Author's Notes
Word Count: 2k
Trigger Warnings: Hallucinations/psychosis, implied abuse

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For the most part, Toby and Tim barely spoke. It had always been that way, in and out of missions, and Toby never bothered to wonder why Tim was adamant on avoiding conversation with him. He'd listen as Tim and Brian would talk for hours through the walls about nonsensical bullshit, so he knew the man had a chatty voice box. Toby would lay on the couch, allowing the voices, muffled by the wall, smooth him to sleep. He's never been able to sleep in complete silence.

Today was different. Toby was laying on the small couch in the living room, his eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling above him. The couch he was on was more like a loveseat; two cushions with barely enough a room to stretch across. He would find himself with his knees bent awkwardly in the mornings. It felt like a night just like all the others, except there was a distinct absence of something crucial. It took him a while to identify just exactly what that something was, when he realized: he was laying in utter silence.

He sat himself up, listening intently to the stillness around him. He felt like a child as he pressed his ear against the wall, straining to hear any presence of Tim and Brian on the other side. Dead quiet. He slipped off of the loveseat and crept cautiously down the hallway, and subconsciously kept to the wall. Thankfully for him, the hallway was short, and took him directly to the bedroom door. With little regard for privacy, Toby pushed the door ajar.

A nightstand, home to the orange bottles, rattling with stolen medication. A desk, unused. A bed, unmade and disheveled, and bland with its stoic white sheets. The floor was littered with whatever trash had been left here by the previous home owners. The men never cleaned, wherever it was that they stayed, unless it was a mess they made themselves. Leave no traces, Tim always warned. Toby hadn't heeded his warnings until his own stupid incompetence resulted in the most exhilarating police chase of his life.

The man slinked into the room, catlike, as he inspected what remanence of the other two he could collect. Above all else, Toby wanted to know where they were. He hadn't seen them pass through the living room and there had been no footsteps creaking through the hall. He noted that the window in the room was slightly open, allowing a draft to sink into the room. He shut the window tightly.

As his gaze traveled over the floor, his skin began to crawl and the back of his neck pricked. A hard swallow, a shuddering breath, and the stiffening of his shoulders indicated that the boy was succumbing to fear.

Boy. Toby cringed. Boy. Boy. Boy. Boy. Boy. Boy.

The window rattled slightly, and Toby's eyes snapped over towards it like prey. He didn't have much time to react before brutal pounding on the bedroom door nearly restarted Toby's heart. He whirled back around and stared steadily at the tall, white barricade. Was somebody home? His eyes glanced towards a clock he hadn't seen earlier in the room, but he had seen that clock before. 6:47am, it read, and Toby's mouth felt dry. No, no he wasn't meant to be home. He opened his mouth to respond, but nothing escaped the threshold of his tightening throat.

The banging started again, only this time far more vigorous. The aggression behind every pound of a clenched fist- flesh against wood- made him feel sick. "Boy!" A voice growled dangerously, barely muffled by the door. "Get your ass out here, boy!" Toby recognized that voice but it hadn't quite clicked for him who it belonged to. He tried his hardest to conjure up a face in his mind. Light skin, dark skin, no, tanned skin. Dirty skin. Dark hair, similar to Toby's but straight as a board, so not Toby's. Teeth. Teeth, rotten and stained. Hands strong and scarred, labor-worn, and tattered from misuse.

The sudden, pungent odor of alcohol had tsunami-ed over his senses. Toby felt his face flush and his stomach churn. Canned beer, bottles of moonshine, he could remember those distinctly. Instinctively, Toby darted forward in a flash and snapped the lock closed in one swift and calculated motion. He felt as if he knew this door- as though this door was his door, and his own way to shut out the evils that lurked beyond the warm embrace of his bedsheets.

"Toby!" The voice grew louder and Toby's hands flung up to his ears in a desperate attempt to drown it out. The sound scratched at his ears, gnawing on his brain. It was agonizingly uncomfortable. He had learned by now, though, never to outwardly plea for it to cease.

"Toby! Toby, god damnit! Tobias! Toby! Toby, Toby, Toby! To-

-by! Toby! Shit, open the door, dumbass!" The voice had suddenly morphed into a much different sound. Masculine and rough, still, but far less threatening. He hinted concern in the owner's tone. Toby's hands lowered and he wearily eyed the door. It no longer felt familiar to him. Cautiously, Toby reach out and fumbled with the lock for a few seconds, before figuring it out and unlatching it. The door burst open.

In the doorway stood Tim. Masky, if you will, given the presence of the man's signature artifact resting at home on his face. Toby didn't have time to take in his appearance by further, because the man was at his throat almost instantly. "What the fuck were you doing!?" Toby was promptly cut off, as he had tried to form an answer. "What is wrong with you— shit, Brian and I had only stepped out for 30 minutes, and come back to hear you yelling in this room like the god damn tables turned on you!"

Masky's hand his found his way naturally to Toby's shoulder, just at the crook of his neck, with a thumb crossed over Toby's throat. The younger man was against the wall, staring into the black eyes of the mask that became his face. "You're practically begging for your fucking demise, Rogers, so don't push that shit any further than you have." Despite the dangerously low and threatening tone of Masky's voice, Toby felt calm and he felt relaxed. His body had melted against the hard wall, and he watched Masky with a relieved gaze.

"I don't know, Masky." Toby murmured quietly. He was surprised to learn that he had been yelling.. he doesn't remember ever making a sound. "Why the hell were you and Brian outside at.. 6am?" He shot back the accusations, and it was met with a slight tilt of Masky's head.

"6am?" He echoed. "Toby, it's midnight at the latest."

Toby opened his voice to deny, his eyes flickering towards the clock on the wall to defend himself, but his mouth promptly snapped closed. There was no clock. Considering the poor guy was standing there gaped like a fish, Masky figured to save him the embarrassment. "Go get some sleep." He grumbled, releasing his shoulder and stepping away from him.

—————————

"He's like a terrified child sometimes. Or maybe like a clingy dog."

"Or possibly, just maybe, he's a human being with separation anxiety."

Tim and Brian resided in the bedroom together. Brian lay sprawled out across the bed, his eyes fixated on the small book in his hand. Tim stood, pacing, and maneuvering around every bit of clutter on the floor. He was careful not to make a pathway with his feet. They conversed about Toby like this often. Tim was typically irritated by something Toby did or said, and Brian would act as the voice of reason to battle out Tim's frankly insulting remarks.

Brian had nothing against Toby. In fact, he didn't entirely mind him. Would he rather be working with Tim alone? Sure, why wouldn't he. But did he also acknowledge that Toby wasn't the annoying brat Tim tried to paint him as? Definitely. "You know," he hummed out, eyebrows furrowed up at the book he was reading. "You should be more like this. Listen, 'Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?' Eh?"

He peered around the book just in time to get Tim's expression drop. His dark gaze turned to glower at his friend, who offered him a cheeky grin. "Did you just throw a Bible verse at me?"

"It was the only book in the drawer."

"Of course it was."

"Besides, it's not like I can tell you to take that pole out of your ass again and expect you to listen."

"Oh, so we've upgraded from stick to pole?"

"Yup! Careful, it might size up to a pillar. I haven't heard good things about those."

Tim held Brian's mighty stare for a few seconds too long. Before he knew it, he had a hand slapped over his mouth in a desperate attempt to conceal his laughter. The remark wasn't even funny, these two are just dorks. Brian slapped the Bible closed and allowed it to slide off of the bed and onto the floor beside it with a soft thump. The bellowing laughter quieted to snickers, and eventually died altogether. They rejoiced in the silence, catching their breaths, with small content smiles on their faces.

It wasn't long before Brian broke the silence. "I'm not kidding though, Tim." He watched his friends smirk falter. "Toby isn't that bad. If you had a little more patience with him, maybe things wouldn't go wrong the way they do."

"So are his screw ups my fault?" There was a bite behind that. "All because I'm expected to risk everything on behalf of his slowness?"

"No, Tim. Toby's clearly traumatized-"

"As are we, Brian." Tim's voice rose slightly, and it caught Brian's attention swiftly. "Need I remind you-" he was cut off by Brian's disagreement, so he quieted for a moment. "... Whatever he's been through doesn't excuse his constantly distracting tendencies and needs. I'm not talking about his twitchy ass, or his clear ADHD that could've be any louder if it tried, no. I'm talking about his blatant disregard of what we are trying to do here."

"And what is that, exactly?" Brian's eyebrow lifted skeptically. "What are we trying to accomplish, that he isn't?"

"Survival. That kid-"

"He's a grown adult, Tim. Address him as such."

"That guy jumps off of roofs, throws himself in rivers, and repeatedly puts himself in danger at our expense. I know the pain doesn't affect him, but holy fucking shit does it affect me." Tim didn't notice the slight cock of Brian's head in curiosity as that statement. Otherwise, he likely would've shut up right then.

"The amount of times I've had to carry him back to our hideouts, drenched in his own blood and barely conscious, drives me insane. If he isn't right beside me at all times during a mission I feel like I'm about to have a heart attack because who knows where he's at."

Tim could've fooled Brian. Up until this point, he had been certain that there wasn't an ounce of genuine care that Tim had to give for Toby. Though, perhaps, if Brian had been paying enough attention, he'd have picked up on the concerned murmuring from time to time.

Tim continued on. "If I didn't climb out of windows to go out at night for supplies, I know he'd be begging to come with us, and I wouldn't be able to say no regardless of how badly I'd want to. It's bad enough 9 times out of 10 I come back to him having a panic attack because he can't be alone for 2 seconds! The Operator can shit on me all he wants- one of these days, I swear, I'll leave that waste of space on a curb somewhere."

Tim's yelling fell upon a pair of deaf ears. Brian's eyes were trained on the door, staring past the heavier figure who had since planted himself in front of Brian. Tim furrowed his brows in confusion. He followed his friend's gaze, trailing it with the slow turn of head, until he and Brian's conjoined stares were fixed on the silhouette of a figure behind the closed door. Alongside deaf ears, Tim had been heard all too clearly by another pair.

Tim swallowed thickly, then muttered under his breath, defeated. "Shit."