Paul Matthews - Tumblr Posts
I'm just so glad that Paul has been in every single Hatchetfield show, and even every season of Nightmare Time. He's the face of the series. He's Mr. Hatchetfield. I love him so much.
I'm Almost Me Again / [He's] Almost You
“Curt, love?” He calls out, leaning against the archway entry of the kitchen to get the attention of his boyfriend, who’s sitting on the couch, busying himself with case files that Paul is sure would go right over his head.
“Yeah, O?” Curt says, without even looking up, and then freezes. Paul watches his muscles tense, his gaze move from the files in his hands to the vague distance.
[Paul calls Curt 'love' for the first time. It forces Curt to tell him about Owen.]
Find it here: AO3 Link
reblog and put in the tags your favourite autistic character (doesn’t matter whether it’s canon or not)
i’ve been making hatchetfield characters in the makowka picrew and i’m having a ball. so i guess if you wanna see a specific character, send me an ask and i’ll make them (or post them if i’ve already made them)
paul and emma as examples of my stylized blorbos
paul matthews you would love quaxly
*twirls hair* oh my god he’s sooooooooo doomed by the narrative!
emma is paul’s #1 fan but also his biggest hater but also his best friend
this is a paul matthews protecting his friends appreciation post
BILL
he tries to hold his hand
and i guess he failed to protect bill
CHARLOTTE
and finally
EMMA
paul used to babysit alice and if u think that never ended in paul falling asleep on the couch after putting her to bed, and then bill coming home and experiencing complex emotions? ur missing out
would you believe this groupchat is called “the billpaul trenches” (ft @ccrptechnical @finchmund)
He Would Not Fucking Say That - but I really wish he would so I'm going to submerge myself in the fantasy of what could happen if this character managed to pull his head out of his ass even once
I know that, in canon, the Latte Hatte is Zoey, but my headcanon is that Ted is actually referring to Nora because he's a pathetic wet cat of a man with a Type. There is no actual "Latte Hatte" because everyone just imagines whichever of the three Beanie's workers they like and rolls with it.
Ted's goes "ah, yeah, the Latte Hatte (Nora)" and Paul nods sagely "indeed, the Latte Hatte (Emma)" while Bill's like "Don't talk that way about her (Zoey); she reminds me of my daughter!"
Y’all my brain is infected, I can’t stop drawing domestic Paulkins. They are the weirdest most normal 30 year olds ever.
I’d love to see your take on the ccrp employees dynamic (bill, charlotte, paul & ted ykyk) I’d love to see more Gen fics about their wacky hijinks solve it squad style
Solve it squad style, you say? Well it just so happens that @scripted-downfall and I had this headcanon one time that I think may be pretty relevant to this ask
So, solve it squad... Ghosts, demonic apostles, you get the gist. What if the reason why Ted thinks Paul is his best friend but Paul doesn't seem to agree is because Ted befriended the ghost of Paul prime instead and genuinely can't tell the difference?
And what if that was relevant to this fic?
The day that Paul Matthews first arrived at Coven Communications Research and Power, there was a cataclysmic shift in the very force of the building itself. Everything that was within— be it the people or the very foundations of the building that had stood for so many years—experienced the motion, but nobody paid any mind to it. There had been many shifts of varying levels of catastrophic over the years; results of the scientific teams of years past trialling their experiments on the lower floors. These days, it had occurred so often that the technicians who shared the building with these borderline illegal experiments were entirely used to it, and even elected to ignore it after a while.
Bumps in the night? Bumps in the middle of the day when a whole floor of people were checking emails and pretending to look busy? All of that was just second nature. One could almost time their breaks by the way the building shook. or calculate exactly when the end of another month was coming, because there was always something that wiped out the electricals.
So, when Paul arrived and everything changed, the worst anyone could think was that the usual schedule of these things playing out simply happened a little earlier than normal. Nobody cared enough about the disturbance of the routine to think about the fact that something may have been entirely wrong.
Ted payed little attention to the world at the best of times. Sometimes— and it was a wonder how he managed to work on the same floor as everyone else who regularly noticed the disturbances— but rarely an occasion passed in which he actually realised anything had happened. How he went about working there without a single indication as to what was going on astounded everyone, and yet he continued to go through with it every single day.
He was taking a smoke break out of the back door, gazing out at the view. Sometimes, he swore he could see the waterfront from here… The bricks were cold against his back, and his breath was hanging in the air despite the fact that he hadn't yet lit the cigarette, let alone taken a drag from it.
November.
Winter was on the horizon, and the late morning air was stiff with it's chill. Now was as good a time as any to feel the heat from something, and he certainly had more dignity than to drink on the job. So, the cigarette was a necessity.
He lit up, and took a drag, particularly tired despite the fact that it was not yet afternoon. This was a different kind of tired, the kind that was deep set and didn't tend to leave the system easily. Today, then, was going to be one of those days where nothing would feel right. At least it was a useful caveat that nobody actually expected anything from him, that much had been solidly guaranteed by the fact that he tended towards doing the absolute bare minimum at any given point. He knew what he was talking about, of course he did, but the only thing he really cared about was keeping his job on the line, and that could be achieved by doing the least amount of work he could and not thinking about it too hard.
He'd heard from the mutterings around the place that someone else was supposed to be joining them on the office floor at some point in the day, but he was yet to notice anything different. The same people had occupied the same spaces for so long that he was sure he'd notice if there was someone new, but then again, he had been the recent reipient of a promotion because of the fact that he managed to singlehandedly save an entire project from collapse just by knowing what he was doing. Often, he did find himself wondering how it came to be that these people managed to get themselves tecchnical jobs when it was more than obvious that none of them were qualified to do it. He wondered especially about people like Bill, who it seemed barely knew how to use a computer, let alone the software within…
Bill, it seemed, wasn't his priority here. The priority was in the fact that his recent promotion had led to an empty desk, and that meant that someone was likely to fill it. But who? Were they finally going to get another person with the right qualifications to see them through the seemingly endless number of demands set on by the gruelling schedule?
His smoke break was interrupted by someone opening the door to his side. Keeping the cigarette exactly in place, he turned his head, and was met with a man that he hadn't seen before. Finally, listening to the talk in the break room finally payed off for something…
The stranger was tall, decked out in a full three piece suit that seemed a little too much overkill for an office that mostly relied on crumpled shirts and ties found in a charity drive or thrift store somewhere. There was an air of professionalism about him, though whether that was down to the three piece or his really well done hair was beyond Ted a little.
He just… Stood there for a while, like he wasn't exactly sure what he was doing outside in the first place. Ted kept an eye on him, through taking another drag of his cigarette and stamping out the remains under his shoe. The longer he stood there, the more uncomfortable Ted grew, and eventually, it got to a point where he couldn't take it anymore. He cleared his throat, pushing himself up off the wall and turning his full attention towards the tall stranger. "Hey, pal, you just gonna keep standing there or what?"
That seemed to startle the stranger, as if he hadn't noticed Ted was there at all. It was hard to have ignored him, given that they were just as tall as each other, and Ted came equipped with the lingering smell of cigarette smoke. But, all the same, it seemed that he genuinely hadn't been noticed, and in actually saying something, he had now been given the full attention of this weirdo who'd wandered out through the door and then done nothing else.
"Are you… Okay?"
There had still been no response, other than the fact that his presence had now been acknowledged. Ted was just about ready to back down, to ask him to get out of his way so he could move on back to his office, but then he saw the stranger nod.
"Didn't think it'd be this cold…"
No remarkable accent… No remarkable features… It was like this guy was designed not to stand out in any way, and for some reason, that was needlessly enticing. Ted was curious, to say the least, but he really didn't have the time for this, did he? Surely there was… Something he could be getting back to… Right?
"Yeah, no, gotta say, it's only gettin' colder. Might not wanna hang around here too long."
Why did he say that? Why did he say anything at all, was he not capable of leaving this curiosity well enough alone?
Apparently not.
The stranger regarded him again, but there was absolutely nothing discernable about his expression. It was almost like his eyes held absolutely no indicator of anything going on in his head. Now that was curious. Ted had never been this curious about anything, but it figured that he would finally get his moment when he least expected it. "Maybe not," he agreed eventually, in that bland, inconspicuous voice of his.
"You must be the new guy then, right? Don't think I've seen you around before, and I haven't seen anyone bothered enough to buy themselves a three piece in a long time…"
"Mhm, new… You could say that. I'm Paul."
Paul.
God, Ted was right about the fact that the stranger had absolutely nothing special going for him. This guy had it all, he was so basic that he was literally primed for being invisible to the world. And yet, Ted had noticed him anyway. Invisible, but curious enough in his habits and mannerisms that he couldn't help but to be noticed. The thought of it was enough to bring a half smile to Ted's face as he sauntered past, making for the open door that Paul had left behind as he made his way into the cold. "Ted." He hummed in return, leaning out of the door. "I'll see you around, Paul. Don't let em catch ya."
And sure enough, he did see him around. With the strangest feeling that he was about to make a friend in that guy out there, he'd left to return to his own office, and had passed the desk on the way. It wasn't occupied, just as he expected. The guy occupying it— Paul— was outside, probably doing exactly what he'd just been doing himself. Figures. First day in and he was already looking for somewhere to catch a break… Welcome to CCRP, Paul. You get used to the need for escape after a while.
Ted had closed the door to his office by the time Paul returned to his desk. If he hadn't, he'd have noticed that Paul took way too short a break for him to have had a cigarette in the process, or the fact that he came back drying his hands on a paper towel that he dropped into the bin by his side. By all accounts, it was the same man— down to the brown, almost black colouring of his suit and the way that his hair was done— but there was one major difference that the outside Paul managed to cover up well.
What Ted had failed to notice was that there was a blossom of a darker shade not too far away from the center of outside Paul's chest, one that had managed to stain the fabric of his suit, but had dried in near enough the same colour. Ted also failed to notice the fact that he was a few shades paler than what would've been deemed healthy, or that he wasn't entirely… on the planet. But, Ted didn't tend to notice a lot, and that wasn't surprising.
It became surprising when they took lunch later that day, and decided to drag the new guy along to the sandwich place downtown. Ted and Bill were known to frequent that place, and they brought Charlotte along whenever she fancied a step away from the normal. But, nice guy as he was, Bill had invited Paul out for lunch before Ted could even think to protest. Not like he would, of course, he seemed a fine enough guy, but he was only informed of this decision on an extremely last minute basis, and didn't have the time to prepare, so he just asked Charlotte along too.
Apparently, the two of them had been talking to Paul throughout the day, not only trying to get him acquainted with the place, but also getting to know him a little better, too. Bill seemed to be getting on swell with him, although Ted could tell it was only a matter of time before they ended up clashing over something, and Paul came to regret that desk right next to him.
One thing that didn't go unnoticed was the fact that Paul didn't seem to be carrying around with him the indication that he'd been smoking. There wasn't any kind of bag on his desk, and his pockets didn't look like he were carrying a packet of cigarettes with him. Asides from a well needed "breath of fresh air" that some people were inclined towards, there was no other reason why someone would exit the building by the back entrance after they'd only been there for an hour at best, was there?
It happened that Paul didn't say a word directly to him during the entire break, and they didn't have cause to see each other afterwards, but Ted had enough time to consider it the strangest part of the entire day— stranger even than the way Paul had just stood there by the door, silent and unmoving— that he ended up confronting the man when next he saw him.
Same suit. God damn, this guy really didn't have any imagination, did he? There was really nothing else to be said on the matter, other than the fact that, if this kept going, Paul could well be accused of being a cartoon character, with multiple copies of the same outfit adorning his wardrobe, and nothing else.
But, some people wore the same clothes twice. He was certainly guilty of that, anyway… So, that went unspoken for a while, and Ted elected tojust get on with what he'd wanted to say in the first place.
"Hey, what gives, Paul?"
"I don't… What're you talking about?" Paul asked, raising an eyebrow. Ted glared at him. What a stupid response that was. As if he didn't know…
"Yeah, you do. Yesterday, when Bill invited you out for lunch with us? You spent the whole time pretending you didn't even know me! You and I were out here not an hour before, so again, what gives?"
For all it was worth, Paul looked genuinely confused, and then something dawned on him and his eyes went wide. The last thing he remembered seeing before all went dark and he woke up like this was… His own face, standing over him, holding a bloody knife. There wasn't just one, either, there were multiple…. At least three different versions of himself all ganging up on him, leaving the one with the knife to take his revenge as he so desired.
That hadn't made sense to him until now. The reason why Ted was so peeved suddenly made sense too, and there was little he could do about it from this vantage point. He was dead, and if that other version of him— the one with the knife— had taken his place, then there was little he could do to stop it. "Ted, I— that's—"
Ted leaned back against the wall, arms folded over his chest, waiting on somethign coherent that he could actually use as a viable excuse why Paul was acting the way he was yesterday. Still, he failed to notice that part of this one's blazer was darker than the other one, and still, he failed to notice the fact that there was two versions of the same man in the building, but only one of them was actually alive.
"What? C'mon, I have all day, apparently! What the hell was that?"
Paul prime sighed. There was no easy way to explain this, not one that Ted would be able to constitute in this small break he'd given himself. Maybe one day, if he was curious enough to ever come back when he wasn't supposed to be working, but for now, a lie would have to suffice. "First day neves. I'm… Sorry."
There was a part of Ted telling him not to buy into that, but at the same time, it was an explanation, and it did make some kind of sense if he thought about it. It was the fact that Bill had invited him, and the fact that the two had only seen each other for a short time before Ted had left him behind and not seen him again until lunch. That was good enough grounds to act the way he had, and the explanation of his nerves made a little sense, at the end of the day. He nodded, not entirely satisfied but for the sake of playing along. "Nerves, huh?"
"Yeah. Nerves. I'm a nervous guy. Overthinker… You know how it is…"
Ted did not. He nodded anyways, in the spirit of moving things along. "Right. Sure."
===
It took him three weeks to figure out that something was wrong. It took him three weeks to leave Paul on an invitation of getting coffee, and then finding him in the middle of the corridor not five minutes later, deep into a conversation with Bill about something he hadn't cared to listen to. That had stopped him in his tracks. First of all, how Paul had gotten there before him, and second, how he had managed to get away with starting and being in the middle of a conversation with someone else. They hadn't passed each other on the way there at all, and there was never any particular indication that Paul was a fast walker, so it really managed to take Ted by surprise. He'd stopped in his tracks, but had turned and started running down the corridor before either Paul or Bill could notice he was ever there.
He had to know what was going on. Both men went by Paul, so this wasn't some elaborate prank set on by a pair of identical twin brothers (and besides, who would be mad enough to do that in an office block, when they'd only been there for a month?), but he didn't have another way to explain it to himself. He found outside Paul on the bottom floor, talking idly to one of the scientists on the first floor, and managed to get his attention quickly. Paul drew away from the conversation as soon as it came to it's own natural cause— one spurred on by the fact that both men noticed Ted was there, and the scientist quickly fleeing out of a need to get some work done— and wandered over towards Ted.
"Something wrong, man?" He asked, carefully.
"Something wrong?" Ted repeated, spurring himself on with the knowledge of what he'd just seen, and the memory of how surprised Paul had looked to have been noticed on that first day. Just like the scientist had been just then… "Yeah, I'd say so. Pretty sure I'm drunk, or something, and I haven't had a drink in weeks!"
Paul shot him a pointed glance.
"… Okay, days. But that's not the point. I'm not drunk right now, and I wasn't drunk yesterday. But I swear to god, Paul, there's two of you."
Better to get it out quickly, he supposed. That way it saved him the embarrassment of having to do it later, under a little more peer pressure to say something coherent. His eyes met Paul's. He was expecting a lot of things— for him to call him crazy, or to tell him that there was no such thing, perhaps— but what he didn't expect was the fear that flashed through Paul's otherwise soulless eyes.
"What?"
"I swear to god! Call me crazy if you want, but I just finished talking to you, like you know, and you're on the office floor before I can even get there, deep in some long ass conversation with Bill! And I know you're not that fast."
"I know."
"Right, but you— wait, you know?"
Silence. Ted blinked, trying to get himself in some semblance of order before a well overdue explanation was given to him. He felt he was owed as much, at least, because this was starting to really make no sense. His friend Paul, who sometimes acted a little shady, and sometimes pretended like they didn't have the inclination to talk the morning away to save them doing work, was in two places at once, and not in the metaphorical sense. He didn't look so much guilty as he did apprehensive, and after a while, he figured out what the natural progression of this conversation was going to be, and sighed. "I know. You weren't supposed to find out like this, but to be fair to you, Ted, I don't think you were supposed to be able to see me at all."
Before Ted could ask about it, Paul shrugged off his blazer, knowing for a fact that Ted hadn't been able to see the dark red blossom against the brown fabric. It was far more obvious when he revealed the same blossom sitting prominent on the left side of his chest. He watched Ted's eyes go about as wide as they could go, and stumble back until he hit the wall behind him.
"Fuck. Fuck…. You're—" He was breathless. That made two of them. Paul raised a hand in an attempt to at least quiet the speed of Ted's thoughts before he could start shouting about that which would deem him insane. A single nod followed.
"Yeah. You can't go about screaming about it, though, god only knows nobody else has seen me yet…"
"Huh?!"
"Believe me, I've tried. Not a single person in this office knows there's two of me, not until you figured it out. That would explain the… first day, right? When I seemed a bit off?"
Ted just nodded, exasperated. "What… What about that scientist?"
"I think you know the answer to that one."
"No… C'mon, no…. I don't— really? Him too?"
"His name's Charlie. He died years ago. There's more than just him." Paul sighed. "Ted, that guy up there? He and I aren't the same. He was the one who… killed me. If he figures you out—"
"Ted?"
Paul prime saw it first, having been the only one facing the right way. He sent the subtlest of motions for Ted to not turn around, and yet, the action was caught by more than just the intended recipient. Ted did so anyway, out of some innate fear or the need to figure out what was going on behind him. He turned slowly, looking first over his shoulder, and realising who the other voice was a little too late.
"Paul— shit…"
The other Paul— the murderous clone that had killed the original in cold blood— stood before him, at the bottom of the stairs, one hand still resting on the door. For a long moment, all that Ted could do was stare, glancing between the two Pauls he was standing in the middle of. Both of them looked exactly the same, and there was no difference at all other than the fact that the Paul that he'd made friends with had a large stab wound covering his chest.
"What's going on here?"
Ted didn't think before he did what he did. He didn't look back at Paul prime, and he didn't look out towards the imposter. He made a break for it the moment the clone took his hand from the door, and started sprinting up the stairs. It wasn't like he knew what he was going to say, but he had to tell someone something, and try not to make himself sound shady in the process. There was little that could be done about the fact that he could apparently see the undead, and had made friends with one of them. That was between him and god, if he was even supposed to be able to believe in god anymore…
He tore up the stairs and down the corridor, and was thoroughly exhausted by the time he reached Charlotte, who just about managed to catch him before he collapsed.
"Jesus, Ted, what're you runnin' from? Everythin' alright?"
"Charlotte, I—" he heaved for breath, catching Bill's attention in the process. He looked up from whatever he was doing at his desk, and his face immediately drew in with concern. Ted tried to get his head in order, but he could hear Paul pursuing him from wherever he was down the corridor. "— God…. I just— Paul…."
"What's going on, Ted?" Bill asked, knowing that Ted would not have run from anywhere if he could help it.
Footsteps were approaching. Ted didn't have the time to be beating around the bush now, no matter whether it was his fault or not. He heaved another breath. "I think there's a fucking ghost in the building. Paul's—"
"There's a ghost, alright."
Paul was behind him. How the fuck did he do that? How the hell did he manage to get there so fast?
Charlotte's attention was turned immediately, and she eyed Paul up and down, as if looking for the signs of a fight. Nothing looked off about him, other than the fact that he'd elected to roll up the sleeves of his blazer rather than just take it off, and was currently running one of them over his forehead. The chase was strenuous on him too, then. At least Ted could be vaguely comforted by the fact that this maniac got tired too…
"What do you mean, a ghost?" Bill's eyebrow raised, ever the sceptic.
"There's something in the building?!"
Ted nodded. "There's something right here." None of you guys get it, the problem is right behind me!
Was he asking them to help him take down this Paul clone, with no inclination as to why? They didn't know about the ghost, there was no reason for them to. Neither of them had ever alluded to the fact that they had seen Paul acting off in any way. Of course it had to be him. Of course he had to be the one to see it all. Why couldn't he catch a damn break? Why was it that his luck was so miserable that he was the one left over with all the shit?
"I think it's looking to cause problems," Paul hummed, being the one of them to keep this nonchalant. Apparently, they'd seen the same thing, and Ted wasn't about to be the one to break the facade just because he was in dire need of assistance in the matter of this double Paul business.
"What are we supposed to do about it?"
"I don't know, Bill! But I think we're gonna have a much bigger problem on our hands if we do nothing!" Ted insisted. If it meant getting rid of Paul prime, just so there'd be only one of them, then he found himself surprisingly willing to do just that. The other half of him was saying that was the worst decision he'd ever made, and he shouldn't be so willing to throw away the life of a friend just because he couldn't convince his coworkers that the problem lay not in the undead, but in the alive and well.
"Where would a ghost have even come from?"
"Do you guys just… Not notice what goes on around here?" Paul knew that he and Ted were fighting for different cases, but subtly getting Ted to align with him until he could eradicate his original and solve this problem for himself was a good start. "Things happen in this place all the time? I mean, you can feel the ground moving!"
Bill looked at Ted. Ted looked at Charlotte. All of them knew that was happening, they'd just learned how to get used to it, but Paul bringing it to mind again had really put things into perspective. Because of what happened— whatever that was— it was easily the case that people could've died in this building. That was universally agreed upon without the need to even say anything.
"I guess you just don't after a while," Charlotte shrugged, to the agreement of the others. Paul just stared, before finally deciding to get over himself and try for what it was worth to shrug it off.
"Okay… Uh… Okay, so what? Are the two of you gonna help deal with this ghost or not?"
Hatchetfield Kin List GO
Paul Matthews
- hates change
- very blunt
- awkward in social situations
- really good at throwing stuff
Hannah Foster
- neurodivergent
- quiet and serious
- bullied
- has very little friends
- haunted by things out of my control
the true ending of tgwdlm
Paul: Wow, it's dark in here.
Emma: ...
Paul: Not that I'm afraid of the dark, that'd be lame..
Emma: ...
Paul: Ha, I mean.. There's just no light or anything!
Emma: *Sigh* Do you wanna hold my hand?
Paul: .. yes please.
