Chapter Text
Tim does not recognize the woman in front of him.
He should be dead. That’s all there is to it. He died, and as such he should be dead; there is no possible way for him to have survived, much less wake up in the arms of a panicking woman who he does not know and never has. Looking around is hard, he barely has the strength to move, and his vision is blurry, but he could swear he’s in a grassy field, which doesn’t make sense because he should be dead and buried in rubble and debris and maybe even melting wax statues and ripped and torn mannequins.
But he’s not, and it doesn’t make sense, and he doesn’t have the energy to be angry about it, so he just passes the fuck out, and in the last seconds of being conscious, he could swear he heard the woman call his name.
He’s not in a hospital when he wakes up, to his surprise, or a grave, which is where he should be.
Instead, he finds himself in a somewhat organized lab room- or at least, he assumes that’s what this is-, in a bed that couldn’t be less comfortable if it tried, and with a splitting headache. He expects to fail when he tries to get up, and is surprised when his limbs obey him perfectly. Soon he’s leaning on a wall for support- more a precaution than a need-, making his way to the door. Besides a few papers scattered on the ground and a few strange broken red and white balls, there’s nothing in his way, and he’s about to open the door when he hears something.
He recoils from the door’s handle, backing away from the door, hissing to himself that no, you can’t trust doors, you idiot.
He turns around so fast that he’s surprised nothing broke when he hears it again behind him- shit, it didn't come from the door, it's something inside. A trill? No, that’s not right, it’s more of a growl- no, no that’s not it, those aren’t the right words, he can’t think of them, not with his heart racing so fast, and he looks for something, anything to defend himself with from whatever is making those noises, and-
And then he sees it.
His heart almost stops for a moment as he takes in what is in front of him, and he breathes the most embarrassing sigh of relief he ever has before tensing up again.
It is a chick. Not even a fully grown chicken, just a chick. There’s no other way to describe it, other than that this chick is orange and yellow in a way he’d never seen before, and it looks too big for a baby, its head too round. There’s no way, he knows that in every bone of his body, that it’s a normal chick. Just to entertain the thought, he tries to think that maybe something weird won't hurt him. He comes to the conclusion they always will.
It’s almost funny, how a year or so ago he’d be able to ignore that, to ignore how unnatural and off it looks to be a chick, to assume it’s just a weird baby who grew too much, or a species of chicken he doesn’t know who simply has babies like that.
Today is not a year ago.
So he stares what will probably be his demise in the eyes, its round, innocent eyes, the way it tilts its head to the side as if confused, and for a second he has hope that whatever this thing is, it won’t hurt him. He likes to think he’s not stupid, though, so he grabs the nearest broken ball, hoping the jagged edges will be enough to somewhat defend himself, and prepares to fight a small orange chicken who keeps chirping at him and makes no move to walk towards him.
He barely registers it when the door opens.
-
Whatever Sasha hoped to find when she opened the door, it was definitely not Tim in a fighting stance holding a broken pokeball at Torchic’s direction, as if it was his greatest foe and this was the last battle he’d ever fight. She tried, she swears she tried, but the scene was too much for her not to snicker as she makes her way past Tim- Tim, it’s really him, there’s no way it’s not him, everything about him screams Tim and her best friend is here and she’s been the only one for so long- who only then seems to register she’s there, causing him to… take a step back? What? Torchic chirps and jumps when she stops next to it, leaning on her hand when she pets its head fondly, and Sasha can’t help but chuckle at just how ridiculous it was that Tim was feeling threatened by an oversized chick. Sure, it evolves into a fire beast who could probably kill them both, and its pecks and kicks could do some serious damage, but besides that, it’s harmless.
She turns to Tim, Torchic climbing her arm and playfully pecking her hair. She expects to see confusion on his face, or a relief because she’s there. She hasn’t seen him in so long, and if time works the same here and in their world, then he hasn’t seen her for just as long. She’s ready to crack a joke about how funny the scene was, to hug him and ask how he’s been, to tell him what happened to her, to ask him how he got here, and her excitement could likely fuel an entire reactor.
Her smile only leaves her when she sees how tense he looks.
Tim is tense. Tim. Timothy “I climbed a complete stranger’s house just to scare them from the roof when they got home” Stoker. Timothy “I flirted with the police to get statement follow-ups” Stoker. Timothy “I impersonate important people as a hobby” Stoker. This guy. He’s tense.
It’s just not right. It doesn’t suit him in the slightest.
“Where am I?” he asks, and the sharpness in his voice almost makes her doubt it’s really Tim.
Almost.
“Not even a hello? How the years changed you, Stoker” she jokes, expecting him to relax. The way his eyes focus on her like he’s looking at a threat hurts.
“How do you- no, what are you?”
What.
“What.”
“What. Are. You.” He repeats, stepping closer to the door.
“Tim, are you okay?”
“Answer me.” He spits, and it hurts. So, she answers.
“Is Sasha a species?” she tries another joke, just to make sure it won’t work.
It doesn’t.
He stays quiet, and she can’t help but think he looks like a wild Pokémon running away from a thief. His eyes don’t leave her even for a second, and Sasha isn’t stupid, she knows that the look on his face, no matter when or why- finding out the why scares her. She can guess where all the hole-shaped scars came from, but the worms should be all they'd ever have to fight like that- he had to develop it, means he doesn’t know where he is, or why, and he must be confused and angry.
His hand is almost on the door’s handle.
The pieces click in her head as she looks at him with an expression that went from a smile to a frown in a matter of seconds, and it tells a thousand deductions she could never explain. The realization hits her harder than any fall of blow she’s ever taken.
He doesn’t recognize her.
-
“Tim this isn’t funny.” the woman- is it a woman? He hopes so- says, worry tangible in her voice, but he’s not buying it. The Not!Sasha could also do that.
The chick-like creature is clinging to one of her arms, rubbing its head on it softly, maybe offering whatever kind of comfort it could give. Why would she need that, though? It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care.
He wants to demand answers from her, to rip them out of her throat if he has to, but she’s currently next to a demon-chick, and he doesn’t want to risk messing with whatever can command a thing like that.
Although, dying doesn’t seem all that bad.
But there’s no time for those thoughts, not as the woman takes a step towards him, and he swears that if he could snarl he would.
“…Tim? Did you… no, no you can’t…” she tries, feigning worry, and he scoffs. The door is so close, if only he could turn the handle fast enough-
He doesn’t get the chance to.
One second. It was one second looking at the door. It was one second he thought he could spare, one second he thought it might be fine. But it wasn’t, of course it wasn’t, it never is with these things, he should have been smarter, he should have quit when he could, he should have noticed sooner, he should have been a better friend, he should have died.
His body goes still from the pure shock, and in the moment it takes for him to instinctively start squirming and trying to shove her away, he hears a voice soft and broken and worried and sad and so many emotions he doesn’t want to recognize or think of.
“Tell me you didn’t forget me. Please.”
That’s what does it. He fights with all his might to not let it happen, but something clicks in his head, opens a vault of carefully tucked memories that he tried to leave behind to rot with the worms, hid behind layers of hate and distrust and anything that kept him going. Anger towards the circus, towards the Stranger, for taking people he loved so dearly; towards Jon, for bringing him and Sasha into the Archives in the first place; even towards Martin, with his never ending well of tea and optimism and the desire for a happy ever after that they could never ever have, not in that hell they called a job.
But now, just for this, in a place he doesn’t know with a supernatural chick and a woman who most definetly poses a threat, it opens. That vault isn’t brought up to the surface of all that spite, of course not. It can’t be, not in these conditions.
Maybe it never will be.
But it is opened, and he remembers so, so clearly the voice he heard on the tapes they could find with real Sasha’s voice- the one he doesn’t remember, and how it infuriates him that he couldn’t even remember his best friend. He remembers that voice talking about the correct way to say “calliope”, telling him to run when he didn’t notice the worms, and for a moment he even manages to replace all the good moments he had with the thing that took her place with the real Sasha’s voice.
It’s ironic, if you think about it, how it is with a stranger’s arms wrapped around his body, her head pressed against his back, her hands shaking slightly for reasons he doesn’t know, his body screaming at him to squirm and shove and punch and do anything to get away from her, that he hears it again.
He hears the voice of his dead best friend.
And for a few seconds, as brief as they may have been, and as much as he’ll never admit it, he let himself hope.