. He couldn’t keep her, he couldn’t go to her willingly, he just had to get thrown into their lap by the universe and taken care of since he can’t even take care of himself, apparently. He really was ridiculous.
His vision would be fine… probably. And even if wasn’t, who cares, he’d already lost everything. Maybe losing half his vision as well would stick it to the Eye a bit. Regardless, he kept his face bandaged up. He didn’t want to give Alealani any other reasons to realize how horrible he truly was.
“Sir? I can take you to his room now.” A soft feminine voice pulled him out of his spiral and he looked up at her slowly, eyes fogged up. He wondered if that was forced, if she played up how welcoming she seemed because of how much she pitied him.
“Right.. I'm ready.” He responded quietly as he followed her to Jon’s room. It was his first time visiting. Selfishly, he had never asked how Jon was doing, everyone could tell him on their own, and they did. He huffed quietly to himself. The nurse’s eyes caught on him at the small noise and she offered a sympathetic smile. He wanted to be mad at her, he could feel the heat rise up in him, but it was gone the moment she looked away, replaced by the near constant aching of his existence.
The walk to Jon’s room was painful. His burned skin was sizzling under his bandages, every movement felt like he was reopening every single wound he had, and the silence made his ears ring louder than usual. Making it in the room didn’t stop any of his pain, even if he finally wasn’t walking anymore. Somehow, he could feel the heat just burning hotter in his chest, threatening to consume him whole.
The moment the nurse disappeared behind a closed door, Tim crumpled to the floor beside Jon’s bed.
“H-hey Boss..” Tim mumbled pathetically, barely able to hear himself over his own ringing ears. Jon wouldn’t be able to hear him at this rate. A voice in the back of his mind told him that he wouldn’t hear him anyway, and he closed his left hand tightly until it hurt enough to chase away the thought. “You miss me? Bet not, huh? I'm sure you’d prefer if Martin or Erik were here instead, but you’re gonna have to bear with me for a lil while longer, alright?”
He laughed miserably and rested his head against the blanket that distanced him from Jon’s legs.
“I was horrible, I know. I can’t- even..” A sharp intake a breath. “I can’t even apologize. I hated you, but you didn’t deserve this. I guess… I hoped it would stop you from turning into a monster. And… you deserved it, after what you did and all, but-.. I can’t feel that hatred anymore. You’re hurt, and there’s no revenge to be had. Im just.. an ugly memory to drag you all down with me. Im s-.. im..” He choked on his words and stayed quiet for a few long minutes before he perked up a bit to look into his bag. Pulling out a tape recorder, he placed it down next to the bed.
“I snagged one of these from the institute before coming. Won’t you wake up, please? I can’t- I can’t lose you too, Jon. I- I was supposed to go first, n-not you…” His voice trembled visibly, and so did his hands. The heat from earlier was freezing him from the inside out. “Im sure you won’t want to see my face if you wake up, so I’ll- I’ll leave, but you need to wake up. Please. I hope this helps.”
With that, he cleared his throat and clicked the tape recorder on.
“Statement of Timothy Stoker, regarding.. his best friend.” A deep breath “I don’t really care to format this properly, so if you’re really mad you could always just yell at me when you wake up.”
“You know, Sasha was the first person I could actually call my best friend. I mean- before that, it had always been Danny. You already know all about what happened to him” His tone soured “but he really was the only person who knew me before I came here. Kinda ironic that this place would be the thing that gets someone else to recognize who I am behind the jokes, creepy voyeur as it is. Eurgh- I still hate the feeling of eyes on my back. Have you gotten used to it?, because I still can’t. Don’t get me wrong, I love my jokes, but I don’t remember when I started using them to hide everything else, to divert the gaze of all the eyes on me. It was before Danny died, that I know.
I was always bad at making friends because they always found me a little too loud, a little too annoying, and such.” His voice took on a mocking tone, mimicking some he’s heard before.” ‘Oh, Tim always talks about pop culture so much, isn’t he weird?’ ‘Who knows so much about architecture anyways?’ ‘Come on, Tim, don’t you know this is serious?’ I’ve heard it all. Every time I let my guard down or tried a bit too hard, it’s like everyone would know, and then it was point and laugh at the weirdo who’s bad at social cues. Back then at least I had my brother, and then… it got- bad, before Sasha came along. She was the first person to see behind my mask and bring me closer instead of pushing me away. You were there with us in research, you know how close we were. You.. were part of our group too, even if you were a little prickly, it was lovable. Hah.. I miss those days” He went silent for a few seconds, sighing loudly. His hands gripped the blanket, one tightly and one barely curling its fingers.
“You and Sasha accepted me, and I tried my best to give it back. I didn’t.. understand why you changed after the promotion, but I guess I assumed you’d go back to normal in time.” Another few second pause. “I leaned on Sasha a lot during that time. I had been needing her since research, but with you more distant, we only got closer. She used to help when I had… episodes. She never forced me to put a name to them, but she was always there when they started to help me through them. I don’t.. really remember fully what it was like to not feel like this, I’ve felt this way since… well, after Prentiss it got worse. I’ve had them for years but they were sporadic and never this bad. I don’t think I knew why it got worse after Prentiss, but looking back on it, that’s when Sasha stopped helping. I can’t.. really call her Sasha anymore, can I? I know objectively it wasn’t her, but my memories won’t agree with me. I don’t- want to talk about that thing that took her, but- that’s what you need in a statement, isn’t it? I know just talking about a bit of rejection I went through won’t actually do anything in terms of feeding.. whatever you’re becoming.
Nothing felt wrong after Prentiss, but we were also all caught up in trying to recover and get back to work even though we’d just been through hell in there. She joked around less, she… flirted more. It was subtle but it threw me off because I know Sasha and I know how she feels and it wasn’t.. that, but for some reason my brain kept telling me she was just trying to bring up the mood. I only noticed after I realized that you were stalking us that she wasn’t catching my ‘episodes’ anymore when they reared their ugly faces. I didn’t want to bring it up to her incase it ruined the flow of understanding each other we’d had for years, but I did try asking at some point. She gave me some positive advice and.. then she went back to her own flat. It was easy to be angry after that. You were being horrible and I refused to blame my best friend if I was suddenly a bit too much to handle for her. It was still.. the same Sasha to me. Even now I- I can’t notice anything that would make her not Sasha!” His voice cracked, tears starting to form in his eyes for the first time in a week.
“No matter how hard I try- she’s still.. I can’t- I can’t differentiate them.” The tears started rolling down his cheeks. “I listened to the tapes you found as evidence multiple times after we learned what happened but- it’s been a few months and I can’t.. remember what her voice sounded like on them. I can’t hear her in that voice, even with the tapes, because everything I know about her is linked to that- that horrible fake voice. It sounds so right, like Sasha- I hate it-! I don’t think I’ll ever be able to think of the real Sasha again. I’ve been trying not to think of her because I know that the image that shows up in my mind isn’t actually her- but at the same time… her death has been leading my life for how long now..?” He trailed off, looking to the side, but the statement forced him to voice his thoughts out loud.
“Now that I avenged her.. I don’t know what’s left of me. I think I burned through all that was good to get here. And now…” His voice gave up on him in exchange for loud sobs. He shook and desperately grasped at Jon’s bedding, whispered pleas falling from his lips. When he composed himself enough to sit up, he turned towards the tape recorder and found it already turned off. A chill ran down his spine, but at least it seemed to have worked. Looking back at Jon’s sleeping form, he couldn’t help but feel his chest tighten at how much he looked like a corpse.
“I don’t really want to get nightmares of her again, so try and be nice to me, alright Boss?” He couldn’t smile, not with the tears burning lines in his cheeks. He took a few heavy breaths to try and contain himself, but it didn’t work, instead leaving all his feelings to boil over. He cried at Jon’s side for another few minutes before he heard the nurse knocking gently on the door, saying that he had a few minutes left before he had to leave to let the doctors take a look at the patient. Tim didn’t respond, instead grabbing one of Jon’s hands and starting to mumble again.
“I didn’t get to say goodbye before the Unknowing- I didn’t think I’d need to. But you’re stuck here, and even though I know you’re not gonna die… this one is my goodbye to you, alright?” He rubbed the tears from his eyes. “I’m.. sorry I didn’t say it before. I hope you heard all of this, I hope you hear me now. You were a good friend.. back when- when we were friends. Make sure to wake up, for Erik, for Martin.”
He stood up and detached his hand from Jon’s cold, dead one. With one last look filled with swirling emotions clogging his eye and his throat, he turned away towards the room’s door.
When the doctors came back in after Tim had left, they found the room many degrees colder than it was set to be at, as well as a few scorch marks on the patient’s blanket.
