Chapter Text
The just say no to drug s thing had really never worked, and everyone knew it. Unsurprisingly, the same was true for 'just say no to demons '. Every poster, skit, assembly, essay competition, and psa all went to waste on Tim Stoker. He remembered them, of course. He was thinking about them while he walked down that alley. He was hurting. He had lost Danny and everything else had gone with it. He couldn't talk to his parents, couldn't explain how he knew Danny was dead with such certainty. They thought he did it. He couldn't talk to his friends, people who just stuck around for the fun persona he put on and who were scared of him when he was like this. He couldn’t talk to his doctors, couldn’t admit the full extent of what he was thinking and feeling without being institutionalized, and he couldn’t let anyone stop him from getting justice for Danny. He would lose his soul, and? So what? Tim's soul died with his brother. He didn't need to live a happy life, or go to heaven. He just needed to kill those fuckers who stole the only light he'd ever had. So he walked into the darkest looking alley he could find, and stayed until he saw the glowing eyes in the dark. It took a while. That was probably on purpose, waiting until he was hungry and desperate before appearing. The deal was simple. Exact determination over the moment of his death. Tim would not die until Grimaldi, or whatever had been wearing Grimaldi, had been punished. Not immortality, or invincibility, or even a guarantee. Worst case scenario, Tim would end up an old man, body crumbling into dust around him but still unable to die. No matter what, this choice ensured that he would end up being tortured for eternity. It was an enticing deal on the demon's end, which the wicked smile in the dark was sure to tell him. Tim didn’t care. Demons couldn’t break their word, and he didn’t need anything for himself out of this. Looking back, he really should have hammered out more of the details. Would killing Grimaldi kill Tim too? Would someone else going after the clown monster cause him to drop dead in the street? Would the demon consume his soul and leave him an empty husk as soon as the contract was signed, or would it wait to eat him until the deal was complete? If he incurred a wound that the human body was incapable of recovering from, would he simply stay like that forever? All very important questions, but Tim was too numb to care, and also was far more drunk than he would have admitted to anyone at the time.
The Demon held out the contract, written in flaming purple ink, and a feather quill of the same color. Tim lifted his leg to sign it against his thigh, which elicited a chuckle from the creature. Once signed, the contract rolled itself up in his hands and burst into flame. Then, there were dark clawed hands grabbing at him from every angle. He struggled, just out of reflex, but it didn't matter. They dragged him in, the glowing eyes in the dark getting closer and closer until they were all he could see. Then there was a stabbing pain in his chest, and he must have screamed then because he could feel every inch of himself being invaded, ripped apart and thrown into scorching fire. He felt the life seeping out of his bones, pooling into his heart, where it was siphoned out into the demon's claws.
When it was over, he slumped into the shadowy hands holding him up, shaking. There were tears running down his face, and hours later he would lose his voice, confirming that he had screamed himself hoarse. When the light in his eyes faded, it left a lingering afterimage that bothered him for days. None of that was anything compared to what came next. Once he got his bearings, standing there in the alley, held upright by the demons many claws, two of them were holding something in front of him. It was a blob of soft white light, plain and dull, pulsing weakly against the dark claws that caged it. There was a dark, angry bruise spreading on its side. It looked sick. Tim could certainly believe that that was what his soul looked like. Broken, dull, worthless. Looking at it, he could hardly believe that the Demon had accepted such meager payment. It laughed as it pulled a jar out of nowhere and deposited the light inside, sealing the lid tight. It patted him on the cheek before withdrawing its arms, leaving him to drop to the filthy ground of the alley. He wrapped his arms around himself then, and it was cold . He could feel every inch of empty space inside him. Where he had once never given a second thought to the heat that ran through him, he was now filled with nothing but ice cold nothingness. It burned just like any fire, and the way it ached let him know that it was never going to go away. He was never going to be warm again. He wasn’t fine with that, in the moment. He was too tired to stand, and so he just laid there. He was too tired for the tears to fall, so he shivered himself to sleep instead.
When he woke up he was in a hospital, being treated for a myriad of illnesses and symptoms, that, when combined, had been identified as soul deficiency disorder. They poked him for a bit, but ultimately he was fine, as healthy as could be expected. They tried to get him to spill why he had done it, but he wouldn't tell them the truth. Eventually he lied and said that he had been trying to bring his brother back from the dead, even though everyone knew that didn’t work. His parents called a few times, said he was an idiot, then never visited. Eventually they discharged him with a prescription for antidepressants which they all knew weren't going to do anything, and some advice on where to find support groups.
Intellectually he knew that nothing was going to work. Nothing would dull the cold emptiness that filled his chest now. He still tried. He bought a ton of electric blankets and hand warmers, when those didn’t work he tried boiling water. It hurt, but it didn’t work. Then he tried to get at the inside. Drinking the boiling water, chugging too hot tea, filling himself with random people, downing the spiciest food he could find in London, importing ghost peppers, and anything else he could think of trying short of setting himself on fire, which was scientifically proven to be the worst thing someone could do. Eventually he came to terms with what anyone could have already told him. None of these extreme measures were doing anything but hurting him, and the most he could do was take small comforts in the form of hand warmers and hot drinks. So that’s what he did, filling his house with reusable warmers and portable heaters and more tea than he had ever found himself drinking before. That and alcohol. Lots of alcohol. He never went to any of the in person support groups, but he joined some online forums, and that was fine he guessed. He followed advice, shared his results, offered sympathy, shared good news and all that. He followed the rules, never disclosed the specifics of his deal, kept himself from wallowing in pity and shame. Turned up a bit of a fuss when he stood by his deal. He didn’t regret anything. Most people disagreed with him about that, but he found some like minded people. He made friends with a few of them, even as he threw himself into his work. He had a new job at the Magnus Institute, and was carrying home some books on architecture he’d checked out from the library when the first attack happened.
There was a burning, all-encompassing pain through his whole body, accumulating at his chest. It felt like there was molten glass shattering into every nerve, and he screamed as he fell to the ground. The other people exiting the tube station all looked at him in discomfort. He couldn’t really do anything, just hold himself close and ride out the agony. His whole body was filled with pain and nausea, and he felt like his ribs were shattering and embedding their shards into his lungs. He must have made quite a scene, because when he blinked the tears out of his eyes there was a paramedic in front of him. They rushed him to the doctor, where a look at his medical history and a description of his symptoms confirmed that he was suffering from both types of SDD. Soul deficiency disorder, and soul displacement disorder, which was colloquially considered to be so much worse. Tim’s soul was not in his body, leading to severe depression and warped perceptions of body temperature, which fucking sucked but it was manageable if one had the right insurance. The issue was, that wherever Tim’s soul was, it wasn’t in a demon’s stomach. The Demon that had taken his soul had postponed consuming it, in favor of manipulating it in select ways to cause Tim significant amounts of psychological pain. It was almost funny, watching the nurse try to be clinical while explaining to him that he was being personally tortured by a manifestation of evil for no other reason than sheer, unmotivated cruelty. So there was a demon out there somewhere, using Tim’s life essence as a stress toy, making him collapse in agonizing pain at random times, and he only had himself to blame. Which was less than ideal. But his contract was still in place. He couldn’t die. He tested it, tentatively at first, then boldly. Turns out it worked by some kind of statistical magic. If there was even a tiny chance of him somehow surviving something, he would. Large falling objects glanced off his shoulders. Knives missed his vital points. A passing boater fished him out of the water of the Thames, and some very surprised EMTs managed to restart his heart after he stopped it. It still hurt like hell, but nothing could compare to how it felt when his soul was stretched and squeezed and pierced by the Demon, who did it less when he was actively in the middle of trying to kill himself, because it was definitely watching him. Pervert.
He didn’t expect himself to mellow out eventually, but there wasn’t anything else he could do. Testing his limits any more aggressively would get the government’s attention, and it wasn’t like he wanted to die yet anyway. The attacks continued, but he learned to grin and bear it after a while. Painkillers didn’t do anything unless he took three times the safe dosage, in which case it numbed the intensity a little bit. He went ahead and used them, it wasn’t like he could die of an overdose anyway. Contrary to popular misconceptions, people with ssd could actually have emotions, feel love, have empathy, and anything else he could think of. So it came to pass that Tim Stoker, a serious contender for most pathetic and bitter man alive, found himself feeling almost… stable? Content wasn’t the word, nor was happy, but it was better than he’d had in a long time. He fell into a comfortingly mundane routine. He woke up, packed a thermos of boiling tea, stocked his bag with enough hand warmers to last through the day, as well as the slim heating pad he would put on the back of his chair once he got to work. A little bottle of the hottest hot sauce he could reliably get in London, and an unlawful amount of painkillers, and he was off.
The Magnus Institute was a shockingly normal place to work. He answered emails, wrote reports, flirted with his coworkers, and researched how to kill the 19th century clown that mutilated his brother. Normal work things. He had become fast friends with one Sasha James, wormed his way into the good graces of a grumpy Jonathan Sims, and was slowly but surely gaining the trust of Martin Blackwood, who had finally agreed to go out to drinks with the rest of them later that week. Tim had been fighting a minor bout of torment when he asked that last time, and some part of it must have showed on his face, because Martin had never said yes before. Tim hoped he didn’t feel pressured, but was quickly losing his trepidation with excitement for the night. He only hoped he didn’t mess it up somehow. That would be unideal for sure.