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insane-control-room · 2 months

Text

rinse and repeat

His job was a grisly one- find the works of the avatars, document them, and then undo them. Then prevent them. Most of the avatars did not like him constantly 'destroying' their work. Most. Not all of them.

rated: T warnings: described death. AU: TMA Length: 1,500 words (short-medium) notes: i don't know much about TMA, but im having a fun time with friends talking about aus so :3

gift fic for @halfusek ft. magenda (as i unaffectionately call this one)

ao3 link here

The pervasive smell in the room clued him off before anything else. It was the sense of dread worsening that immediately followed, an apprehension that made his stomach knot. A flashlight was beaming towards his feet, red slick appearing at the edges of the fallen beam.

Johan did not want to turn on the light, though he could see the words superimposed on the wall above the small switch, a demand rather than a thought. Steeling himself, he flicked it on, filling the room with an unsteady, buzzing light.

Immediately, regret- no, not regret, some other sad emotion- filled him.

The filing room had a desk with three chairs in the center- or usually situated in the center, as they had been moved aside for a ladder that now took stage center left. A few papers were scattered about, ruffling Johan mildly. However, his job was not a pleasant one, and sometimes included observing mis-managed paperwork, and… other, worse things. Such as the corpse - his true purpose for entering the room. He noted the body, at true stage center, was perhaps two or three hours old.

It was a gruesome death.

Suffocation, electrocution, and decapitation all played their roles.

It was hard to tell which had killed him, though Johan snapped on a pair of gloves, and set himself to documenting the gritty scene.

A ladder.

A box of tools.

Electrician’s gear taken out.

It seemed like Bert- the man had taken upon himself to fix a faulty wire. Johan followed the trail to the circuit board and fuse box, and broke past the paneling to see the back of the fuses.

A group of four were miswired. The dead man had turned off the wrong one, without even knowing it.

It made Johan frown and sigh. How pointless.

He returned to the ladder, climbing upwards. Several wires were already dangling loosely, and Johan narrowed his eyes as he attempted to determine the sequence of events.

One of the wires hummed quietly.

Johan traced its path, noting the bloodied loop at one ridge. That would be the decapitation, potentially if the man had fallen forward. Pulling out a tape measure, he checked the likely trajectory. Unfortunately, it lined up. Which meant that indeed, the decapitation had happened last.

A pity.

It would have been the fastest death.

Johan nudged the ladder. It was sturdy. He looked along the wire, along the corpse.

The bruising by the neck was no longer severe, as it all had been, well, cut, but from what he could see, there had been significant pressure upon it. If Johan were to piece together the order of events (which was exactly what he was doing at the moment), he would have said as follows.

Bertrum turned off the fuse box, unaware that what he was turning off had nothing to do with the task he had taken upon himself. As the light switch was off, and the flashlight lay dimming, Johan decided that the man had not bothered to check the lights when he entered the room, setting down supplies. Had he paused to ensure that the fuse was off, he may have survived.

Doubtful.

Some other unfortunate happenstance would have occurred, perhaps more grisly than this.

Regardless. Continuing reconstruction.

Bertrum had then climbed up the ladder, and began working on rewiring the faulty electrical system. A significant burn on his hand, searing through to his flesh, explained the rest. While he was removing the old wire, he had gotten entangled, and as he had tried to pull it off, his hand brushed an unexposed part of the live wire. Then, with his body stiffening to the current, he must have lost his balance.

Severing his throat on the wire.

Johan was meticulous in his documentation. If he was not, he may miss something in the next run that would result in another failure. Or he might get himself… quite hurt. Usually the latter always left him snapping awake in his threadbare bed, gasping for breath and with a dull painful sensation in his chest, ready to try again. However, that was an outcome he tried to avoid.

Speaking of things that one tried to avoid….

Johan heard him before he saw him, the slightly off rhythm gait giving him away. Glancing around the room with a sigh, he acknowledged that:

Magenta had some connection to the death;

Magenta was drawn towards it, like a fly to rotting flesh.

It may have been both.

He said nothing as the other lanky man entered the room, smiling.

Magenta surveyed the scene calmly, suppressing a shiver of delight. He said nothing to Johan, who was marking which of the wires were live. Johan rolled his eyes, and went back to examining the bad wire to determine where its true source really was to make sure that when he corrected this misconstrued blip, he did it properly - once. Magenta watched him work with a smile blandly painted over his face.

Eventually, Johan pulled out a chair, on the opposite side of the table from the corpse, and sat in it heavily, another sigh fighting to escape him. Magenta watched keenly, though his eyes were half open. Johan moved back a second chair, silently expectant, and Magenta sat in it.

“This one is fun, isn't it?” Magenta commented lightly, a smile still on his face. Johan shrugged glumly, staring at the paperwork before him instead of the body just beyond the desk. Unique, certainly; saddening, yes. Not quite so ‘fun’ for him, especially when one considered what his job entailed. “Don’t look so down, Jo!”

“Kinda hard not to when there’s a dead body in f-front of me,” Johan retorted, brow furrowing and mouth twitching downwards. Magenta shrugged, smiling still. “And when it’s so….”

“Purposeful?” Magenta questioned, teeth glinting in his smile. Johan stared at him, not enjoying the shudder of upset that he tried to hide. Magenta noticed it anyway. “Well, maybe that’s not the right word. Artistic might be a better one.”

“Right,” Johan mumbled. It surely was an artistic death. “Maybe the creator might have done well to warn me. Content warnings or w-whatever.”

Here Magenta frowned.

Johan looked away, abashed.

“S-sorry. That was unkind of me. I’m on edge.”

“Sure,” Magenta rolled his eyes, leaning back. Johan stood, picking up the clipboard, making some final measurements and documentations. “Don’t forget the dead fuse.”

Johan tilted his head as he looked at him. Magenta raised an eyebrow, a silent dare to check him. Johan saw no need to do so- as he would be able to check when he would do his… ‘cleanup’. Not to mention, despite the man’s goals, Johan trusted Magenta. Which may have been the fault of memories not his own.

The older man matched the tilt of his head, humorous.

“What?” he asked, a slight grin at the edges of his mouth. Johan’s lips parted to say something, and then closed. Magenta’s smile broadened cheekily, eyes flashing. “Oh, dear. Be more careful, Jo! We wouldn’t want…” Magenta glanced at Bertrum’s mutilated, burned corpse, fighting his smile from growing wider. “An accident.”

“Why d-did you tell me about it?” Johan asked, faced with a troubled emotion that he locked up and decided that he would not think about or confront. Magenta’s smile remained unchanging. “Mag….”

The other man stood up, still evenly looking at Johan.

“You’re smart, Jo,” the avatar of The End chided, tapping the end of Johan’s nose. “Think about it.”

“The resetting, I kn-know,” Johan replied, pursing his lips. He knew why Magenta was much more tranquil and compliant around him than the other essences of fears, who generally disliked watching Johan undo their work time after time. Not Magenta, though. Magenta was quite happy with the fact that he was able to expand on his medium repeatedly thanks to Johan’s role. “But why warn me a-about the fuse not working? You know what h-happens to me if… an ‘accident’ does occur.”

Magenta shrugged, smile still on his face.

“Thought it might make your day a bit better,” Magenta brightly replied. Johan looked away, face warming. “I’m sure that whatever weird process renews you is no party.”

“It’s… it’s definitely not, no,” Johan agreed, feeling pain creeping along his spine. He exhaled, softening, managing a small smile on his stressed visage. “So… I thank you.”

“It’s nothing, Jo,” Magenta’s own relaxed smile was dazzling, toothy and bright; yet sharklike. It made a trickle of fluster bloom in Johan’s chest, worsened by his next words. “I’m sure you’ll figure out a nicer way to thank me, don’t you think?”

Johan did not reply, looking away, face heating considerably. Magenta laughed a little, a chuckle, and Johan’s blushing intensified. A hand brushed his cheek as Magenta sauntered out of the room.

Johan watched him leave, words he could not describe resting on his tongue, unsure if he should go after the man, properly ‘thank’ him.

Instead, Johan checked his paperwork, inhaled, and reset.

#control art #control writes #batim #bendy and the ink machine #joey drew #johan ramirez #magenta #gift fic #tma au #batim tma #joeyverse #joeyverse tma #complicated relationships #tw death #tw described death #magenda #avatar of the end #archivist jo #slight tension

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