The Little Things In Life

by rody_on_a_toadstool

Summary:

Tim decides that he'd try and get to know his companion a little more to try and appreciate the good things he did have in this mess, and may or may not have accidentally caught feelings in the process.

Chapter 1: I Spy With My Little Eye

Summary:

When Jay calls Tim in the middle of a stagnant traffic jam, Tim realises he hardly knows anything about his companion of one month.

Tim Wright had never been one for optimism or nice, fluffy sentiments.

He’d always liked to think of himself as a realist: hope for the best, prepare for the worst, that kind of vibe. Don’t let yourself dwell on the past, move forward, but keep your expectations low. After all, the lower your expectations, the more pleasantly surprising anything remotely positive will be.

But between the endless driving and the tedious flitting from cheap to even cheaper motel, Tim had admitted to himself that without some form of optimistic bullshit to deludedly focus on through this mortifying mess of a situation, he would go mad.

So, he decided with a reluctant sigh, maybe the old, cliché sign above his grandma’s kitchen door was right. Maybe he did have to focus on “the little things” to be happy in this life. His little revelation probably should have sparked some reaction from him - like a smile or a nostalgic daydream or something. But Tim just aimlessly tapped at his steering wheel and deadpanned the stagnant cars waiting in tightly packed queues that just screamed passive aggressive impatience, as the thought immediately filtered away into the back of his mind.

Albeit, there weren’t many things in his life to be particularly thrilled about. Spending your days desperately trying in a futile attempt to remember chunks of your memory that dissipated to who-knows-where while running and hiding from hooded stalkers and eldritch stickmen will do that to you. But he supposed, if he really considered it, there were some little things he enjoyed.

He liked it when he wasn’t looking over his shoulder every five minutes to see a figure with a creepy sad face. Those were the times he could instead just sit in silence with his eyes closed in the safety of his own familiar car, breathing his own familiar air and just be. The moments where, like this one for just a second, it felt like he was normal. On his own, enjoying his own company. Without any—

Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.

Tim opened his eyes to glare at the offensive interruption. Just as he had been enjoying the peace, too.

With a heavy sigh and one more glance around at the still cars all around him – some even with their engines fully off, and their drives poking their heads through open windows to yell at the roadblock ahead – Tim reached for his phone. Flipping the screen open, he accepted the call without looking at who it was.

After all, the only people who had his number that could be calling were his doctor and Jay, and why would Jay call when he was a total of four metres away in the car behind Tim’s own? He had explained to his doctor that he would be going away for a couple months or so, but maybe he just wanted to do mobile check-ups anyway. Hopefully they wouldn’t still be coming out of Tim’s slowly depleting check.

“Hey, Tim speaking,” he said on auto-pilot, drumming his fingers against the wheel.

“Uh, hi, Jay speaking,” the voice on the other side replied, a smile lacing the words. Tim blinked before reaching up and adjusting the rear-view mirror with his free hand so he could see the car behind him. Sure enough, Jay had his phone to his ear in his own car, fiddling with what looked like an aux cord in his lap.

“Long time no speak,” Tim tried, confused. “There a reason you’re calling? Everything okay?”

Jay nodded in the mirror and waved his hand dismissively. “Yeah, all good. Just… I don’t know, bored, I guess.”

At that, Tim snorted. “Tell me about it.”

There was a lull that stretched uncomfortably for a few agonising moments, before Tim shrugged bewilderedly.

“Well, what do you want me to do about it?” Tim saw the way Jay rolled his eyes and huffed through his nose.

“I don’t know, talk or something? Isn’t that what friends are supposed to do?”

“Oh, we’ve reached the friend stage, have we?” Tim murmured with a smirk. Jay looked up slightly, eyes a little wider than before, mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. It was a good thing that Tim had this secret little one-way view of his companion, because otherwise Tim probably wouldn’t have felt the need to backtrack like he did now.

“I was joking,” he clarified briskly. “That was a joke. I can talk at you, if needs be.”

Jay didn’t seem to relax, but it wasn’t as if Tim could pick up on micro-expressions and body mannerisms through a musty mirror reflecting a far-away, bird-shit covered windshield, so he didn’t pay it much mind. Jay always seemed so up-tight anyway; Tim should probably lay off on sarcastic jokes like that. He wasn’t surprised to know that the guy was the type to take those sort of quips seriously.

“Okay,” Jay said, scratching at his chin as he leaned his head against his window, gazing glumly at the shiny, red Honda parked in the next lane over beside him. “I mean, we can always play, like… I Spy or something.”

Despite himself, Tim barked out a laugh. “I Spy? What are we, nine years old?”

Jay shrugged defensively and threw his arm up. “What? It’s a solid game.”

“Alright, I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘C’.”

“Oh, uh. Cars?”

“No, it’s the 'child' sat in the car behind me.”

Tim couldn’t help but notice the amused smile Jay hid behind his palm and another classic eyeroll as he went back to looking out of his window. Tim chuckled himself, before settling down further into his seat and sighing. He couldn’t see a lot through this mirror, but it was a convenient enough view that he could just about catch the way that Jay’s eyes crinkled a little when he smiled wide enough, his sallow cheeks lifting just a little higher than usual.

It was nice being able to see that he wasn’t completely alone out here. Even though he had just been thinking to himself that it was nice to be by himself in silence. And even though he was surrounded by cars full of people. People who were now resorting to obnoxious car horns and profanities rather than the phenomenon known as waiting.

“When do you think this’ll get moving again?” Jay asked down the phone. Tim looked back up at his mirror to see Jay gazing out of his own window, chin still in hand as he glared at the treeline beside the road. Tim shrugged, even though he knew Jay couldn’t see him.

“No idea. Hopefully before Christmas. Can’t imagine trying to catch a turkey out here.”

It wasn’t a particularly clever or funny joke, but Jay still had the decency to exhale a humoured snigger. “I’d be more worried about the cold. Takes up too much gas to have the heater on all the time. It’s already getting colder, have you noticed?”

Raising his eyebrows bemusedly at the fact that, even after around a month of motel-hopping together, they were still stuck at the kind of small talk where you talk awkwardly about the weather, Tim paused.

He knew they weren’t particularly close, but were their conversations really so few and far between that they still had to rely on that tactic? Maybe Tim should put more effort into talking for the sake of talking, instead of just the occasional stunted “G’night, Jay” or the more frequent panicked “What? Did you see something?”.

“Yeah well,” Tim sighed eventually as he stretched, pushing his shoulders against his seat and clicking his back with a satisfying pop. “I’m sure we’ll get moving soon. If we’re lucky, we’ll even make it to the next place before Thanksgiving.”

“You’re a comedic genius, Tim.”

“Thanks. I do try.”

That same silence hovered for the second time, only this time it was less uncomfortable. It settled neatly over the two – not quite right, but not awful. Like a really good-quality blanket, but one that you can’t quite appreciate because you’re just a little bit too warm for an extra layer.

Either way, it wasn’t bad. Not as awful as some of their previous interactions. Tim cringed at himself. Maybe he really should put more effort into just chatting with his apparent partner in crime. It astonished him that it took an impulsive, boredom-induced game of I Spy to spark the realisation that, though he really should at this point, he hardly really knew anything about Jay.

You could describe their relationship as purely professional, in a way. In the way that work friends will politely tolerate each other when they have to, but that’s about it – and in this case, their 'profession' consisted of running and hiding from a film-freak with a gun.

It wasn't as if they were completely apathetic - they looked out for each other, as you would in their situation. Mostly because they only really had each other left; no one else knew about what was going on or would even believe them if they bothered to try explaining it.

But that was it, really.

The image of Jay’s deer-in-headlights jolt when Tim had made the friend-stage joke flashed in his mind, and Tim wasn't a fan of the way his gut roiled with a slight sense of guilt. Maybe that wasn’t Jay being too uptight. Maybe he really didn’t know if what they had could be considered friendship. Tim’s eyes widened a little as he realised that might have actually been the first time the topic had been brought up.

But as Tim watched Jay yawn sleepily and rub at his sunken eyes, he found himself instinctively scrunching up his nose at the idea. They were friends – they had to be.

And if the line between friends and trauma-bonded-acquaintances really was that hazy, then he would have to make a conscious effort to make it clearer.

Tim was brought back to earth at the sight of Jay squinting lazily through the cool light of midday as it filtered through a passing cloud and draped itself directly over Jay’s car. He scoffed and held a hand up to shield his eyes as if he were allergic to the soft glow, and Tim chuckled. He saw Jay freeze at the sound and look down at his phone, then back up at the back of Tim’s car.

Tim grimaced and hurriedly cleared his throat – for some reason getting increasingly nervous at the idea of Jay finding out he had actually been kind of watching him during their supposed 'voice-only' phone call. Was it creepy? Maybe it was creepy.

“So…” Tim slurred, dragging out the word, very conscious of how long it had been since either of them said a word. Jay looked outside of his side window again, fiddling with the aux cord in his left hand. “How about that game of I Spy?”

This time, Jay actually let out a small laugh. Tim smiled and shook his head, reaching up to twist the rear-view so he could no longer spy on his newly-considered-friend, unbeknownst to anyone but him.

For all Tim said he was a realist, or maybe even a bit of a pessimist, he could admit that sometimes the little things were nice to think about. Like ringing up your friend in a traffic jam because you’re bored and want someone to chat to for the hell of it.

Notes:

I see so many people writing all the car rides as if they only have one car, which is cute and all because they get to bond and whatever but like? They have two cars?? They kind of have to go separately for the most part, don't they?

Either way, they can still talk over the phone which is fun

Thanks for reading :)

Chapter 2: Something Beginning With 'M'

Summary:

Absently spotting Jay's favourite chocolate bar in a vending machine, Tim grabs one for him before heading back to the road.

A man of his word; Tim didn’t bother hanging up the phone once the cluster of cars finally began chugging along the highway once more.

Initially, Jay’s tone of voice suggested that he was about to, but Tim was now determined in his quest to actually put some effort into getting to know his friend. He already knew one thing – Jay unironically thought 'I Spy' was an entertaining pastime on car journeys. He technically could have stopped his investigation into Jay’s character there, as that fact alone gave Tim everything he needed to know about the man.

But, still, he pushed forward.

Growing up in the childhood conditions Tim had the misfortune of experiencing, ultimately resulted in lots of little inconveniences and social difficulties ingrained in him that didn’t seem to bother a lot of other people. General conversation skills seemed to be one of them. But eventually, the unpleasant pauses between the incredibly forced topics they fumbled through began to dissipate, and words began to roll off the tongue.

Tim’s shoulders relaxed as he laughed and made comments here and there about anything and everything, and the sharpness in Jay’s nervous voice dulled as he loosened up a bit and yapped along.

And by the time they had reached a gas station where Jay could fill up his tank and Tim could have a short smoke-break, Tim was satisfied with his progress. He had learned a total of six things about Jay Merrick.

One: he had a dog growing up called Basil who fell into a river once because he thought the duckweed was grass.

Two: his parents were divorced and he lived with his dad as a child, visiting his mother on weekends.

Three: his favourite chocolate was a Mars Bar.

Four: he despised any sort of comedy film because once on, a movie night with Alex, he laughed so hard he pissed himself and refused to ever let history repeat itself.

Five: he broke his pinky-finger when he was eight because he fell off a zipline at a playpark.

Six: he was currently running on an average of three hours of sleep a night. Which was bad enough as it was, but apparently it had only ever been at a maximum of around five anyway, even before all of this shit started going down.

Brushing away that last fact and deciding to worry about convincing Jay to have an early night when they got to their next motel, Tim considered that a noble attempt at operation get-to-the-nitty-gritty-of-Jay. Which was not what that sounded like.

“Mind if I go stretch my legs a little?” Tim called over his shoulder as he climbed from his car and winced when he had to put his weight on his stiff legs. Jay, who was already brandishing the gas pump at his car, nodded and threw a quick thumbs-up his way.

“Take your time,” he said with a grimace at the road behind them, buzzing with cars and boredom. Tim snorted and nodded – he wasn’t particularly excited to get back on the road either, to be honest.

As Tim made his way past the grimy little gas station toward the small stretch of grass behind it, he pulled out his pack of cigarettes and a lighter from his jacket pocket. He lit one and held it up to his mouth, and found himself absently wondering if Jay really minded the smoking habit of Tim’s. He had never outwardly expressed disdain for it – except for the time they had been walking to the corner-store and he had accidentally blown a cloud straight into his face. But maybe he secretly hated it and wished Tim would give it up already, but was too awkward to say anything. Tim would be lying if he said he didn’t kind of agree.

Well. That was just another thing he could learn about Jay. Do you mind smoking? What an ice-breaker. Tim was really getting the hang of this whole talking thing.

On his way around the shabby building, Tim spotted a rickety looking vending machine beside the magazine rack. He wasn’t particularly hungry, so he ignored it and continued past. But a certain logo on the top row caught his eye and his stride teetered down to a halt.

There wasn’t a lot left in the machine; it looked like it hadn’t been refilled since the mid 90's. But there was a lone Mars Bar sitting by itself at the top. Tim eyed it for a moment, before shrugging and pulling out his wallet, feeling the thick wad of change he had been collecting jangle in the side pocket. He scanned the rest of the sparse snack collection but saw nothing of interest to him.

After he had inserted the change, kicked at the decrepit hunk of metal for getting the Mars Bar snagged on the broken shelf, and finally watched with a self-satisfied smirk as the machine groaned and spat out the snack, he was walking back toward the gas pumps with a Mars Bar clenched triumphantly in his hand. He spotted Jay sat on the hood of his car, camera in hand as he pointed it into the road, seemingly zooming in on something the other side. Tim’s gut clenched slightly as he approached, mind thrumming uneasily at the thin line of Jay’s mouth and the concentrated glare of his gaze through the lens.

“Did you see something?” he asked quietly once he was in earshot. Jay jumped a mile and dropped the camera from his face, swerving to film Tim instead. Awkward as he always had been on camera, Tim gave his invisible audience an involuntary little wave before crossing his arms and leaning on the hood of his own car. Jay took a second to register the concerned crinkle of Tim’s brow before, quickly shaking his head, clearing his throat.

“Oh- uh. No,” was all he said, looking down as he dropped the camera to his lap. “No, I just thought it was… I don’t know, it’s stupid.”

The anxiety in his stomach quelled, Tim’s interest was piqued. He raised a brow and couldn’t help the bemused smirk that tugged at his lip.

“C'mon, what?”

Jay vehemently shook his head, waving an airy hand as he tried desperately to change the subject. “It really doesn’t matter. Did you have a good… uh. Smoke break?”

Tim dipped his head with a huff. “Yeah, thrilling,” he deadpanned, before remembering the chocolate bar still sat in his palm. “Oh, I got you this.”

He tossed it Jay’s way, and Jay grabbed it out of the air with a start. He cocked his head at the random gift, and looked up at Tim with wide, questioning blue eyes. An odd heat found its way to Tim’s cheeks at the curious stare, and he shrugged defensively.

“What? You said they were your favourite.”

“Yeah, I know. I just…” Jay trailed off, looking at the chocolate as if it was made of some alien sustenance that would turn him blue if he so much as licked the damn thing. “Thanks. I didn’t realise you were listening, I guess.”

Tim’s brows shot up his forehead. Didn’t realise he was listening? Why wouldn’t he have been listening? Wasn’t that the literal point of a conversation?

Whatever this was, it was far too much and also far too irrelevant for Tim to be bothered to unpack. He just pushed himself up from the hood of his car with a heavy sigh and ran a hand through his hair, hating how it felt greasy and stringy against his skin. He really needed a shower at their next motel – no matter how gross or spider-ridden the cheap-ass bathroom probably was. Not that he could complain. Money's tight when you're on the run.

“Well, we should probably hit the road again,” he said, more in an attempt to end whatever this strange interaction was than in actual eagerness to spend the next two hours of his life with his foot on a pedal and hands on a wheel. Jay nodded and pocketed the Mars Bar, walking around his own car and pulling open the driver’s side door. But before he clambered in, he paused and looked up at Tim.

“You calling me or am I?” he asked. Despite himself, Tim grinned.

 

“Okay, I spy with my little eye, something beginning with ‘M’.”

Tim puffed out his cheeks in thought as he considered it. What things began with M on the open road?

“Uh. Motor?”

“Nope.”

A thought crossed Tim’s mind and he sighed at the phone.

“It’s not that Mars Bar, is it?”

Jay’s silence spoke volumes, and Tim rolled his eyes. “You’re lucky I’m so good at this game, because in case you forgot, you’re only allowed to Spy things that both players can actually see.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Jay chuckled. Tim absently listened to the sound of a wrapper crinkling down the line. “I don’t know, I’m running out of things here that don’t begin with ‘R’ and end with ‘oad’.”

Tim snorted. “Then how about we move on to something more interesting. Like why you were filming something across the road that you seem suspiciously embarrassed to discuss.”

“I- you suck. It’s stupid, doesn’t matter,” Jay mumbled grumpily through what sounded like a mouthful of chocolate. Then he added, much quieter. “Just thought it was a cool shot. The lighting was nice.”

Tim blinked in surprise. Somehow, that wasn’t the answer he had been expecting.

“You’re still into all that film stuff, then?” he asked, his nonchalance dropping as genuine interest took over. Jay never really spoke about college (mainly because they never really spoke about anything other than tapes and their little wild goose chase before today), so Tim had never really thought about it. But he supposed that, even if he had just been resigned to be some sort of personal slave/lap dog for Alex during Marble Hornets, he was still a film student in his own right.

Tim could practically hear the sheepish shrug through Jay’s stunted, restrained response. “I, uh. I don’t know, kind of. I just sometimes… I guess, fall back into the old habit of seeing a cool shot and thinking of it as B-roll.”

Tim hummed to himself.

“Cool,” was all he said, unable to think of a way to milk the topic any further. He wondered if that was what a lot of Jay’s filming consisted of: ‘B-roll’. If Tim hadn’t personally seen Jay set the camera down when he went to the toilet or got ready for bed, he would think that the thing was superglued to his hand. Jay and his camera were two peas in a pod – it was almost disgusting in the way that you feel the urge to stick your tongue out at those inseparable couples in public.

Well, not really. That was a weird metaphor. But you get the gist.

Still, between the whole shoving a lens in peoples’ faces thing, and recording in case that thing shows up to terrorize them another day, maybe Jay really did just subconsciously scope out nice settings for scenes in his head.

Tim smiled slightly at the idea of Jay walking along through the woods and imagining some Marble Hornets-esque scene taking place amidst the trees. Maybe he came up with scripts in his head when he was bored, or edited together clips of his ‘B-roll’ into a little nature documentary when he wasn’t splicing together creepy footage for his dumb YouTube channel. Maybe the guy didn't just spend his time shoving his camera into people's business in a startlingly unempathetic manner, and half the time, just did it for himself and his own peace of mind.

It was a nice thought - humanised his strange camera obsession a little.

“Tim? You still there?”

Tim startled and looked down at the phone, zoning back in as he shooed away the image in his mind of Jay and his trusty camera enjoying a nice view in a forest not tainted by horror and darkness - a dopey, radiant grin on his face as he babbled all about framing and light dynamics and whatever else you were supposed to waste your time on when you shot a movie.

“Uh, yeah. Sorry, spaced out.”

Well, Tim could officially say he had learned his seventh Jay Merrick fact of the day: the guy was still a film-nerd at heart.

Notes:

I really like the idea that Jay was actually a really competent student, and was super into film-making when he was in college. And he'd be really good at it too, he just resigned himself to trying to fix Alex's absolute train wreck of a movie.

His job as script supervisor consisted of rewriting the entire dogshit scene, then having to revert it all back to the original because Alex complained that he just "didn't see his artistic vision".

Anyway thanks for reading :)

Chapter 3: Is It Morning?

Summary:

Tim wakes up and Jay is nowhere to be seen. If Jay had been anywhere else, Tim probably would have been a lot more bitter about his unexplained disappearance.

A lot of scary things had happened in Tim’s life, especially in the last few years. He was no stranger to that gnawing, thrashing, sickly twisting in his gut, or the merciless thundering of his heartbeat that would rattle his ribcage, or the suffocating, white-hot panic that twisted his vision and rapped at his skull and left his throat raw and tongue dry as shrivelled sandpaper.

But nothing could have prepared him for the irrational, nerve-wracking anxiety of waking up in your joint hotel room and being completely and utterly alone. It wasn’t the gut-wrenching fear he was used to: it was more of a jittery discomfort that had him feeling frustrated and uneasy. The kind that had him out of bed only a few minutes after realising he was on his own (despite his intense hatred for the activity known as getting out of bed) and checking the bathroom and windows.

After a few minutes of aimlessly pacing back and forth across the tiny room, he opted for sitting on the edge of his bed, elbows on knees as he picked incessantly at the skin around his fingers and waited.

He knew he was just being paranoid. Jay had probably just woken up early and decided to run down and grab something to snack on for breakfast. He usually woke up early – the dude hardly slept. Or maybe he took a quick trip to a nearby gas station to fill up for the day or something. Even though they were supposed to stay at this motel for another two days at least, so there was no need to refill the tank.

Alas, Tim just waited, staring at the floor and listening to the maddening ticking noise from the shitty little clock above the window. He’d be back soon, and there was no reason to be so stressed about this. He should kick back and enjoy a morning filled with an enticing lack of driving; maybe turn on the rickety little TV on the wall and see what was on.

He didn’t have to waste his free time worrying about what another grown-ass man was doing with his own.

Well. Kind of.

Jay didn’t exactly have the best track record when it came to making well-advised, responsible, safe and appropriately planned decisions, if the entries he posted every week or so were anything to go by. And it wasn’t so much what he was up to – it was more the fact that he hadn’t said anything. They had been at this for more than a month now: the guy should know better than to just fuck off and do his own thing without letting the literal only other person who knows your situation know where you’re going. Of course Tim was bound to immediately think the worst; did he even have to defend himself for being a little concerned?

As it so often did, against his better judgement, the small trickle of doubt and worry in Tim’s gut simmered with an encroaching anger. His fists clenched tightly in his lap, knee bouncing hard enough to jostle the rest of his body. Tim would be ignorant if he never acknowledged his… abrasiveness. And he could admit that his temper got the better of him on more than one occasion. But that didn’t mean he could always control when his nerves flickered into restlessness, and that restlessness translated into a raised voice or (on a really bad day) maybe a slightly dented wall.

Not that he would let himself take all of this out on Jay, Tim had to remind himself, closing his eyes and dipping his head low between his shoulders. He took a deep breath through his nose. If Jay didn’t come back within the hour, then Tim could panic (and punch walls if needed). But Jay probably just went out to get something and didn’t want to wake Tim. A nice sentiment when you ignore the fact that domestic kindness was at the very bottom of their priority list at the moment.

His plan had been working. They had been getting along great – better than Tim had imagined when he decided he’d try and get to know him better, actually. They had arrived at the motel in the late afternoon yesterday, after another couple hours of irrelevant conversation and (for some unfathomable reason) more I Spy, and things hadn’t seemed… as tense.

Tim sighed. He just needed to try and relax. Jay was fine: he always was, for some ungodly reason. The guy was practically invincible; whether that was bravery, recklessness, idiocy or just pure luck, Tim had absolutely no clue. But wherever he was now, he would be fine.

Tim’s fingers instinctually reached into his jeans pocket for his cigarettes, before remembering they were in his coat pocket instead. He hauled himself to his feet to retrieve them, rubbing at his tired, aching eyes – before faltering at the sound of the door-lock clicking from the outside.

And in walked the man of the hour.

Jay stood in the doorway, bundled up in far too many shirts and jackets than was necessary, and holding in his hand a singular, white mug that Tim had never seen in his life, and could safely say that it wasn’t Jay’s that he just had lying around.

Disregarding that thought, Tim sagged with a staggering rush of relief.

Which was quickly replaced with that familiar frustration bubbling up his throat as he stepped toward Jay, subduing the urge to grab the man’s shoulders and shake some god damned sense into his inconceivably tiny little brain.

“Where were you?” he demanded a lot more aggressively than intended, but it got the point across. Jay startled a little, immediately lifting the camera in his mug-free hand to film Tim, before realising now probably wasn’t the best time and dropping it to his side once more. He shrugged belatedly, shrinking back a tad at Tim’s hard, probably slightly intimidating glare.

“I, uh. I went to get something,” he supplied lamely. Tim raised his eyebrows. Jay sighed and walked further inside, closing the door behind him and setting the mug and the camera on the windowsill. When he turned back to Tim, his brows were knit and arms were crossed, fiddling with the sleeves of his faded, threadbare zip-up.

“Why? Did something happen?”

Tim resisted the urge to roll his eyes at the age-old question.

“No, I just— you’ve got to tell me when you’re going out somewhere, Jay,” Tim managed, trying desperately to keep the harsh bite from his words that he knew would only make matters worse. But the annoyance and heat nipping grossly at the walls of his stomach at the idea that Jay didn’t immediately understand what a big deal him randomly disappearing kind of was, was not helping. He of all people knew it wasn’t fun when a new companion up and poofed into thin air on you.

Jay watched dumbly as Tim pinched the bridge of his nose to walk backwards and lean against the little desk at the foot of his bed. When Tim looked up, the little bewildered smile on his face was nothing compared to the intense whiplash of emotions that wanted to spill onto his features from the past twenty minutes or so.

“It freaked me out when you were just gone like that, you know?”

At this, Jay seemed to wake up a little. He jumped into action, a shoddy explanation bursting from his mouth in quick, disjointed sentences that literally did not really explain anything. But it was something, Tim supposed.

“Oh, I actually went to, um. Go get a coffee from the little restaurant across the parking lot? You know, when we got here yesterday the lady at the desk mentioned that breakfast was at eight or whatever, and you were still asleep. So I thought I would… uh— Oh.”

Jay trailed off, eyes glazing over as the realisation slowly dawned on him. Tim could practically see the rusty gears and cogs turning in his head as his face dropped with his unwelcome enlightenment. He grimaced at Tim.

“And that’s why you’re so… stressed out. Because I left without telling you.”

It was almost funny how slowly these things seemed to process in Jay’s head, and would be kind of endearing if it weren’t to irritating in their literal life-or-death regime at the moment. Still, Tim nodded, waiting for Jay to continue. Jay didn’t seem to get the hint, so Tim nodded at the white mug incredulously.

“So you got your coffee…?” he prompted, a little more patronisingly than was necessary, but hey. He’d just had a hell of a Sunday morning, okay?

Jay looked down, scratching at his chin. “Oh yeah. So the coffee’s actually for you,” he said – too slowly to be nervous but too fast to be casual. Almost practised. Just badly. Tim blinked.

“What?”

Jay nodded, reaching back to grab the mug before presenting it forward like a trophy. “You don’t like mornings, and I remember you complained last week about missing your morning coffees or something. And we haven’t had a motel that provides stuff in the morning in a while, so I thought…” Jay shrugged as Tim took it.

“…thought it’d be a nice thing, I guess. Sorry. For leaving like that,” he clarified. “I didn’t think.”

“No you didn’t,” Tim said slowly, still staring at the mug in his hands. It was still warm. “But thanks.”

A brief silence settled as Tim took a sip from his surprise gift and Jay spun to pick up the camera and fiddle with the lens, pretending to look busy. In all honesty, the coffee tasted like shit. But any coffee is better than no coffee at eight in the morning. Jay may have been a morning person, but Tim was decidedly not.

Still, it was enough that the remaining buzz of anger in his chest fizzled out and that last bit of lingering anxiety dissipated, and Tim sighed as he closed his eyes and leaned on his hand behind him on the desk.

“Is this just to pay me back for that Mars Bar?” he asked after a moment. Jay hummed as he looked up, face seemingly trying to fight between being slightly offended and kind of sheepish.

“No, I just thought— Well, the idea did come from that, but—”

Tim laughed and raised a hand. “Chill out, I was joking.”

“Now I don’t owe you,” he mumbled with a small smirk as he walked over to his bed to check the camera properly, in case it caught anything out the window when they had been talking.

Tim glanced back down at his coffee as he swirled it around in the mug. It was nice of Jay to grab one for him, however little Jay had thought his gameplan through.

“Anything on the cards for today?” Jay asked as he put the camera down and flopped onto his bed, shoes still on and everything. Tim shook his head.

“Not that I can think of. Unless you want to go trekking through unfamiliar parks and stuff nearby, I’d say let’s just lay low for the day. Relax a little.”

Jay snorted. “I don’t know, trekking through woods is a favourite pastime of mine, if you hadn’t noticed.”

Tim just nodded solemnly.

“Oh, I’ve noticed.”

 

That evening, when Tim emerged from the shower to find Jay still hunched in the same C-shaped, spine-breaking spot at the desk on his laptop that he had been curled in for literally the entire day, Tim all but ordered him to go to bed.

It took a lot of persuading, but that comment about having an average of three hours a night was really bothering Tim (more than it probably should have, considering Tim’s honestly wasn’t much better), and Jay’s eyebags only grew deeper and more alarmingly purple-ish every hour he was awake.

So after a while, Jay reluctantly agreed. He stood up and stretched, his poor back making some horrifying sounds that sounded like they belonged in a Saw movie, and promised to try and get some sleep. On the condition that Tim looks through the last few hours of footage he hadn’t already managed to comb through to look out for anything they might have missed. Tim agreed on the condition that his one and only friend didn’t pass out and die from sleep deprivation. A fair trade, if you asked Tim.

Jay had his camera hooked up to his laptop and had been fast forwarding through the last week or so, searching for any signs of anything unusual, or any glimpse of anyone who seemed freakishly tall. So Tim settled into the hard, wooden desk chair and rested his chin in his fist as he began skipping through the last little bit of it – it seemed to start from the day before, conveniently.

He didn’t spot anything worth noting or clipping for Jay’s little video project, but he did find himself slowing down when the footage showed Jay waking up this morning. He had gotten out of bed at five in the morning and had sat in bed on his laptop for a further three hours while Tim slept (no sign of any stalkers or crazy people, don’t worry, Tim was still doing his job).

Then at around eight, Jay checked the time and pulled himself out of bed. He squinted as his eyes adjusted from the searing glare of his screen to the darkened room, still dulled by the drawn blinds. Then, he walked over and grabbed the camera from on top of the short wardrobe, where he had positioned it the night before.

Tim watched as he carried it outside the room and walked through the parking lot, the only sound being the chirping of birds and Jay’s irritated mumbling to himself about how cold it was. Tim smirked, letting the video play at its regular pace now so he could make out what he was saying.

(For the record, it was a lot of colourful profanities about the biting cold that Tim hadn’t realised Jay was capable of, and was thoroughly honoured to be listening to first hand.)

When he arrived at another building and stepped inside, the sounds of lazy clinking and scraping of cheap knives and forks drowned out Jay’s hushed monologing – much to Tim’s dismay. He had been enjoying listening to the guy absolutely chew out the weather for being such a bitch about when it wanted to heat up and when it decided to flip you the middle finger and freeze your tits off.

“Hiya, sweetheart,” a voice from out of frame (the same warm, southern voice of the lady they had checked in with yesterday) called out. Jay quickened his pace until he was standing in front of a counter of some sort.

“Nice to see you again. You sleep well?” she asked. Jay fumbled, as he always did when he spoke to people. Again, it was funny in a way. An endearing little fault of Jay’s, that Tim was now realising the guy had a lot of. And again, not all of them were funny. Some were inconvenient, but oh well. The constant casual stumbling over his words was one to smile bemusedly at whenever he was privy to it.

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, I slept— fine. We’re fine.”

“Well, what can I get for ya, honey?”

“Um, just a coffee will be fine. Thanks.”

“Just a coffee? You don’t want breakfast or anything?”

The camera shifted from the creatively artistic view of Jay’s pantleg to complete fuzzy darkness; probably shoved it in his pocket or something.

“No, a coffee’s fine. It’s uh. It’s for my friend.”

“Oh, the handsome fella you came in with yesterday?” the lady asked, cheeky smile clear through her voice. Tim smirked, amused as Jay seemed to stammer his way through a response, spluttering out syllable after incomprehensible syllable before he eventually settled on a “Sure, yeah”.

Sounds of a coffee machine groaning and churning could be heard, muffled through the fabric of Jay’s pocket.

“He’s not a morning person, is he?”

“I guess not,” Jay master-at-small-talk Merrick said shortly, tone practically begging to be spared of all of this dreaded social interaction. Tim sniggered and shook his head as he fast forwarded through the rest of the one sided conversation, and through the rest of the day, until he was finally done and up to date.

With a sigh, Tim closed the laptop and leaned back in his chair, running a hand through his still slightly damp hair.

That shitty cup of coffee had been on his mind all day, for absolutely no reason Tim could easily explain. It was the exact same thing as buying a chocolate bar for Jay the other day, but still. The thought of Jay formulating the idea in his mind when he was told the motel did breakfasts made Tim want to smile like an idiot.

He had no idea why, because it was stupid. It was a nice thing that someone did for the hell of it – it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Still. It was nice to think that maybe this motel-hopping wasn’t going to be as tense and miserable as it had been before – when the thickly spread silence between them hovered with things left unspoken and conflicts left unresolved.

It was nice to think that maybe things were looking up for Jay and Tim, and they wouldn’t have to deal with each other being awkward on top of everything else.

Tim glanced over his shoulder at Jay, fast asleep and snoring a little as he lay flat on his stomach. A very odd way of sleeping, but whatever works, Tim supposed with a huff.

For all the strange things about him; the startlingly unempathetic way he acted with his camera, and the oblivious bluntness of him sometimes as he succeeded in perfectly defining the term socially inadept, Jay wasn’t all that bad.

Tim was glad they were getting along. Not only because he couldn’t do this whole thing on his own – because of course he couldn’t. No one in their right mind could, and Tim couldn’t even begin to imagine how Jay had managed all that time before finding Tim.

But also because it was nice to have a friend again, after so many years.

Notes:

This one is far too long for my liking and I'm not a massive fan of the way it turned out, but I'm posting it because I'm tired and not motivated enough to do anything about it :D

Next chapter should be out thursday night, probably. I'm excited to write the rest, I have a good plan which is exciting I think

Chapter 4: No, Try Again

Summary:

Jay has a fashion emergency and Tim has an unwelcome realization.

Thirty-four days into his mission, and Tim had forgotten about it completely.

He’d stopped tallying up the facts he collected about Jay like a mother compacting her weekly grocery list. He didn’t have to think about a topic or a question or an ice-breaker to get the ball rolling, or wait until that icy layer of stubborn awkwardness thawed away.

He and Jay just spoke about whatever came into their minds. If the motel room or their (now daily) car-ride phone-calls were quiet, it wasn’t the excruciating kind. Neither of them had to stress about being entertaining enough to keep a chat going, or being too boring when the conversations fizzled out with a pop at the end.

Everything just felt natural now.

Tim realised that being filled with such an unbridled thrill at the fact that he could now do the bare minimum and triumphantly hold a conversation with the person you’ve been basically living with for the past two-nearly-three months was, quite frankly, pathetic. But still, for two men severely lacking in the social skills department (albeit Jay more than Tim, thank you very much), it was an improvement.

It was only when the uncomfortable silence full of questions and should-I-be-saying-something-right-now’s had faded that Tim realised how much they had both been hovering around each other. Being painfully polite and formal, leaving so much unsaid that it was almost painful to think back on now that Tim had experienced the more chilled out version of their routine. The one where, lots was still left unsaid, but there was some sort of common understanding between them that they at least knew now that they were capable of speaking to one another about things not related to their… situation, and it still be worthwhile.

Tim knew a decent amount about Jay and his life now, and he was pretty sure he had shared enough about his own to make it a fair trade. Though Jay already knew a lot about his childhood anyway, which he was still a little sour about, despite it all.

“Uh, Tim?” Jay’s voice called from the bathroom of their new motel.

Tim glanced up from the book he had been trying and failing to become invested in – some shitty mystery novel he had picked up from a charity shop when him and Jay had been looking for new shirts, and a new pair of much-needed jeans to replace Jay’s absolutely shredded pair he hardly ever took off.

“Yeah?”

“Can you come help for a sec?”

Tim frowned at the closed door. What could he possibly need help with, wiping his ass?

“And bring that little comb? I think it’s, uh… Should be in the stuff-bag.”

Over the weeks, they had taken to sharing almost everything they owned. For efficiency, at the end of the day. Instead of having one over-flowing bag of clothes and belongings each, they just used Tim’s bag to keep all of their clothes which they picked from at random when they needed to change. Jay’s bag was for all of their day stuff (appropriately dubbed, the stuff-bag).

It worked out either way because, for someone so thin, all of Jay’s clothes were way too big on him, and fitted Tim well enough that it didn’t really matter whose closet the top he was wearing had emerged from. The only difference was that all of Tim’s stuff probably stunk of nicotine, but Jay hadn’t expressed any intense disdain for it yet, so he was all clear.

“Right,” Tim grunted, putting down his book with a sigh. “You okay in there?”

“Just come in,” Jay ordered, voice snappier than usual. From what Tim had picked up over the last five weeks about his usually kind of monotonous voice, snappiness usually meant he was either really stressed, or very embarrassed about something. Tim hoped to God it was the latter, because that meant he could probably laugh about it.

Tim dug around in the stuff-bag and found Jay’s cheap little comb (that Tim swore he had never even used in his life anyway), still wracking his brains for what the hell could be going so incredibly south in the bathroom.

Thankfully, when he warily pushed the door open, he was greeted with an answer to that question.

Jay was bent at an unnatural angle (though Tim knew by now that was just the natural position of his back) over the sink. But his beyond-awful posture was not the most jarring sight to see, neither had it been the last five times Tim had bore witness to that probably scoliosis-ridden spine.

Jay was currently staring at himself in the dusty, slightly mouldy mirror, pair of scissors brandished in hand, and the most unholy mess of jagged, shredded, mousy brown hair Tim had seen in his life. Tufts and fly-aways flew in all different directions, sticking up stubbornly with an audacity that a chunk of bitchy, distasteful hair should never have.

Tim had to physically stifle a laugh and clapped his hand over his mouth at Jay’s frustrated, horrified face.

He waved his hands around, possibly the most agitated Tim had ever seen him. Outside of running from their lives, that was.

“Don’t just stand there!” he stammered, face bright pink. Tim leaned against the doorframe, smirking.

“Well what do you want me to do about it? I don’t know what you thought my job was before, but I can tell you now, I was no hairdresser.”

Jay groaned and dragged a hand down his face; Tim shook his head with a snigger, walking further into the room.

“What were you even trying to do?” he asked, taking the scissors from Jay and putting them down on the side so he wouldn’t stab himself in his flailing anguish. Jay shrugged, his lip pulled into a tight pout like a child who had been told they weren’t going to Disney Land.

“You saw how long it was getting. It looked weird.”

“It looked fine.”

“Easy for you to say,” he mumbled, snatching the scissors back and tugging at a chunk of wildly long hair compared to its brutally clipped brethren. Tim raised his eyebrows as he gently took the scissors back again before Jay could make another irreversibly bad decision and possibly make his head look any more diabolical.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he asked. Jay puffed out his cheeks, frowning at his reflection in the mirror, then looking up at Tim through the glass.

“You must like… I don’t know. Groom them or something? Your sideburns, they always look the same.”

“Right,” Tim said, moving to stand behind Jay to get a good look at the back. Thankfully, he hadn’t gotten around to absolutely murdering the back yet: it was still salvageable.

He raised a brow as he looked at Jay cautiously. “Seriously, I’m not a hairdresser. Are you sure you’re okay with me having a go at it?”

Jay shrugged and made a small, grumpy grunt as if to say what choice do I have? Which was fair. It was better to utilise Tim’s mediocre barber-ship than have Jay featured on his world-famous YouTube Entries looking like Frankenstein’s monster.

“Do you at least have something to put over your shoulders? That shirt will get all itchy,” Tim sighed, looking around for one of the motel’s off-white towels. It was never clear whether they were meant to be cream-coloured, or had just never seen a washing-machine before. Tim winced. He didn’t want to think about that.

“It’s my shirt, I don’t care,” Jay said. Tim looked down. It was, in fact, not his shirt.

“Jay, that’s my one. I got that from a stall giving out free shit in college.”

“You have the same clothes you had in college?”

“Oh and you’re a fashionista, are you?”

“Touche,” Jay mused, looking down at the short-sleeved, green top he was wearing. “I don’t know, it’s comfy.”

“It’s a T-shirt,” Tim said, rolling his eyes as he chose to ignore the slight squirming in his chest at that last comment. He reached around to the drying rack for a towel and quickly tossed it around Jay’s shoulders so he could affectively live in denial from the irritating warmth in his face at the simple sight of Jay in one of his old, baggy shirts.

He began to messily snip away at the hair growing from the nape of Jay’s neck, brows knit in a hard concentration as he tried desperately not to make it look like absolute dogshit. He decided to ignore the way Jay seemed to shiver and duck his head when Tim’s fingers brushed against the back of his neck. He was probably just cold. Jay was always cold.

“God, bend down a little. Do you have anything you can sit on, at least?”

“Uh, yeah. Here.”

As it so often did, that relaxed, now-familiar silence settled as Tim worked away at trimming Jay’s head of hair like a poodle. The guy really had butchered it – how he did that was a complete mystery to Tim. It was as if someone had taken a lawn-mower to his scalp then set it on fire, and Tim wished he was exaggerating. He sniggered to himself. Jay quickly looked up.

“What?”

“Nothing. Just funny,” he said dismissively, looking back down from Jay’s eyes in the mirror as he focused on the scissors. Scissors that were used for cutting paper, not hair, by the way. No wonder Jay had been struggling so much.

In fact, if Tim weren’t so thoroughly distracted by those curious, blue eyes seemingly boring into him from the reflection of that damn mirror, he might have remembered a little sooner that he actually owned a pair of proper hair scissors that he did indeed use for his own sideburns every week or so.

But he was quite distracted, safe to say.

As you would be, Tim thought shortly in his head. No one likes being stared at like a zoo-animal. That’s the only reason you’re feeling so jittery.

It took everything in Tim not to drop the scissors clenched tightly in his clammy hands as Jay continued to innocently watch his every move, assessing eyes watching Tim like a hawk in a way that was unnerving. And not the kind of unnerving he was used to.

See, that was the thing. Along with operation-make-a-real-friend, there had come another… small issue. The awkward tension in the air had disappeared sure, and it had been replaced by a pleasant familiarity that suited them both. It was just what they needed.

But sometimes – just sometimes – it felt like there was something else.

Tim had had embarrassing old crushes before. Yeah, maybe a lot of his college years were a blur and he didn’t remember a whole lot at all, really. But he knew that he’d had crushes on girls in middle school, and he vaguely remembered that there might have been this one girl in high school he went out with for a couple months, but that was entering hazy memory territory.

And he knew— well, maybe suspected was a better word. He suspected he must have liked someone in college, because this whole feeling felt so familiar. In the weird way that sometimes he’d do something random or say something that just popped into his head, and he’d get this almost overwhelming sense of Deja-vu. It was probably some muscle memory thing in his subconscious trying to remind him of a time that he’d forgotten from back then.

But this felt… annoyingly like that.

The quiet nights where Tim would go outside for a smoke and Jay would follow him out to sit next to him on the hood of his car and keep him company, and Tim would feel all sorts of bothersome feelings in his gut when Jay’s voice would go all quiet and tired like that, or their shoulders would touch or something else stupid and cliché along those lines that he would always make fun of in Brian’s favourite old romance movies.

Or when Jay had shrugged on his flannel last week because it was ‘too cold’ in their staggering seventy-degree weather with no air-con, and then proceeded to keep it on all evening because he just ‘forgot to take it off’. Or when Jay would have a nightmare and Tim would go to wake him up only to have Jay clutch at him like a lifeline for the next hour, refusing to let go.

(Tim felt especially guilty about that one, considering despite the fact that his only friend was practically having a meltdown in his arms, all he could think about was how soft his hair felt against Tim’s cheek.)

It was all too confusing, and it all felt too familiar.

It must have been a muscle memory thing, like all the others. Maybe he had experienced the same sort of scenarios he had with Jay back when he was in college, only with some girlfriend or crush he couldn’t quite name or put a face to, and it was making him inadvertently remember that old fluttery feeling in his ribcage. It had to be that – he couldn’t actually like Jay like that. He’d never liked another guy before; surely that sort of thing couldn’t just appear in his mid-twenties without any warning.

…Except, he couldn’t think of who it could have been in college. He wasn’t close to Sarah, and he didn’t remember any other girls. In fact, he was only really close to Brian, and unlike every other face from that time in his life, he remembered every single moment he had with Brian very clearly. Brian had been the one thing he had never really forgotten, and he knew for sure that he had never felt like that about his best friend. Even now the idea wasn’t particularly appealing.

So who could it have been?

“Tim?”

Could it have actually been a guy?

“Tim, you uh… you good?”

Could it have been Jay?

“Hey,” Jay’s sharp voice snapped Tim from his frenzied thoughts. He blinked his vision back into focus and stared down at Jay in front of him, neck craned to look up at him face to face.

“Uh. You kind of…” Jay made some weird twinkly motion with his fingers. “Spaced out or something, I don’t know. You okay?”

Tim looked dumbly at the scissors in his hand, then back at Jay’s absolutely ruined head of hair, before nodding.

“Yeah, sorry,” he said, voice thick. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Sorry. Tired, I guess.” It still cracked.

Jay didn’t look convinced, but turned back around anyway.

“So… How’s it looking?” he asked after a beat. Tim startled and looked down at where he had been mindlessly trimming away at the bush on the back of Jay’s head.

He grimaced. Jay blanched.

“What’s that face for?” he demanded. Tim backed up, hands raised a little.

“Hold up, it’s not that bad—”

“Absolutely not. Do it again— try again, Tim. I swear to God, if it’s—”

“Hold on! I can fix it, calm down,” Tim called, trying for a ginger laugh. Jay slouched down lower, head dipping to hide the small smirk playing on his lips. Tim felt his stomach flip.

He forced himself to shake his head, trying and failing miserably to clear it of any thoughts to do with teenage crushes and sickly feelings-y bullshit. Now was not the time. They had a fashion emergency on their hands, and were living a literal nightmare out of a horror movie.

Not the time, Tim.

After another long, long while of struggling with a distinct lack of hair-cutting-expertise, and lots of terrified glances between the two when a bunch of hair a little too large for comfort fell limply to the floor, Jay’s hair was… relatively normal-looking again. A little choppy here and there, but it was nowhere near as hellish as it had been an hour ago.

Jay gave a small, satisfied nod. He smiled at Tim and thanked him, before heading back into the other room and taking his place at the desk in front of his laptop. Tim watched him go, now safely out of sight, letting his face fall slightly dazed. His mind felt fuzzy and confused, as if he had been working on autopilot and was only now coming to his senses. Maybe that was exactly what this was, in fact.

As much as he tried to banish the thought from his brain, the same question kept going around and round and round and round like a record player stuck on the same track for all eternity, and it was infuriating. It made Tim’s stomach roil and made him feel all clammy and tense – the furthest feeling from the flowery, exciting, wonderful bliss Brian’s romance films always portrayed feelings… like that to be akin to.

But with every small interaction, every smile or brush of skin, it seemed more and more like Tim couldn’t keep denying it.

Could it really have been Jay after all?

Notes:

oop my boy Tim's in too deep now

Hope you liked this one, it was fun to write :D

I'm finding it hard to find the right balance between internal dialogue and actual interactions, and I know that this one and the last one were very internal dialogue heavy. But the next chapter should be very interaction-based i think :)

Chapter 5: Mud? Absolutely Not

Summary:

Combing through the woods for any clues, Tim and Jay run into a slight obstacle. The solution to which is less than ideal for Tim, in more ways than one.

Notes:

Hiii, so I'm going to be hella busy over the weekend and won't be able to get the last two chapters out until maybe Tuesday onward, so I'm really sorry about that considering I've been trying to get one chapter out an evening to finish this fic as quick as possible

either way, i'll be back soon hope you enjoy byeee

“So, uh… what are we supposed to be looking for exactly?” Tim called out, battling his way through the tangles of weeds and overgrowth that seemed unfairly determined to watch him eat the dirt. Jay seemed unbothered as he strode through ahead, filming the trees around him as if they were the most interesting thing in the world, and not just hunks of wood that stuck up from the ground.

“I don’t know, anything. Just keep an eye out.”

Tim rolled his eyes with a heavy sigh, narrowing his eyes at a root that threatened to snap his ankle in half if he dared to step any closer.

Jay had received an anonymous tip the night before about a clue being hidden in a nearby park to where they had been staying. Tim had insisted it was probably just one of his viewers pulling a prank on him, but Jay argued that – considering they really had nothing else to go off at the moment – it was worth a try. Plus, how would this person know where they were to tip them a random forest that just so happened to be a ten-minute drive away?

(Tim guessed it was coincidence, but he knew Jay wouldn’t sleep until they made sure anyway.)

But now, they had been walking all morning through one of the most poorly maintained trails Tim had ever seen in his life, and his legs were aching from all the trekking over rough terrain and hopping over tree trunks and stepping through vines and grass that crept up to his knees. Maybe it was all part of that person’s prank: sending them on a wild-goose-chase through the literal hellhole of all hellholes in the park-trail community.

“Have you seen anything?” Tim asked, hopping to yank his shoe free from a particularly nasty clump of curling vines and nettles running up the side of a decrepit looking tree. Jay didn’t say anything, but Tim could have sworn he’d heard a sigh.

“Jay, seriously,” Tim said. “There’s probably nothing out here, and even if there was, this is a big area. That message on Twitter didn’t go into specifics or anything, did it? How would we find— What, a tape or something? How would we find something as tiny as that in here?”

Jay had stopped walking, and Tim took the opportunity to catch up. He finally stumbled up to where Jay was stood dead still and reached out to grab his shoulder; half as a reassuring gesture, and half to catch himself from falling on a branch he’d just tripped up on.

“Let’s head back,” he tried. Maybe the nice sentiment of his suggestion covered up the truth behind it. Which was that he was tired and couldn’t be bothered to be out here, freezing his ass off in the middle of nowhere. Did he mention it was cold as sin out there?

To Tim’s dismay, Jay just shook his head. He was about to complain when Jay lifted his hand to point at something ahead of them.

A little way away, there was a tall, red tower looming amongst the trees.

It looked an awful lot like the one back in that one old shooting-location that Alex liked so much. The one that Jay had found that tape in a couple years back. It wasn’t identical, but Tim had to admit, it was an odd coincidence that it was there.

“We need to go check that out,” Jay decided, taking a step forward. Tim knew how he could get with this type of stuff – he went all funnel-vision and single-minded. Once he was set on searching something, he would not rest until it was thoroughly searched.

But Jay froze when he planted his foot on the ground ahead of him and a resounding squelch seemed to echo around the trees. Tim scrunched up his nose as he looked down.

Stretching along a good length of the path ahead was a marshy, swampy flood of what was probably just muddy water, but certainly looked like something else entirely. Jay stepped back, rubbing at his chin as he stared at it. Tim watched him think, absently observing the way his eyes crinkled in concentration and his bottom lip stuck out a little.

Eventually, Tim just shook his head. “There must be some way around it,” he mused, peering around to see how far the small lake of a floodplain went. His face dropped when he saw it disappear into the very distant trees beyond.

Jay groaned and dragged a hand down his face. “No. Even if we could go around it, we’d just lose the tower.” Jay finally turned to Jay with a grimace. “We have to go through it.”

“Absolutely not,” Tim said. “We only have so many clothes anyway.”

“The motel we’re staying at has a washing machine in the lobby; I saw it.”

Tim sighed and glared back at the offensive swamp. He really didn’t want to walk through that thing.

Jay bumped his shoulder, smiling sheepishly and holding the camera up a little to record Tim’s reaction to whatever he was about to suggest. Tim already didn’t want to hear whatever words were about to come out of his mouth.

“But if you really want to save on washing…?”

Tim's face burned and his jaw fell open, gaping at Jay. Jay looked confused, then his eyes bulged and he quickly shook his head, face a matching shade of pink.

"I'm not saying get naked, Jesus," Jay spluttered. Tim dragged a hand down his face with an exasperated huff. Pick your words better, that scared the shit out of him.

"I'm just saying carry me."

Tim shook his head, deadpanning the water.

“Nope. Not doing it.”

“Come on! I can’t carry you, but uh... Y'know, then only one of us gets all— gets all gross.”

Tim laughed bewilderedly, ignoring the flush creeping up his neck again at the equally as terrifying suggestion. “If you’re so worried about only washing one set of clothes, then you can go on your own. I’ll wait here.”

Jay raised his eyebrows. “What, and risk that… thing showing up when we’re separated?”

Tim glared and crossed his arms, opening his mouth to find something to say. Nothing came out. Jay looked back at him just as defensively, their eyes meeting.

The silent argument lasted just about three more seconds.

…And then, five minutes later, Tim was waist-deep in mud and grunge with Jay clinging to his back for dear life, pointing the camera determinedly at the tower ahead of them.

“This sucks,” Tim declared. Jay ignored him and tried to lean up to get a better angle of the tower and nearly toppled over backwards. He yelped and wrapped his arms tightly around Tim’s neck. Tim shivered as he felt Jay’s breath tickle his skin.

Not the time.

The mud was thick and hard to wade through, especially with the weight of another human being on his person. And it was cold. It was so freezing cold that it hurt.

By the time they had finally reached the other side and were on solid ground, Tim was a comical shade of swamp-brown from the waist-down. Oblivious and unwavering as ever, Jay just hopped down and made a beeline straight for the tower without a word, leaving Tim to catch his breath and kick the excess mud from his soaked jeans by himself.

“Yeah, you’re welcome, princess,” Tim called after him bitterly. Jay waved a hand at him, mumbling a quick ‘thanks, sorry’, before he disappeared around the other side of the tower.

 

See, Tim probably wouldn’t have been as annoyed about this whole situation as he was then, if that god damn tower actually had anything to show for his sacrifice of comfort. But, as Tim had expected, it was empty. Jay climbed up every side, every ladder, looked at every plank of rotting wood or rusted metal: nothing. Not even anything underneath the dirt and leaves scattering the base of it.

It really was just a waste of time. Tim was about to make some slightly snarky comment about it, when he caught a glimpse of Jay’s face.

He looked paler than usual, if that was even possible. And his eyes were downcast and his mouth was drawn into a thin line and he just looked so sad that Tim felt his chest ache. He found himself thinking, for just a moment, that he couldn’t be mad about this when Jay looked like that.

“Hey,” he tried, forcing himself to let go of that final bit of irritability that lingered along with the smell of gross marsh-residue.  Jay looked up from the ground, face falling back into its usual, blank slate as he realised his pity-party was being watched. “Let’s head back. We can always come looking another day.”

That was a lie and they both knew it – they wouldn’t come back. But Jay nodded glumly, taking one last look around, before turning on his heal to trudge back the way they’d came. Tim followed, still silently mourning that last bit of warmth that had seeped from his numbing legs in the harsh, wet cold.

“We’re just— I don’t know, we need something,” Jay suddenly said, voice sharp and quick. “We haven’t, like… done anything in weeks. We don’t have anything to go off. We’re just— running in circles, you know?”

Tim nodded. It was frustrating, he knew that feeling.

“I just…” Jay trailed off, voice cracking. “Really wanted this to be a clue or something.”

He had stopped walking. Tim looked up at him to find his eyes dull and almost lifeless in the shadows of the forest. He was fiddling furiously with his sleeves and was gnawing at his lip so hard it looked like he would chew right through it. Tim took his shoulder again, looking him hard in the eye.

“Hey, come on,” he said. “We’ll find something soon. We’re nearly back to where Alex used to live now, and there has to be something there. If anything, look forward to that.”

Jay’s brows furrowed but he didn’t say anything. Tim took his hand away.

“What?”

“Were you always this positive?” he asked bluntly. Tim blinked.

Nope. Definitely not. He had always been a pessimist – or a realist, as he liked to think.

But he kind of had to be positive here, right? When Jay looked so down it made Tim ache, he had no other choice. He just wanted Jay to smile again, because when Jay smiled it felt like everything else was smiling too, and that was a weird thought and Tim was going to stop thinking now because now was not the time.

“Well, somebody has to,” he said hurriedly, crouching down in front of Jay for him to clamber onto his back again. He was just thinking positively because that’s how he was now. Since he’d started appreciating the little things he had, right? That was why. It wasn’t for any other reason.

It wasn’t because whenever Jay looked sad, the world felt like it was about to end. And it wasn’t because whenever Jay was around (which was literally always), it made Tim want to think… better. It made everything seem a little less dim.

Tim found himself wondering for the millionth time in the past week, since Jay’s little hair emergency, who it was in his forgotten past that was making him remember these long-lost feelings and emotions. They had to stem from some sort of Deja-vu from an old girlfriend, because he didn’t like Jay like that. He couldn’t.

Tim liked girls.

Jay cocked his head at the sight of Tim on the floor in front of him, then realised that they were back at the edge of the water and startled.

“Oh, right,” he mumbled as he climbed onto Tim’s back. Tim stood up with a grunt, unable to stop his hands from trembling a little in the cold that was crawling through his veins. Jay gave a small, humourless chuckle.

“Sorry,” he said simply. Tim nodded.

“You’re washing all this when we get home.”

Jay laughed and nodded, resting his chin on Tim’s shoulder. Tim really hoped he couldn’t sense the way his heart stuttered and his breath caught in his throat.

He scowled to himself.

Really not the time, Tim.

Notes:

Okay so I'm really sick right now and stayed home, so I was able to get this out a lot faster than expected
I also changed the amount of chapters from 6 to 7, because I thought of this one last night when thinking of ways to make the pacing of this lil story a little less rushed. So this wasn't actually going to be a chapter but I included it anyway to switch it up a bit, and have the setting not be in a car or a motel room

Anyway this one was fun. Poor Tim living in denial am i right

Chapter 6: Is It Me?

Summary:

Forced back out of their motel and bored out of their minds, Tim remembers an old instrument he packed in the back of his car. It leads to another one of his unwelcome revelations.

As it often did in their miserably unfortunate lives, once they got home from their mindless wander around the woods, it was just one bad thing after the next. The universe apparently went, “huh, how about today we make everything as mildly inconvenient as possible for these two random guys who definitely don’t have anything else to worry about”. And then proceeded to shit on them all evening.

At least, that was what it seemed to Tim as he wrung out his still soaking underwear into the grass beside the parking lot, before unashamedly tossing them on his car roof to hopefully dry overnight.

“They won’t dry without sun,” Jay mentioned unhelpfully from the passenger’s seat of Tim’s car, nose buried in his laptop screen (as per usual) and notepad clutched in hand as he seemed to be trying to inhale the pointlessly cryptic ToTheArk video playing. Tim gave him a look.

“Thanks for the feedback.”

They’d driven back to the motel in pretty iffy spirits. Tim was muddy and stunk like literal skunk, and Jay was still all doom’n’gloom about their lack of findings from their little adventure. As soon as they got in, Tim stripped off his disgusting clothes, showered off and dressed in fresh ones, before dragging himself down to the washing machines he saw in the reception the night before.

But as soon as he got there, the lady at the desk gave him the nastiest glare she could have possibly mustered. Tim felt a frown forming as he asked if anything was wrong.

“You’re s’posed to be outta here,” she croaked in a voice that surely hadn’t seen a day without three packs of cigarettes in fifty years. Tim really hoped that wasn’t what he would sound like when he was as senile as this crinkly old woman. Maybe he should think about quitting, after all.

Tim walked up to the desk. “What do you mean?”

She jabbed a thumb over her finger at the tiniest, most unnoticeable little poster possible behind the desk, that couldn’t be more hidden if it tried. “We got builders comin’ to fix up the leaky roofs,” she grunted. “Everyone else checked out this mornin’.”

Tim blinked at her, not wanted to believe the words coming out of her thin-lipped, serpent-like mouth. He was not religious, but God, but did he wish her words were lies just like that snake in that one Bible story. She raised her eyebrows incredulously.

“Well? You leavin’ or what?”

So much for sleeping in a nice, warm bed tonight then. Well – minus the nice part. The beds were hard and creaky and kind of uncomfortable. And it wasn’t particularly warm either to be honest.

And now they’d been kicked out short-notice.

That was what you were signing up for if you stay at a cheap, run-down motel apparently.

So, a still slightly damp Tim and his still mud-sodden armful of skunk-smelling clothes trudged gloomily back up to their room to tell Jay the bad news. They vacated not even half an hour later and were back on the road.

And what was worse, the next nearest motel was another two hours away, and by this point it was too late to make that hellish journey; not to mention the fact that neither of them could be bothered in the first place. So, it was back to the side of the road for Tim and Jay.

They’d slept beside roads before, each crammed uncomfortably in their own cars like sardines, shivering or melting in whatever unregulated temperatures Alabama decided to throw at them that night, and hoping to God that no hooded stalkers would waltz on up and record them through the un-tinted windows.

At least this time they’d found an old parking lot beside the freeway, instead of a terrifyingly narrow layby with cars whizzing by far too fast for the speed limit every five minutes. Eventually, with a spot tucked away in the corner of the empty lot beside a singular tree, they set up camp for the night (which consisted of parking their cars and lying gross boxers out on the roof).

When Tim finally climbed into the backseat of his own car with a heavy sigh, he found Jay’s wide, guilty, puppy-like eyes staring at him from the front, just itching to reveal some awful tragedy to make their day all the worse. Tim’s stomach immediately dropped.

“What?”

“I left the stuff-bag.”

For someone so damn paranoid about everything, you’d think he’d have more life-skills. Like not leaving a bag of their few essentials in a motel they wouldn’t be allowed back in for however many more days. Tim resisted the urge to slam his head into the seat and scream so loud, someone a mile away would dial 911, thinking there was a murder in session or something.

And then, to make matters worse and add the cherry of despair on top of this disaster-of-a-day-sundae, Tim couldn’t even read his book that he’d finally managed to get himself into. He’d been getting to the good bit, too. Now how would he know if Janet had stolen the amulet or not? He supposed they'd just have to drive back and run in to grab it from their room or reception or something.

Still, Tim expected that to be it, and Jay to head to his own car to try and get an early night or something. He’d give anything to end this day here and now if he could. But Jay stayed, sitting stiffly in the front seat as if he didn’t quite know what to do with himself, but staying all the same to absently speak about anything and everything that came to mind.

Tim was irritated at first, in all honesty. He just wanted sleep, and sleep couldn’t happen with Jay sat in the front yapping at him and occasionally saying something or looking at him in a way that would make his stomach flip. He just… couldn’t deal with that annoying Deja-vu thing right now.

But after a while, Tim could admit that he didn’t mind the slightly unwelcome company. At least the guy had torn his searing gaze away from his laptop for once in his life. And he was starting to loosen up a bit now, too.

“The framing of a shot actually matters a lot more than you’d think,” Jay said matter-of-factly, eyes slightly glazed over as he provided far too many accompanying hand gestures than was necessary for his movie-ramble. Tim couldn’t say he wasn’t interested, though – even if it was partly just to see the corners of Jay’s mouth tip up a little when he got excited, or his eyes shine when he mentioned his favourite films. He wasn’t even stammering or littering his sentences with ‘um’s and ‘uh’s. That was a rare occurrence, let him tell you.

“You can’t just film a conversation between two people, for instance, from a straight side-profile. That would just be boring. It’s all about the angle, you know? Like… like if one person has more power in their dynamic, you could film from behind the powerful one at a slightly upwards angle. That makes it so our powerful guy is more of a mysterious silhouette, and is overall higher up on the screen than the weaker guy. Or even just takes up more of the shot – stuff like that. You wouldn’t think little things like that would make a difference, but they really do! You just never think to notice it when watching a film,” Jay finished with a flourish of his arms, slightly out of breath from speaking so fast and so much.

Tim nodded, trying to keep up with it all. He felt a little dumb, with nothing to add to the conversation. He would sound like an idiot if he put up his hand and said some shit like “I watched a movie once”, but that was a sentence that did, embarrassingly, cross his blank mind.

Not that Jay particularly seemed to mind. He looked happy enough in his own little world, talking and talking about his interests. It was kind of adorable.

Tim’s face burned and he scowled at himself.

Not the time.

Also, ew.

“Tim? You, uh. You good?” Jay’s voice asked, quieter and back to its usual, unsure drawl. Tim startled and looked up. Jay just looked at him expectantly. Shit, did he miss a question or something?

Despite his complete lack of intuition when it came to reading people, Jay somehow gathered his cluelessness and obliged.

“I asked if you were into films and stuff in college. You know, because you were an actor and everything— I don’t know.”

Tim snorted. “I define actor pretty loosely here,” he said. “Brian was the film guy. I was just along for the ride and did enough theatre in high school to know how to move my face around into happy and sad.”

Jay seemed to shrink a little smaller and look down awkwardly as he always did whenever Brian was mentioned. Tim couldn’t help but feel a little bad, considering this restrained reaction was slightly justified: the first time Jay had mentioned Brian to Tim, he had gotten pretty unreasonably pissed and had been kind of a dick. Jay’s reluctance was warranted, but Tim needed him to know that it wasn’t like that right now. He didn’t mind talking about Brian.

“He was the film student,” Tim went on, pretending not to notice the very obvious shift in the air. “He was always going on about the things you’re talking about, too. Can’t say I ever paid much attention, though.”

Jay seemed to sag impossible further into his seat at that, and Tim quickly backtracked. “Not that I wasn’t when you were talking. I actually followed that, believe it or not.”

“Really?” Jay asked, a little dubious. Tim raised a brow.

“What, is there a pop-quiz now or something?”

At that, Jay sniggered and looked back out the window, smiling slightly. Tim’s chest fizzed behind his ribcage at that soft little smirk, before he forced it back down and made himself look away.

“Yeah, Brian was the movie guy. I sometimes helped out with the music for his projects, but that was kind of it until Marble Hornets.”

Tim sat in the sudden silence that had stretched for a moment, before glancing up to find the cause of it. Jay was gawking at him like he’d just admitted he was Alex in disguise or some shit. He smirked.

“Is Tim the music man that surprising?” he tried, picking at a loose thread in his jean pocket. Jay shook his head, finding his words again.

“No, I mean— Well. I don’t know, kind of,” he managed, looking out the window again. “What do you play?”

Tim shrugged. “A few things, really. Mostly string stuff, like guitar and a bit of banjo, if that counts. I— Huh. I actually have…” he trailed off as the thought registered in his mind. He felt a smile tug at his cheeks as Jay cocked his head. “Hold on a sec. I just remembered something.”

Tim hauled himself out of the car and darted around to the trunk, yanking it open and rooting around in its contents for a moment, trying to find what he was looking for. At least it was a nice substitute for his lack of stuff from the stuff-bag. He’d forgotten he’d even packed it – must have thrown it in last minute when Jay called him and told him to get ready to leave that first night.

Jay’s eyes widened and he exhaled a small laugh when he saw the small case in Tim’s hand as he sat back down.

“Why’s it so small? I thought guitars were bigger,” Jay said, crossing his arms. Tim scoffed.

“Uh, because it’s not a guitar, thank you very much,” Tim countered, making a show of his offence. “It’s a ukulele.”

Jay hummed and watched Tim pull it out from the flimsy little case. He plucked the top two strings and winced at how horribly out-of-tune the thing was.

“Can you play anything?” Jay asked. Tim gave him a look. “Right, ‘course you can. That’s, like, you’re whole thing.”

“Wow, way to generalise my talents, nice guy.”

“Whatever. Play me something,” Jay said, pulling a leg up to rest his arm on his knee and looking at Tim… strangely. It was another one of those looks and sentences that sent Tim’s head spiralling and his stomach churning in the nice-but-not-so-nice way it so often did now. A sort of… warm smile that wasn’t quite a smile. More of a question; a suggestion of something Tim couldn’t quite read behind those large, droopy, blue eyes of his.

It was odd, and it set off the usual chorus of those same three words bouncing around Tim’s skull.

Not the time.

“Uh, yeah,” Tim choked out after he realised he’d been staring a second too long. “Just give me a second to tune this.”

Jay gave no such second.

“So, do you write your own stuff or do you just play?”

“I don’t know, a bit of both.”

“Do you sing too?”

Tim scoffed. “God, no. No one wants their eardrums popped like that.”

Jay rolled his eyes but didn’t ask anything else as he watched Tim twist the last tuning peg until the A-string was back to its former glory, rather than sounding like a B-flat held at gunpoint.

Play me something.

What could he play? Some cover that they both knew? An original?

He couldn’t remember a lot of his own stuff. It was all a bunch of half-written ditties from college that he never usually had the willpower to finish. He had a few fancy fingerstyle melodies that sounded nice on guitar, but he’d never tried replicating them on uke.

He only had two full songs he could do, really. A cringy little plucky one about an old crush or something, or a little half-arsed chord sequence with lyrics he knew were there once but definitely weren’t there now.

Dusting off the old lyrics box at the back of his mind was not a welcome experience. Most of them were bad and pretty gross to think back on, but a few were decent enough. He wasn’t lying; he never had been much of a singer. If he ever wanted to record a song, he’d do all the music for it in the college’s studio, then get Sarah to come in and sing for it or something.

But still, he couldn’t just strum chords at Jay, that would be boring, and there was no way in hell Jay would ever catch him singing. Absolutely not – not now or ever.

“I mean…” Tim mumbled reluctantly. “I have one stupid little love song that’s finished. But I could also just play one we both know so it’s not boring or anything.”

Jay shook his head. “No, play me one of yours,” he said decisively.

Welp. There was that escape route gone.

“Okay, but it might take me a second to remember how to actually use the thing.”

“I thought you were the music man,” Jay frowned.

“Yeah, in college. I kind of stopped playing so much when Brian— went off somewhere.”

The car went silent again, this time for good reason. They were getting too close to icky territory now. Tim quickly shook his head and swallowed thickly.

“Whatever. It’s probably not very good, but here we go.”

His fingers were stiff from disuse, he quickly realised as he began the stupid little crush-song he’d written so long ago. They no longer danced effortlessly along the fretboard like they used to, and he messed up here and there or plucked the wrong string. Ukuleles weren’t the best for fingerstyle anyway – he’d blame it on that if Jay poked fun at him.

But eventually, he got into the groove of it. He chanced a glimpse of Jay’s enamoured face between verses at some point, to find him staring at Tim’s hands, eyes closed and cheek mushed against the arm on his knee, nodding along to Tim’s playing. Tim couldn’t help but feel a little proud. Evidently, he wasn’t that bad anymore.

He ignored the incessant flipping in his stomach.

It wasn’t until the final chorus of the song that Tim realised that the little chunks of phrases that had been absently racing through his mind were actually old lyrics he hadn’t quite forgotten. His mind walked him through the lines he did remember, making absolute sure he didn’t accidentally sing any out loud. They were all sickly sweet and lovey-dovey and whatever. Tim grimaced just thinking about them.

And then he got to one particular line, and he stopped playing entirely.

The blood in his fingers ran cold and they stiffened. His mind went completely blank for a second as he buffered, eyes wide.

You’re the Jaybird in my garden I sing to every night,
The Bluejay on my porch that makes me take flight.

Those simple little lines with that simple little repeated syllable that was probably shit lyricism out of context.

Jay.

“Why’d you stop?” Jay’s voice asked, far too loud in the echoing silence of Tim’s head, something in his tone… was that disappointment? Tim whipped his head up to look at him, face probably a ridiculous shade of red. He looked into Jay's questioning, blue eyes and felt just about ready to throw up.

“What? Oh, I— I forgot the rest,” he lied messily, quickly tucking the instrument back into his case. But Jay didn’t drop it this time.

“Are you okay? You were mumbling under your breath while you were playing,” Jay pushed, fiddling with his hat. Was Tim imagining the sheepish glance? The dusting of red on his cheeks? Tim shook his head.

“It’s fine. Putting it away now.”

“Does that one have lyrics? That why you were mumbling?”

“Jay, come on.”

“Can I hear them? What are they about?”

“Jay,” Tim snapped too sharply. Jay looked up at him too dejectedly. Tim was clutching the neck of the case too tightly.

He blanched, reaching for the door handle. “I’ll be back.”

Jay frowned defensively. “I was just asking a question.”

Tim sighed. “I know. I just can’t remember any more, okay?”

“What’s the song about anyway? It sounded really good,” he pressed. Tim felt his face growing hotter, and his stomach filling with shame. He couldn’t tell Jay. He never could. This would go with him to the grave. It had to.

It had been Jay.

With everything going on right now, this was not the type of revelation Tim needed right now.

It really wasn’t the time.

“Look, it doesn’t matter,” Tim growled, flashing a glare at Jay. Jay looked a little taken aback, but Tim was too confused and mortified and flustered to care much. He just shoved the car door open and stumbled out into the cool night air, taking gulps of it to refill his slowly seizing lungs.

His heart thundered horribly in his chest, and he hated it.

Jay wasn’t even… he couldn’t even feel the same way as college-Tim had. And he definitely wouldn’t now – that wasn’t even an option. God, he was so selfish. Even letting himself think about this right now was so stupid. Their lives were on the line, and all Tim could think about was a stupid, cliché fucking butterfly in his gut. It sucked.

Tim chucked the ukulele back into the trunk and took a second to lean against the door to collect his thoughts. He even managed a wry little chuckle, despite his emotional turmoil.

He’d really written a song about him. He really must have been down bad.

But, he decided with a sigh, that didn’t mean he still was. Even if he had liked Jay back then, it didn’t mean he did now. It was still just that phantom-feeling; the Deja-vu of old emotions he sometimes got. He was fine. Jay was fine. They were friends.

Jay was the only friend Tim had left. There was no way in hell he would ruin that.

A little bit of guilt for his outburst trickling into his mind, he slumped back around the side of the car and back into his seat, where Jay was pointedly not looking at him. He grumbled a small apology as his body calmed down from its adrenaline-motivated flight instinct, and Jay nodded his quiet approval.

And there it was.

That old silence that Tim now realised he hated so much. The one so heavy and dense, it was suffocating. The awkwardness that smothered any attempt at conversation. The one that had been a constant in their lives before Jay had called him in that traffic jam for a game of fucking I Spy.

Tim despised it, but he had nothing to say. So, he just let it sit.

Until…

“Was it about me?”

Tim blinked. He looked dumbly at the back of Jay’s head in the passenger’s seat. His mouth went dry. He didn’t know what to say.

And was that… hope in Jay’s small voice?

The moment stretched into seconds, agonisingly slow.

Before Jay seemed to start back into reality and shake his head.

“I’m going to bed,” he said shortly, voice low. Tim lifted a hand to stop him, but he had no good reason for Jay to stay. Jay seemed to take his silent hesitation as a confirmation of sorts, and nodded tightly.

“Night, Tim.”

The door slammed shut behind him.

Tim was left alone to wonder what the hell that was.

“G’night.”

Notes:

Sorry again for the break! I want to get this fic done as soon as possible but I'm so stupidly busy atm. It's near the top of my priority list tho, do I'm sure it'll be done soon.
With the amount of unresolved feelings and stuff in this one, I have no idea how long the next chapter will be. Might even need to be split into 2, but I hope not.

Anyway! Hope you enjoy a bit of an angstier one, byeeeeeeeeee

Chapter 7: It Was Always You

Summary:

They have a long overdue conversation.

Jay was confused. Very, very confused.

He had been confused for a long time now. Ever since he had gotten those tapes from his old best friend, who had promptly moved as far away as seemingly possible once the bag was in Jay’s hand. Since he had looked through them for the very first time to find, not just raw Marble Hornets footage, but eerie, corrupted videos of running and mystery and fear.

He had been confused through it all. Breaking into Brian’s old house, searching old abandoned buildings and forest trails. He had been even more confused when he’d woken up in a hotel with no recollection of the past seven months with nothing but a camera and a stranger in the next room over.

His confusion had slowly, over time, become the norm. Feeling in control and on top of everything was a rarity he never quite got the chance to taste anymore. And when he did, it was foreign and, God forbid, even more confusing.

And now, even since he had found the old Marble Hornets actor, Tim Wright, walking through the streets, after losing Jessica and chunks of his memory and feeling more like his life was plummeting deeper and deeper to the depths of Hell every day, he still didn’t have any idea what was going on.

He was confused as to why Tim had no memory of being… that masked guy and stalking him. He was confused as to why Alex hadn’t managed to shoot him and Jessica in that last tape from the safe, and was confused as to where he could have gone afterwards. He was confused at the ridiculously cryptic video responses posted by ToTheArk, and had no idea where the hooded man was or what he was trying to tell Jay.

He was confused after Tim had punched him around the jaw and yelled at him, and then decided to team up with him despite it all. He shouldn’t have. Jay was, arguably, an awful person. He knew that. He knew he was hurting people, and ruining Tim’s life be being anywhere near him. Hell, Jay had posted Tim’s private medical records detailing his sick, traumatic childhood to the internet. Jay’s arrival to Tim’s town had brought long-lost seizures and relapses and monsters back into the poor guy’s life. Just as he was starting to get better.

The ache to Jay’s jaw after that night reminded him of all this.

And yet, still, Tim was here.

And now, Jay was even more confused than ever.

He’d come out as gay in High School, and it was never a huge thing for him. He just got on with his day, never really with much of an interest in dating. The most his sexuality would be mentioned was when Alex would smirk and point out some attractive dude walking around campus, which Jay would wave a dismissive hand at and roll his eyes.

And of course Jay would get a little flustered by Tim sometimes. Tim was a good-looking guy, and spoke with such a sarcastic, cool confidence that his actual words could be hard to focus on sometimes. He was a charming guy, when he wanted to be. Who wouldn’t be a little flushed around him?

But that was it. Jay might stutter over his words with him occasionally, but it was no different to the way a straight guy would get a little nervous walking past a random girl he found hot in the street, nothing more. It wasn’t like he wanted anything from it. That would be weird, and anyway, Tim was straight. Who cares? He’d just go on about his day, like he always did. No biggie.

But here was the confusing part: that didn’t happen.

Maybe it was the human connection again, after so long of having a grand total of no one. He’d had Jessica for a week or so, but then she’d been ripped from him again, and he was back to his lonesome. Maybe the fact that he’d hardly even spoken more that two hundred words to another human being in the past three years meant that the sudden close proximity to someone he suddenly found himself considering a real ‘friend’ was overwhelming.

But hearing Tim’s happy chuckle down the phone on long car drives did something to his stomach. Receiving an unprompted chocolate bar from him for no reason other than, “you mentioned you liked these in a conversation you thought I wasn’t even listening to because you ramble too much and think no one listens or cares for what you have to say, but I apparently do”, made his brain buffer stupidly.

Tim’s worry for Jay disappearing that morning he went to get him a coffee made his chest ache with a guilty fondness. During the sleepless, paranoid nights he spent lying awake in the blackness, listening to the even rhythms of his friend’s breathing was more comfort than any blanket could ever have given him.

Leaning against doorframes and smirking at a bad haircut. Hands brushing over his neck as Tim fixed it.

The kind of adorable way Tim got so flustered at the miscommunicated suggestion of how they get through the muddy flood in the forest. Clinging to his back and, selfishly, taking the opportunity to just hug Tim when crossing that swamp made him feel calm and safe, despite the fact that they were in a forest by themselves, and all awful things that had ever happened to Jay had usually happened in forests.

The quirk of his lip when he found something amusing, and the crinkle of his brow when he was upset. Jay noticed it all. He found himself missing the slight smell of smoke when he accidentally wore one of his own shirts instead of Tim's, and felt his heartrate picking up embarrassingly when Tim went out for a smoke and Jay decided to follow and sit with him in the tranquil dark of evening.

And listening to him play that tiny guitar, watching him stick his tongue out a little when he messed up a pattern, straining to make out the lyrics he quietly mumbled under his breath. It was more confusing than ever.

Almost as confusing as wondering how in the world a monster that looked like it could be from some indie horror game existed in real life and decided to stalk a bunch of college students.

But, throughout all of this, Jay had convinced himself that Tim could never be gay. He’d mentioned a girlfriend from the past once, and only ever complimented the women on TV they’d see when watching whatever was on in their shitty motel rooms.

But listening to the lyrics Tim mumbled under his breath, he was certain he wasn’t imagining the word he heard: Jaybird.

Why specifically a Jaybird? And why did he get so horribly nervous and red in the face when Jay pushed for an answer? Why did he rush to put the instrument away and insist he didn’t remember anymore? Was it possible that Tim maybe…?

But when he’d asked why he stopped playing, his face looked so blank. He went so pale, and his eyes looked so wide and dull.

And then Jay had asked that stupid question, and it all went bad.

Was Jay just reading this all wrong? He’d never been good at reading people. Maybe he was reading it wrong. God this felt so immature. They weren’t teenage girls at a sleepover thinking about their boy-crushes. They should be able to just talk it out – they were adults for God’s sake.

He shifted uncomfortably in his crooked position, lying across the tiny space in the trunk of his car, trying and failing for the fifteenth time in the past five minutes to get comfortable. When it didn’t work, he couldn’t stop the frustrated groan that tore itself from his throat as he flung his arm over his eyes.

Tim had been so good to Jay. Holding him when he’d had nightmares, keeping him company when he was spiralling, being the common sense he had so desperately needed all this time. Being his friend, who he could actually talk to without judgement or interruption. He was… kind of everything Alex hadn’t been, back in college. Tim was everything Jay needed.

He didn’t want to risk losing that.

But he also knew that the chances of losing it all to avoiding this inevitable conversation they were going to have to force themselves through were just as high.

So, when Jay twitched at the faint smell of smoke that managed to drift through the crack in the backseat window, he sat up.

Whatever this was that had been bouncing around between them for however long - it had to stop. And if that meant Jay had to be the one to take initiative for once, then so be it.

 

Jay knew that Tim heard when he pushed open the trunk and clambered out – he wasn’t exactly subtle. He saw the way Tim’s frame tensed and his head drooped a little, but he didn’t look around to greet him. Jay’s heart sank, and he fought the urge to use the excuse of taking a leak in the trees to get out of this one.

Instead, he forced himself to gingerly pad over, and perched beside Tim on the hood of his car.

Neither of them said anything for a moment, and Jay found his fist clenching and unclenching over his non-existent camera; he’d left it in the car. He knew Tim didn’t like the way he filmed everything, and this definitely wasn't a moment he wanted to risk accidentally posting a clip of in his sleep-deprived state of editing. But the fact that it wasn’t there made him feel… uneasy.

Still. It was for Tim’s sake.

The sky was already fading to a pale, golden pink as the blue of night filtered away into dawn. Wispy clouds glided lazily through the air, and sleepy birdsong was the only sound other than the puff of Tim’s breath whenever he blew out those cascading tendrils of smoke. It was peaceful – Jay hadn’t realised he’d been lying in his car long enough for it to be early morning. But the peace didn’t make him feel any more at ease as he considered what he had to say next.

And just as Jay finally opened his mouth to say a simple, ‘hey’, jumbles of words began spilling from Tim’s, possibly faster than Jay had ever heard them before.

“Sorry about earlier. I didn’t mean to snap like that, that was really shitty of me. I just was in a bad mood and was probably frustrated that I couldn’t play as well as I could a couple years ago, you know? It happens,” he brushed off with a jerky shrug. Jay just blinked, listening.

“Uh… It’s fine,” he managed slowly when he realised Tim was waiting for some sort of response. Tim nodded definitively and left it at that. As it so often did nowadays, it went silent between them once more.

Jay wondered which one of them was going to bring it up first. The question Jay had asked.

It had been so blunt. So impulsive. Even just thinking about it now made Jay want to hit himself. Could he have had any less tact?

He could feel his face growing hot with discomfort and embarrassment. His chest felt heavy as it pounded violently – he hoped to God that Tim couldn’t somehow hear it rattle his insides. This sucked. Why couldn’t he just say something? Get the ball rolling and go from there. That would be the easiest way to do this, by far.

But every time Jay went to open his mouth, his throat clogged up and no sound came out.

Really not the time to be bad at talking.

“So,” Tim said suddenly, tone forced into something weirdly casual, but sharp enough to feel like the most unnatural attempt at a segue in the world. “We’ll set off in the morning, drive back to grab the stuff-bag, and head straight to the next place. How long are we thinking of staying there?”

Jay just stared at Tim, who simply stared back. Tim frowned.

“I mean, I know we aren’t that far off from Alex’s old place, but I’d rather not spend six hours driving in one day.”

Jay shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut, unable to think of any way to stop this obvious attempt at shoving the fat-ass elephant in the room under this tiny-ass rug. They couldn’t keep doing this.

“I think I need more gas – don’t know about you. We could—”

“Stop it, Tim,” Jay finally said, voice thick but quiet. Tim went quiet all too quickly, as if someone had flicked a switch, still refusing to meet Jay’s eye.

“Stop what?” he said after a prolonged moment.

Jay could have laughed if he weren't so agitated. His voice sounded quiet and guilty, like a kid who knew he’d been caught but couldn’t bring himself to own up.

“Stop— stop avoiding it,” he said, waving a hand. The air felt so dense it was suffocating – and it wasn’t just from the cigarette tucked between Tim’s fingers. If Jay hadn’t felt sick beforehand, he definitely did now. He wished he could tell how Tim was feeling. But the guy wasn’t saying anything. He was just staring into the trees beyond the small, deserted parking lot, looking like he wanted to be anywhere but here. Jay felt a jittery frustration bubbling in his gut.

“Just… Oh, for God’s sake. Is it that hard for grown men to talk about… I don’t know, feelings and shit?” he snapped, shaking his head and throwing his hands up, knowing exactly how hard it was for grown men to talk about their feelings sometimes. Tim’s almost comedic deadpan eyebrow raise seemed to agree.

Jay sighed. He had no other way to start this stupid fucking conversation.

“Your song,” he said shortly, voice thinning a little as he looked down, very aware of how loudly he’d just snapped away at the calmness of the morning. Had the birds stopped chirping? He didn’t miss the way Tim stiffened as soon as those two words left his mouth.

“What about it?”

“Come on, Tim.”

Tim just sighed and looked back at Jay, a spark of stubborn indignance in his eye.

“What do you want me to say, Jay? That it wasn’t just some old song I wrote about a crush or something back in college? It’s not that interesting.”

“Who was the crush?” Jay asked pointedly, swallowing down the anxiety in his throat as he forced the question from his mouth without missing a beat. Tim opened his mouth, then shut it again.

He looked at the trees and took a lengthy drag of his cigarette.

“I think you have a pretty good idea.”

Jay’s heart leapt to his throat and he nearly choked on air.

Great going, Jay. You finally get this insufferable man to open up a little and you almost start violently coughing at him. That’s one way to charm him. Tim must have noticed the small choked sound though, because he tilted his head to side-eye Jay and smirked a little amused smile. Which didn’t really help the whole not getting choked up thing.

As quickly as he could, Jay forced down the dumb feelings in his gut and the tickling in his throat and nodded, mouth dry as sandpaper buried under the sand of a dessert. But he was not about to let himself shut down here.

He nodded slowly, shifting to lean back on his hands braced against the hood of the car.

Tim’s fleeting smile disappeared and he lifted his cigarette to his lips again. Jay couldn’t help but watch as he inhaled a deep breath, held it for probably much longer than was healthy, before breathing out in a wavering sigh. They both watched the greyness dissipate into the sky.

“Is that okay?” Tim eventually asked, voice hardly above a grumble; it cracked a little. He hurriedly cleared his throat. Despite himself, Jay found his mouth moving before he could even give it the script.

“Is it still about me?”

A pause.

Jay felt his ears burn, and scratched at his nose to give his camera-free hands something to do. Whatever response Tim was formulating in his head was taking far too long to formulate, and Jay hoped to God it would finish fucking formulating soon.

In the meantime, Jay plucked up the courage to steal a glance at Tim’s downcast face. Only to find those small, dark eyes pinned back at him, thick eyebrows furrowed and mouth open in a silent ‘O’ – he looked confused. But the expression was gone immediately once Tim’s eyes widened at the contact, and he flushed and hurriedly looked in the complete opposite direction.

This time, Jay let himself smile. He may have been pretty bad with social cues, but even for him, that was all the confirmation he needed.

Jay glanced down at his hand on the hood of Tim’s car, and at Tim’s; only inches away. His knuckles were white where they were clenched tightly into fists behind him. Jay’s own fingers felt shaky and weak.

But with a surge of confidence he honestly didn’t even know he had in him, he let his hand shuffle clumsily over to Tim’s.

Of all the terrifying things Jay had been through, he had always assumed that something like this (if he ever got there) would still honestly have been up there with the horrifying feeling of running away from stalkers and gun-wielding psychos. Jay had never been the romantic type, and his one or two experiences with guys in college had been so utterly petrifying that it basically put him off dating forever.

But as his pinky-finger valiantly nudged at Tim’s hand in a quiet question, he honestly didn’t feel all that afraid. Maybe it was the confidence that came with the non-verbal proof of sorts that Tim’s flustered face had given him. Maybe it was the confidence that came with making him so flustered. He wouldn’t have expected it of the dude – always so stoic and nonchalant.

But still, Jay’s breath caught in his throat as Tim tensed minutely, and then shifted so his hand lay open beside Jay’s.

With a slightly shaky, unsure smile up at Tim – who was still staring intensely at the ground like it was the most interesting thing in the world – he linked their fingers together. For once, the question of is this guy even remotely gay in any way didn't even cross his mind.

It wasn’t a perfect fit - their hands. They didn’t slot in like a puzzle-piece. Tim’s hands were broad and warm and his fingers were a little stubby. Jay’s were spindly and lanky and in a constant state of hypothermia. But Jay couldn’t help the buzz in his chest at the feeling.

It felt like the world was holding its breath. Maybe it was; Jay certainly was. And he hoped that whatever bitches probably stalking them right now had the decency to hold theirs, too. Trying to pluck up the courage to exhale, Jay peeked at Tim. For a moment, Tim's face just looked blank.

And then, as he sighed a short, airy laugh, the world's own sigh seemed to breathe the birds and the trees and the stalkers back into motion.

“It can be,” he belatedly answered, voice edging the line of forced apathy and badly-disguised relief. He shrugged, voice light. “If you want, I guess.”

Jay scoffed. “Wow.”

“What? Who am I to stifle creative interpretation? It can be about whoever you envision it to be.”

“You’re really unhelpful.”

“I try my best.”

Jay grinned, trying to hide his probably goofy-looking smile behind his free hand while Tim just snorted. He was looking at their linked hands now with a sort of… assessing brightness to his face. Like he was admiring them, but still deciding whether they fit. When he looked up, Tim’s eyes wasted no time in finding Jay’s and staring straight into them.

“This okay?” he asked quietly. Jay nodded, voice finally giving out on him. To be fair, he had kept his cool this long. Now his entire body felt like it just wanted to crumple and fuse with the asphalt below. He could forgive his voice-box for needed a minute to reboot.

Tim nodded too, and Jay could have sworn he'd seen his dark eyes flit down to Jay's mouth for a moment, before he looked back to the treeline. Jay puffed out his cheeks and followed his gaze.

The silence was back to normal. The air felt right again, this time devoid of any agonising tension or uneasy awkwardness. Jay just felt content. The childish fluttering in his stomach had calmed to a pleasant simmer, and his heartrate had slowed to its normal state. He finally felt like a grown adult again, able to regulate his feelings properly; something he hadn’t realised he had really been missing that much until now. Now that the dizziness of proximity was gone and all was out in the open.

Well. Not really all of it.

They still had a lot to talk about. Like what this actually meant, or if this would actually come to anything. If the timing was just so awful that it couldn’t work, or if neither of them were actually ready for whatever was to come between the two of them. There was a lot to discuss – even more so when you consider their… predicament.

But if there was one thing Jay and Tim were good at, it was taking their sweet fucking time with the inevitable.

Jay sighed.

They would sort it out eventually.

For now, he was just happy to sit and look at the slowly pinkening sky, hands intertwined with probably the only person left in the world he truly cared for, and drop his head to fall on said person’s shoulder.

The little things like this were surely what would stick in Jay’s head the longest once all this was done. He hoped the same would be for Tim.

If they made it through this mess, they would remember this morning. If they somehow survived together, pushed each other through to the other side, and were able to pick up the pieces and make a life for themselves once all this was over... maybe they would be able to look back on these little moments and remember that, as awful as it was back then, this time of their lives wasn’t all bad.

Tim sighed a soft chuckle and leaned his cheek on Jay’s head, but not before turning his head to press an impulsive, fleeting peck to the crown of Jay's hair. Jay couldn’t help the sappy smile that pulled at his cheeks, but disguised it as best he could with an amused eyeroll.

“Well that was a lot of stress for nothing, then. Could have told me you felt the same, like, a month or two ago.”

The smile was replace with a rather ungraceful snort as Jay elbowed him hard in the ribs.

"We aren't done here."

"Yeah."

"We have a lot to talk about."

"I know."

Jay sighed.

He was getting ahead of himself anyway. That time in the future could wait. Things weren’t good just yet - even if, for just a moment at this point in time, he could finally let himself forget about finding Jessica or Alex or answers.

But still. They had a lot of driving to do, and a lot of things to fear.

At least now they weren’t afraid of each other.

Notes:

Hihihi, thanks so much for reading to the end :D

A Jay pov, how exciting

Anyway!! I was a little nervous about posting this last one in case it isn't very satisfying for some people. I mean I get that it's fun to have some big romantic gesture at the end of a story like this, but I honestly think that these two just need time. they need to take it slow and figure their shit out, because damn they have a lot of shit. I like leaving their relationship kind of open ended, if that makes sense. So sorry if you were looking forward to a first kiss or something!! My bad lol

Anyway yeah, sorry this last one took so long to get out. I'm still not entirely happy with the way it came out, but i need to be finished with this one now. I don't have the commitment for stuff like this lol. Either way, I really hope you enjoyed, I definitely had a lot of fun writing it <3

Thanks again for reading byeeeeeeeeeeee

(Oh also look at the chapter names. Totally not way too proud of myself than i should be for that lil tidbit.)