Who: Tim and Daryl What: Daryl puts her nose where it doesn’t belong Where: Tim’s Apartment When: 2/17 (Thursday), around two o’clock Warnings: Nosy Daryl and Angry Tim
Over the last few days, Daryl had found her thoughts returning to Tim’s erratic and out of character behaviors a few weeks prior. There had been no resolution, no ending, and that didn’t sit well with her. Every beginning had an ending. Every event had an explanation. So on Thursday, after taking Toby out for a walk, she drove to the Aubade with her copy of Tim’s key and her set of lockpicks in her bag.
The door man was used to her by now, just giving her a nod as she entered. She climbed the stairs carefully, keeping her hands at her sides. Though she knew that she was protected from the memories that lingered in the stair well, she couldn’t bear even the smallest risk of exposure. Though aerobic exercise wasn’t her strong suit, she rushed up the stairs, uncomfortable with the ghosts that followed her to the seventh floor.
Standing outside the door to 405, she took a deep breath, removing one glove. Just to be sure, she pressed a hand to the doorway, closing her eyes. Time moved in reverse, taking her back past passersby and dead silence. Her first encounter with Tim and Harry was as they left, leaving the apartment empty. With a smirk, she slid her key into the lock and opened it, moving smoothly inside.
The entire apartment was open to her, nothing hidden from her objective eye. She locked the door behind her, looking about the foyer as she debated where to start. The bedroom was always a safe place to begin an investigation. People kept important things close, afraid of what might happen if they slipped out of sight. So she hurried up the stairs, rounding the corner and slipping easily into the bedroom.
First, she removed her gloves, setting them down on the bed. She moved through the room carefully, touching flat surfaces and soaking up memories upon memories that lingered in the furniture. Life transformed into an experience concentrated inside the seat of her mind. Figures moved back and forth, puppets in an elaborate play without a script. Within five minutes, she had lost herself in the past. She was no longer a member of the present, but rather a mind that floated through events that had already happened. She read the past as if it were written in a book, carefully taken down and preserved.
Without realizing, she wandered the perimeter of the room, pausing as she saw something noteworthy: Tim stooped over his bedside end table, expression grim, closing the top drawer. Pulling back from the wall, she looked at the small end table, slowly approaching it. She sat down on the bed beside her gloves, pulling the drawer open with a puzzled expression on her face. There was a great deal of junk inside, old socks and crumpled-up receipts. She pushed them aside, digging about until her fingers touched a simple envelope. Her mind filled with faces, Tim’s and someone else’s in slow succession.
Pursing her lips, she pulled the envelope out of the drawer, settling it on her lap. There was no doubt that this was of grave importance. Tim’s expressions were anxious, upset, fearful. She opened it, immediately greeted by a photograph of the blonde girl - Poppy. Notes and more photographs were stuffed inside, all seemingly with the same origin. Brow creased, she settled on the bed as she surveyed the materials, using both her eyes and her mind. Tim had just returned from a long lunch with Harry, enjoying the moment while it lasted. He was enough of a pessimist to believe that even though they had worked through their problems, there was still a good bit of road left ahead of them to travel. He was only just starting to really open up to Harry, and so far things had been tentative but okay. Harry hadn’t broken into a million pieces just yet, and Tim hadn’t freaked out.
Harry had wanted to watch some movies, but Tim had wanted to change upon returning home so he went upstairs while Harry set up the DVD player. Unaware of Daryl’s presence, Tim began unbuttoning his shirt as he walked into the bedroom, stopping in his tracks as he noticed her sitting on his bed. Holding the blackmail material with her bare hands. His shirt flapped oddly, half open, as he stomped over to her and tore the materials out of her hands. “What are you doing?” he asked, angry that she had gone snooping. The images came fast, tracking through her mind like a DVD on rewind. There were hands and faces, faces and hands. Tim’s expressions dwelt on despair and horror, but finally she had moved back enough to see the blackmailer. He was a sinister man, face always looming just overhead. As she sifted through the memories, she saw clouds of snakes and carefully shut doors. Finally, a number came through clear amidst the haze, three digits that emblazoned on her mind.
And then it was gone.
Blinking in surprise, she gasped belatedly as the materials were ripped from her hands, bare fingers curling instinctively towards her palms. She looked up at him, incredulous at his question. “I should ask you the same thing,” she replied shortly, standing up and looking him in the face. “You and your family are clearly in mortal danger. Why on earth would you hide this from me?” Some distant part of Tim’s mind recognized that her hands were bare, and that it was the first time he had ever seen the skin of her hands, her fingernails. At the moment, however, he was focused on the fact that she had invaded his privacy when he had been nothing but welcoming to her. “It was none of your concern,” he ground out, though a voice in the back of his head reminded him that he had thought the same thing about Harry and to look how that turned out.
“It doesn’t even matter anyway,” Tim added, taking a step back, papers clutched to his chest, as he composed himself slightly. “I did what he asked and he’s left me alone since then.” His voice is filled with his intense belief and desire that his statement was true, but his eyes show the slightest bit of fear. Fear that this entire ordeal wasn’t over, would never be over until whoever it was lay dead at his feet. She raised a brow, expression incredulous. “And yet he still has all of this information. He still can do anything. You didn’t cure the disease, Tim, you treated the symptoms.” She let out a patronizing sigh, folding her arms over her chest. “And you know it.”
Fixated, she looked from the papers in his hands to his face. “Pacifying someone like this does nothing. The problem must be resolved at its source.” Tim narrowed his eyes at her as she spoke, tension radiating off his skin. She was right, he knew that, but that didn’t give her the right to sneak into his apartment and meddle in things that were none of her business. Part of why he had left her out of all of it was because he didn’t want her to get hurt.
“It will be, but not by you,” Tim replied, voice firm and with a slight edge to it. “Daryl, I’m warning you. Stay out of this.” He couldn’t stress this to her enough. She needed to drop it, and drop it now. After a moment, he pointed her to the door. “Go home Daryl.” Who else could resolve a problem better than she could? No one. The very idea was laughable. So she just raised a brow at him, nodding as he commanded that she leave. “Very well,” she said delicately. Without a word, she turned back to the bed, picking up her gloves and sliding them on. She glanced back to Tim, expression perfectly neutral. “I hope that I didn’t startle you too terribly.”
Though she regretted not having a copy of the blackmail materials to study at home, she knew enough. She knew where the man lived, which was a start. Now, she would just have to pay his apartment a visit - for research, of course. Without saying another word, she moved smoothly to the open doorway, pausing just briefly to glance over her shoulder at the man behind her. It was almost insulting that he thought she couldn’t solve this. Well. He would know better soon. With a small half-wave, she disappeared, leaving the bedroom - and a flabbergasted Tim - behind.