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There has never been a sky so dark. A pitch black night with no stars to illuminate the surrounding graveyard. Everything is monochrome. Grey trees stand out starkly against the dark ground and sky. Grey tombstones with names long weathered away dot the ground as they stretch onto infinity. Each one encasing the soul of someone who died at the hands of a fear. There is no end to them.
Accidentally, Jon’s hand brushes against one of the stones. He’s instantly filled with the overwhelming knowledge of Georgia Mastiff’s life and untimely death at the hands of a Desolation avatar. He stumbles backwards, closing his eyes. The sudden intrusion was too much for his mind to handle at the moment. It had taken every ounce of energy he had just to enter the End’s domain and he was still reeling from the fact that he even managed it at all. After all, he’d just escaped its clutches a few days ago after he’d woken up from his own coma.
But Tim had never woken from his. He still lay, still as a corpse, on that hospital bed. Jon had the ability to do something about it, so he would.
Their conversation from right before Tim detonated the C4 kept replaying in his mind. Tim didn’t forgive him. Of course he didn’t. Why would he? Jon had hardly given him any reasons to like him. Hell, he’d given Tim enough reasons to hate him. And yet here he was, traversing through Death itself to save him.
He Knew where he was going, an undeniable tug in his bones dragging him deeper and deeper with each step. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.
A small part of him wondered if he would be able to make it out after he found Tim. A larger part of him thought that might not be such a bad thing. He wondered how much of that larger part was from himself or the influence of the End. Although… it didn’t really matter, did it? The thoughts were there and they weren’t going away. He would just have to deal with them.
Jon wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking. The Beholding, like usual, wasn’t exactly offering him information that could be deemed useful, just snippets of long dead people's lives as he walks past their graves. Anytime he brushes against a tomb, he gets everything. Birth to death. He takes to hugging his arms against his chest to avoid them.
Eventually, he finds the stone he’s been looking for. The name is less faded than most of the others, weathered like the others but still readable. Timothy Stoker. He blinks once to clear away the tears that have been forming in the corners of his eyes. There’s only so much grief he can take. When he opens his eyes, a ghostly Tim is sitting atop the headstone with his back to him. Jon opens his mouth to say something, but he hadn’t really planned this far ahead.
He doesn’t need to speak though, Tim starts for him. “This is where you were going to bury me. If I died, that is,” he says, his voice as wispy as he looks. One pale hand sweeps across the barren landscape. “I should have died, you know?”
“Yes,” Jon whispers. He’s still struggling to find the right words, to figure out how to make this right and save him. But he’s lost. He’s so lost.
Tim doesn’t look at him, doesn’t even acknowledge that he’s there. “That’s the funny thing about dying. Never seems to happen when you think it ‘ought to.”
“But you didn’t die, Tim.” That gets him to turn around. His eyes are empty, literally empty. Two dark, sunken holes sit where his warm eyes should have been. Jon’s stomach churns at the sight. “Neither of us did, however impossible that outcome might have been. And- and you can’t just keep sitting around wishing you had.” Tim doesn’t respond. Just stares at Jon with nonexistent eyes.
Tim wasn’t human anymore. That much was obvious. Takes one to know one, right? That had to be rectified before they could leave. But how?
Jon does the only thing he can think of. He asks a question. He’s careful not to let any compulsion slip. If that happens the conversation might be over before it starts and he would have to find another way to save him. If there even is another way. “What’s your favorite color, Tim?”
“What?” Tim raises an eyebrow. Expressing emotion, good. That’s a good sign.
“Well,” Jon flounders for words again. “We don’t really know each other that well and if we’re going to be stuck here we may as well rectify that.”
There’s a long pause and Jon wonders if he’s even going to answer. “It’s blue.”
Jon snorts softly. Of course. “How average.” Tim’s head snaps to him, mouth open ready to refute the statement. An idea starts to form in Jon’s head. “I mean. I didn’t really take you for a blue kind of guy. It’s a very basic color.”
Tim tilts his head towards the empty void above. “It…” His mouth tightens into a straight line. “It reminds me of the sky. ”
“Huh…” Jon smiles as he watches a bit of color fades into Tim. It’s not much, but it’s something. “I always liked green. Not anything bright like neon or anything, but dark green.” A slight roll of the eyes from Tim, a shadow of what his playful mockery (and later hateful) used to be. “What’s your favorite animal?” Again, he’s careful with his voice, his wording. He’s terrified if he lets himself slip even a little bit that Tim will retreat back into himself. He won’t let himself slip. Not when it counts.
“Eagle. You?”
“Really? Didn’t take you for a bird kinda guy. Cats, though.”
They continue like this for a while. Jon asking a question without compelling anything, Tim answering and Jon following.
“What’s your favorite kind of music?”
“Who’d you switch lives with for a day?”
Jon does his best to slightly mock Tim with each answer he gives. Each time, without fail, he regains a little bit of color as he struggles to explain himself. Jon takes each as a success.
“What kind of superpower would you want to have?”
“What would you want to be famous for?”
After almost a half hour of questions, Tim’s eyes start to reappear. They’re dull grey, matching the rest of the dull landscape. Jon wonders if they’ll ever regain color. At some point, Tim slides off his headstone and joins Jon on the ground. He starts asking questions of his own and they begin to alternate. Tim asks, Jon answers. Jon asks, Tim answers.
“What’s the most unusual place you’ve fallen asleep?”
“What’s the most ridiculous outfit you’ve ever worn?”
Had it not been for the fact that Jon was doing his best to rile Tim up in the domain of an actual fear entity, the situation would almost be calm. Tim’s face was flushed pink from anger and he was starting to retort Jon’s feeble attempts at mockery. Good. The faster he got angry, the faster they could leave. The End was not happy to have two people strongly aligned with the Eye camping out in it. Jon could feel it’s anger starting to well up around them.
He was going to have to speed things along then.
Subtly, he steers the questions towards more difficult topics. Ones that when mocked about Tim was sure to lash out.
It only takes him three questions to get to what he wants.
Tim pounds his headstone with his fist. “You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Asking me questions and acting like we’re friends again? I see right through you Jonathan Sims,” he snaps. “What are you looking for, huh? Forgiveness? Well you’re not going to get it. I still don’t forgive you.”
As much as he expected them, the words still cut deep. “No- I… I wouldn’t either,” Jon mutters.
Something else appears in Tim’s eyes at that. Not anger. Confusion? No, no he looks hurt. “Jon-“ he says, but Jon waves him off.
“Moving on. I think it’s your turn, right?”
“Oh, no,” Tim says darkly. “This is what you wanted, right? Me to be angry with you so that you can feel guilty about your own actions? I’m just a penance, aren’t I? Just another thing you can fuck up. You want another question, fine. How about this? I wanna know how this all started. Only fair, right? You know all about Danny, so I should get to know about you.” He jabs a finger into Jon’s chest. It feels as if someone is sucking all of the heat from him from a single point. ”Something really must have fucked you up properly for you to turn out the way you have. What was it?”
Jon deflates and looks away. “Yes, I-I supposed that’s fair. Um let’s see… I was about 8, I think, when it happened. I used to read a lot so my grandmother used to buy me all of the cheap books she could find. It didn’t matter what they were, just that they were in my hands keeping me out of her way. I learned a lot of things way too young because of that.
“One weekend, I ended up with one of those picture books. You know, the ones made for toddlers just starting to read. I was long past the stage of being offended when she gave me those, there was always one or two in the pile. This one- this one was different though. It was a Leitner entitled A Guest for Mister Spider.”
Jon pulls his knees into his chest as he recounts the details of the awful story. He’s pretty sure Tim is listening with rapt attention, but Jon has stopped paying attention to him. By the time he’s finished, there are tears pricking at the corners of his eyes and he feels as if a million tiny legs are crawling all over him. He rests his forehead on his knees, trying to calm his breathing. Until now, no one but him and a tape recorder knew that story.
He’s not sure how he expects Tim to react. To laugh him off and say that he was being a wimp? To be angry and say that it was nothing too losing a brother at the hands of some evil clown doll?
He’s not expecting arms to wrap around him. Without thinking, he tries to lean into the embrace, but Tim retreats before he has the chance.
“Christ, Jon.” Tim leans his head back against the tombstone. “I never- I honestly can’t believe I’m saying this to you, but… I’m sorry.”
“Yeah. Me too, Tim.” Jon sighs and rubs a hand across his face. “I- me too.”
Tim lets out a short laugh, though his face is anything but happy. It’s still bitter, but… less so than before. “I think…” he stands up and looks back at the way Jon had come. “I think I’m ready to go back. I’m guessing you know the way?”
Jon scrambles to his feet ungracefully. “Yes. I do.” He gives Tim a small smile. “Okay. Let’s go then.”