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Jay Merrick had been on his own for so long that he’d never considered what it would be like when he was around another person again. Tim joining him on the hunt for Alex and becoming essentially the only person – let alone the only… friend? partner? fellow tortured soul being hunted by a faceless supernatural entity? – in his life was… odd, to say the least.
Because Jay Merrick wasn’t just alone pre-Tim; he’d been alone long before the beginning of this whole shit show (the beginning of the end, as he sometimes dismally thought of it). He hadn’t really had anyone of note in his normal life. No good friends, no girlfriend, no close (physically or emotionally) family. The sheer lack of presence of other people in his life had factored greatly into allowing him – or perhaps even driving him – to start down this path in the first place. This way he at least had viewers that cared about him, and some achievable goal to work towards. And, now, he had Tim. Jay knew, deep down, that he was glad Tim had become embroiled in this alongside him. Not because he wanted someone to drag down with him, or someone to suffer with him – but because he just wanted someone.
Tim’s constant presence was a sufficient remedy to Jay’s equally constant paranoia. Another person sharing Jay’s space, a secondary member of the Marble Hornets team, meant that he didn’t need to fill every single role at once. Someone needed to be filming at most times, someone needed to edit the videos, someone needed to figure our totheark’s cryptic bullshit, and someone needed to be keeping an eye on their surroundings at all times. Jay was fine taking on some of these duties; he’d already cemented himself as cameraman as well as editor, but being able to talk about hidden messages and codes with Tim – as well as everyone online – and deferring the role of guard to Tim took a lot off of Jay’s mind. Jay hadn’t even needed to ask Tim to be the lookout. He’d stepped into the role wordlessly, and Jay wasn’t sure if it was because his anxiety was just that palpable that Tim took some pity on him, or if Tim, like Jay, had become more than used to looking over his shoulder. Tim did the job well, too, or at least Jay felt like he did, to a point where Jay no longer had to haul a chair to whichever corner of the hotel room gave him an easy view of the window and door. Jay could turn his back to a point of entry, or even just use the bathroom, without his heart thrumming and pulse quickening as hard as they had when he was a child, chancing fearful glances to every darkened corner of his room.
Tim was better suited to the be their watchman, anyway, Jay thought. Tim was stoic, broad-shouldered and generally aware of things. Jay knew Tim harbored the same worries as he did, felt the same fear as he did, but he held it differently to Jay, whose anxiety was frenetic, an ever-present buzz like the hum from a powerline or old fluorescent lights. Tim kept his stress compact and centralized (save the times when it all became too much, when Tim exploded in a frenzy of yelling and pacing like he had when he’d confronted Jay about Marble Hornets, but once he’d worn himself out, cleaned his system, he would start from square one again, and return to his silent self), and so he was actually capable of sitting still for an extended period of time (far longer than Jay had expected him to be able to, what with Tim’s childhood, not to mention his… affliction), with smoke breaks and bouts of pacing interspersed.
An entire month had passed since they’d gone on the road together, two weeks since Tim had finally quit his job, purportedly satisfied with the money he’d saved for food and hotels (even though Jay knew Tim would have kept working if he could, would have if not for Jay’s subtle, then gradually not-so-subtle, suggestions that Tim finally join him “full time” (keep Jay’s paranoia at bay all of the time instead of just nights, he never admitted aloud), for Tim was far more concerned with the issue of money than Jay had ever been since he’d left behind steady housing and consistent work). The day after Tim quit, they moved location, taking a brief detour for Tim to leave his car at his house. It was easier with only one car, they figured; Tim didn’t have to keep tailing Jay on the highways, or whichever side street Jay decided was safer than a highway, and they would draw less attention to themselves in only one car.
When they’d been talking it over, Jay gently nudging Tim towards giving up his car, he hadn’t mentioned, or even fully realized himself, his main reason behind his advocating for only one car. It was, in a way, insurance; like this, Tim couldn’t leave him without hitch-hiking back to his house or having Jay drive him, and Jay knew Tim wasn’t stupid enough to hitch-hike. As much as Jay hated it, he was glad that Tim couldn’t just speed away from him without talking to him first, since he’d done that plenty of times already. Granted, that time after Rosswood, after watching the footage that made up Entry #65, became pretty understandable, but Jay was still worried that Tim would decide that all of this was stupid or fruitless or whatever rationale Tim’s cynical brain came up with, and Tim would abandon him. And Jay didn’t think he could take that. This way, with only one car, Jay would have a chance to talk Tim down. He didn’t want to feel like he was keeping Tim here against his will, just the thought made him uncomfortable, and if Tim really wanted to leave the investigation, Jay would let him leave. But Jay had become dependent on Tim as more than just another set of watchful eyes.
One learns about another person when living with them. You notice their quirks, pick up on their small ticks, learn what minute things they’re fussy about and what big things they couldn’t be bothered with less. Jay, who had never lived with anyone outside of his parents from ages zero to eighteen, had never experienced co-existing with another person. It was… nice. Odd, of course, strange and stressful under their circumstances, but still nice. Another person’s constant presence really was noticeable, and as the weeks went on, especially the most recent two, with Tim now spending entire days holed up with Jay in a dingy hotel, Jay slowly realized it wasn’t just Tim’s role as a lookout and guard dog that quelled his anxieties. It was… just Tim that did that, all on his own.
Tim wasn’t the friendliest, most extraverted of people, but his presence was grounding; he was reliable and consistent. And he cared about Jay. Tim drank coffee like he was as addicted to it as he was cigarettes, and he always brought back Jay a cup of whatever papery-tasting liquid the hotel lobby had when he got more for himself. Tim did their laundry (Jay had caught him mumbling under his breath a few days ago, thanking god that the place they were staying at was decent enough to have a laundry room), and seemed to actually enjoy the task, unlike Jay, who put off washing his clothes until they were dirty and he’d already worn them twice more (and even then he’d just throw them in a machine and then back into his bag in a heap. Tim folded their laundry). Tim, instead of saying that he was setting out to get dinner, would announce that it was time for both of them to find the cheapest diner to get food, something he’d only started doing a week after living with Jay full-time. And when they did go out for food, often opting to split a single dish to save on the cash, Tim would eat sparsely until Jay had eaten as much as he wanted before finishing whatever was left over. Similarly, Tim would also tell Jay when it was high time he step away from his laptop and actually get some sleep, and would occasionally sit up with a book until Jay fell asleep. Jay was pretty sure Tim had noticed how bad Jay was at taking care of himself, and while he didn’t want to bring it up point-blank, he did whatever he could to improve Jay’s quality of living by getting him coffee and making sure he had clean clothes and forcing him to get out of the room and actually eat food and get a few hours of shut-eye. Jay, once he’d actually taken note of everything Tim did, and then pieced together why he did it, was stunned. For everything he’d put Tim through (he still felt guilty for leaking Tim’s medical records), after lying to him and keeping his motivations hidden, Tim had begrudgingly (had it been begrudgingly? he wondered) taken up the role of not only watchman, but caretaker. Jay barely had any more experience in someone caring about his wellbeing than he did living with another person. Jay’s parents were perfectly fine people, they fed him and clothed him and gave him a house to live in and nice presents on his birthday and Christmas and helped him financially through college, but they weren’t ones to go out of their way to fret. If Jay had an issue, his parents had always figured he could sort it out best on his own. Tim was the first one to not only figure out that Jay needed to be pushed into self-care, but to actually do the pushing.
All of this put together made Jay woefully and almost embarrassingly dependent on Tim. He could survive on his own, had, probably only on a miracle, for a long time, but it was hardly healthy. He had a bad habit of prioritizing the wrong things, and focusing only on things to do with Marble Hornets and totheark and the entire situation, loathe to admit to himself that there would be no situation to focus on if he collapsed from dehydration or starvation or exhaustion.
It was in their second month of living together that Jay had his big revelation.
The week before they’d gone out to the red tower and found the stash of half-burnt tapes. All of his waking hours (and some of the hours that should have been sleeping hours) had been consumed by the laborious task of trying to get at least one of the tapes to work. If Alex had been so intent on burning and hiding these tapes, even after giving Jay so many of them, what kind of crazy shit did they have to have on them?
Jay heard a knock on the door before it opened and Tim walked in, one cup on coffee balanced on another in his hand. He’d taken to knocking on the door once before opening it to alert Jay to his entrance. Jay liked that he’d thought of it.
“Here,” Tim said, setting the coffee on the desk Jay was set up at. “They actually had some cream and sugar down there, so I doctored your coffee.” He continued, half-muttering, “Now instead of taking like coffee-flavoured cardboard it’ll take like sugar-flavoured cardboard.”
Jay smiled, and exhaled out of his nose at Tim’s comment. Tim was very picky about his coffee, Jay had learned, and would probably have a French press and an espresso machine set up in their room if he could. “Thanks.”
“Still don’t understand how you can drink coffee that’s as pale as you are,” Tim added, settling onto his bed. “You’re ruining something that’s perfect all on its own. Or should be,” he tacked on, giving the paper cup he held a ruinous stare.
“What I don’t understand is why you voluntarily decided to burn off all of your taste buds,” Jay retorted with a smirk. They had this argument at least once a week, but it never lost its amusement.
“Mark my fucking words, Jay Merrick, once we’re out of this I’ll make you a decent cup of coffee and you’ll be converted.”
But Jay didn’t quip back, and Tim’s posture stiffened slightly. He’d said “once we’re out of this.” Tim never mentioned the future, and when he did, it was always in the conditional. “If we get out of this,” “if we beat Alex and this damn monster,” never as an absolute, never “when.” Tim dealt only with the “what is” and never with the “what could be.” Jay was always the one to make suggestions about “after this is over,” and Tim would get uncomfortable and change the subject. But now they’d just shifted.
Before Jay got a chance to say anything, to decide whether he wanted to bring it up or just change topics so he didn’t make Tim go all weird and silent and closed-off, Tim spoke. And didn’t immediately back-pedal or change the subject.
“Look at me talking about the future,” he said, the “as if we have one” silently implied. Something between a legitimate smile and a grimace was spread across his face, leaking into the crease of his eyebrows and his awkward gaze, focused on the bed in front of him. “I guess it’s you that’s converted me.”
“Tim, I –,” Jay started, feeling strangely compelled to apologise for something. “We can just forget you said anything, if –.” He wasn’t sure where he was going with his words, so he trailed off.
“No, I – don’t worry about it.” Tim waved a hand as if trying to brush away the strange air that had settled into the room and proceeded to swing his legs over the bed and get up. “I’m gonna go smoke.”
The sound of the shutting door seemed to resonate in the room for far longer than it did. Jay stared at the door for a number of minutes, then turned back to his laptop, and only stared at the screen before Tim came back, his incoming presence foretold a second in advance by a knock on the door. When he came in, instead of settling back onto his bed, and going about doing something Tim did quite well, pretending nothing had happened, he sat on the foot of his bed. Jay shifted in his chair to face him, but didn’t dare speak. Tim put his face in his hands for a moment, clearly still thinking and planning out whatever he was about to say, but Jay was patient. Tim was actually going to talk about something.
Tim let his arms fall to his side, and waited another minute before speaking.
His voice was strained when he finally did speak. “Listen… I don’t like thinking about the future a lot in general. And I hate pretending like I have a fucking clue about what will or won’t happen, because that shit’s out of my hands and I’m not going to pretend like it isn’t. But it’s not just to do with you, or our… particular circumstance, at least, not that much. Growing up in that place, the future was never really framed as a positive thing. Or it never seemed like it for me. ‘The future’ was always whenever you got better and actually fit in with the real world, and for a kid like me, it didn’t feel like that was an ever going to be an option, or at least not for a long time.
“When I started getting better, and actually went to a normal school, and then college, I did start thinking about the future. I was just so… eager to forget that I was ever troubled that I lost myself thinking about all the cool shit I was going to do now that I was ‘normal.’ But then I started getting sick. And then I started losing time. And everything just took a straight plunge toward god-fucking-awful, and suddenly, I didn’t have a future again. I never knew if a coughing fit would lead to a seizure, or three weeks of memory loss, or if some of the things I was seeing out of the corner of my eye were just shadows, or my mind playing tricks on me, or something worse.” Tim had kept his voice surprisingly steady throughout his entire explanation, and Jay felt a strange urge to get up and hug Tim. He couldn’t relate to Tim exactly, but he knew some of what Tim meant. Especially after the 7 months of memory loss incident, and finding out there were hour of tape footage he never remembered filming, he was fucking terrified to fall asleep. Every morning he felt a particularly unpleasant shade of anxiety painted across his skin which didn’t go away until he checked the date on his phone or laptop and knew it was only the next day. Thinking about the future became harder when you weren’t sure if you were just going to wake up in it one day.
“It was hard enough for me to get through a day,” Tim continued. “I didn’t want to think about what might be on the other side of a bridge that I might be able cross if I can even struggle my way to it. Not to mention I didn’t really have anything going for me, I was kind of living the whole ‘work to live’ life, so it was always kind of in the back of my head, if everything did go to hell, why should I care? What use is thinking about a future you might not even be… there to have? I… I had nothing grounding me to life. To living.” Tim sighed, suddenly seeming angry, and he put his face in his hands before running his hands through his hair and returning to his normal sitting position. “What I’m – What I’m trying to say is that… I’m not upset that I’m thinking about the future like that. That I said wat I did. I still don’t like thinking about it as something that’s obviously going to happen, but… my point is, I have a reason to think past tomorrow, let alone think about tomorrow at all. So… thanks. You might’ve pulled me into this mess, but I think you’re also the only thing that’s keeping me from going white flag on this whole thing. You and the fact that I’m too stubborn.”
Jay was completely speechless. Tim’s entire speech had been a bit of trip – the only time he’d ever given an explanation about anything had been about his childhood, in the hospital, and that was after Jay had already half-figured it out with Tim’s medical records and totheark was probably inches away from kidnapping Tim and forcing him to spill. Even for the small things Tim rarely gave an answer: Jay asked him why he liked coffee so much, he just said he liked the taste; Jay asked him why he almost always got the same type of food for breakfast – French toast, drenched in syrup, with as many strawberries on the side as they’d allow him – no matter what shitty hotel breakfast or rundown diner they were at, he said it was so he was never disappointed; Jay asked him why he was always fidgeting with something in his hands, be it clicking a pen, or pulling back and letting go the pages of a book, or folding laundry, and Tim would just say “At least I’m not constantly bouncing off the walls like you are.” Tim disclosed nothing. And here he was, spilling his guts, just because of a little comment about the future.
But, if he was being honest, it wasn’t even Tim’s unprovoked candor that had him stunned. It was the contents of his words that sent Jay’s mind reeling.
Ask him five minutes ago why he thought Tim hadn’t left him in the dust yet, Jay would’ve said he had no clue, and if really pressed for an answer, he’d probably have said Tim felt sorry for him, or that he wanted revenge on Alex, or maybe he was looking for answers to all the questions his childhood (and the years between Marble Hornets the movie and Marble Hornets the YouTube channel) had left him with. Never in a million fucking years would Jay have said it was because it was one of the few things keeping Tim alive.
Never in a million fucking years would Jay Merrick have guessed that the only reason Tim Wright was here with him now, hunting old friends and men in masks and unknown entities, was the same fucking reason he had started doing it in the first place.
Tim was hunting, just as much as anything else, for a reason to live. And damned if he was the only one of the two.
If Jay wasn’t on the floor already, he fell as hard and as fast as if his worst enemy had just shoved him off a cliff.
“Tim, I –,” Jay started, though he wasn’t sure where he was going to go with his words, and was grateful when Tim quickly cut him off.
“Don’t, Jay, I – I’m fine. Don’t worry about it, or me, or anything. I just... felt like you should – why I’m here, or doing this, or whatever. Just, go back to your editing. Whatever’s on that tape has gotta be important and we shouldn’t waste any time figuring out what’s on it.” He pushed himself back onto his bed and against the headboard, and picked up his book from the bedside table.
And with that, Tim’s walls were re-erected, the moat around his castle re-dug and filled in with murky, piranha-infested water. Jay knew wouldn’t get anything more than a few grunts and single-word replies out of Tim for the rest of the day, if not the next few days, and so figured it would be best if he just put the whole incident out of his mind until he could catch Tim off-guard with whatever questions he still had about everything he’d just learned. But even after he turned away from Tim and back to his computer, and began to actually work instead of staring thoughtfully at the screen (about everything besides the tapes), he couldn’t shake what Tim had said from his mind.
Jay didn’t bring it up for the rest of the day, kept his mouth shut when they went out to get dinner and split a burger at a diner that looked like no one had cared about it for some 30-odd years, and only stared slightly agog at Tim when he got up mid-meal, walked to the neglected jukebox that stood in one corner of the restaurant, and put on “Let’s Dance” by David Bowie. Tim said nothing, acted like it was any other patron that had decided to let an 80s hit sweep through the lonely space, echo off the stained linoleum floor, and brighten the light from the outside neons that flooded through the windows, if only just for a few minutes. Jay didn’t know what had come over Tim, but he still gave off the aura of a sleeping bear, and Jay didn’t want to be the one to wake him.
It was only much later that evening, after they’d returned home and Jay had slaved away at tape recovery for another four or five hours until Tim had told him it was time to stop, when Jay was lying wide-awake in bed, Tim already asleep, that he had a very sudden and very frightening realization.
Jay had fallen in love with Tim.
He couldn’t pinpoint a specific time – was it earlier today when he was talking about why he was here with Jay? way back at the hospital when Tim had first been completely honest with him? gradually, over time, after all of the coffees and laundry and making sure Jay was okay? or had he developed some schoolgirl crush on one of Alex’s actors way back in college that was only now fully realizing itself? – but whenever it was, Tim’s speech had definitely done nothing to keep Jay from figuring out, with all the poking and prodding he was doing around his brain, mulling over everything Tim had said and what exactly it meant, both in general and to him. Of course he was going to stumble across this.
It wasn’t necessarily that he was in love with another guy; while the idea didn’t thrill him, having been brought up with more traditional parents in a more conservative area, he’d come to awkward terms with his sexuality years ago, back in college. He’d tried dating a few of the sparse girls that actually showed an interest in him, back when he was vehemently denying to himself that he ever stole glances at his male peers, but it never went anywhere, and the most he ever felt for a girl he went out with was a vague interest in being friends with her. He’d never made it past a first date, the guilt and fear and shame too overwhelming to fake anything convincing, let alone charming or interesting. The last girl he’d gone out with had straight-up asked him, not rudely but inquisitively, maybe even pityingly, if he was gay. Lost for an answer, he’d just cast his gaze down and nodded, defeated. She’d put a hand on his shoulder and smiled, and said “You should really stop wasting your time trying to make girls think you’re into them, then. You’re not very good at it, you know.” And that was that. It was the last date he’d been on with a girl, and since then he’d begrudgingly accepted his sexuality. Jay had never gone out with a guy, not even for coffee or drinks, but it was more for never having an interest in a guy, or a guy showing interest in him, and the fact that Jay really was just a shut-in who focused more on work than other people. Following Alex around like a puppy in college and sometimes allowing himself to think of him as “cute” or “attractive” was the closest Jay had gotten to having feelings for someone.
Realizing he was head-over-heels, capital-L in Love with Tim was more of a shock to Jay in that he was actually capable of getting close enough to a person to develop feelings like that.
And of-fucking-course he had feelings for the only person in the entire world he could trust, the person who’d admitted only twelve hours before that Jay was one of the few reasons he was living, the person he was essentially forced to spend every day, and most waking hours around, the only person is maybe his entire life who actually seemed to give a damn about Jay.
Though he supposed when he put it like that, it kind of made sense. Kind of made a lot of sense.
Didn’t make it any easier to stomach.
Jay didn’t think having feelings for Tim would get in the way of working on everything, or too heavily disrupt the dynamic they had going on, but harboring secret feelings for the man who was currently his only friend felt weirdly dishonest, and just… weird in general. He didn’t want to tell Tim, or worse, accidentally admit it somehow, and have Tim think that he’d had ulterior motives the whole time, that he’d dragged Tim into this just because he had some weird stalker-y crush on him. He didn’t think it would go over very well if he explained he’d only developed the feelings since Tim had gone on the road with him, because then Tim might think it was some weird thing, that Jay had somehow gone fucked in the head from only having one other person in his life.
But would Tim think that?
If there was anything Tim understood, it was weird brain stuff. So even if he did think Jay only had feelings for Tim because they were sometimes the only human face that wasn’t on a screen the other saw in a day, he’d probably understand. Right? Tim had been stuck in the hospital for years – he’d had to have developed a strange relationship with someone there, or with another person after he’d gotten out of the hospital. Even if Tim didn’t think Jay was into him because he was a genuinely good person, or didn’t know, because even if Jay confessed he wasn’t sure if he’d be going into the how and why, he hopefully wouldn’t think Jay was crazy. At the very least, he’d see it as a problem, a weird coping mechanism or side-effect, that needed to be fixed.
That was a lot better than the alternative: Tim running away and abandoning him because he was disgusting with Jay for feeling real feelings for him. That was the worst outcome of all.
The following morning was awkward, and yet not as awkward as Jay had assumed it would be. He’d tossed and turned all night, first thinking about the day, and then after his revelation, thinking about that. He’d even woke Tim up at one point during the night, but all Tim had done was grumbled “Stop worrying about whatever you’re worrying about and just sleep,” before turning back to the wall. Jay could tell by his slowed, heavy breathing that he was asleep again in only a few minutes. Jay doubted Tim would even remember his words in the morning. But they stuck with Jay. Even half-asleep, Tim could sus out that Jay was awake and worried, and he wanted him to get sleep. Maybe he was reading too far into things that a normal person – or a person who seemed to have an ounce of care as to whether or not Jay Merrick was of sound mind and body – would do, but it opened up an avenue of thinking that introduced too much hope into his life, and seemed even more outlandish and idiotic-to-believe-in than getting out of this whole thing alive.
Could Tim feel the same about him?
It seemed very unlikely – Jay didn’t really paint, handsome (wow, it really didn’t take long for him to start thinking about Tim like that, huh?), aloof, mysteriously troubled Tim as gay. He seemed closer to nothing than gay, and lightyears closer to gay, even, than someone who would be into someone like Jay. Tim showed Jay more care than anyone in his life had before, but Jay knew that that was just because he hadn’t had great luck with the few people who had featured in his life up to this point, and that people who had completely platonic feelings for another person could treat them exactly like Tim was treating Jay.
It was dangerous to entertain an idea like that, for more reasons than Jay really wanted to consider.
And yet it didn’t stop him from torturing himself by considering them anyways.
That was what made the next day awkward. A combination of Jay’s revelation about his own feelings, and his secondary, minor revelation about the possibility of Tim’s, made him jumpy around Tim, like somehow Tim would find out about everything and be appalled not only by Jay’s feelings but Jay’s consideration that Tim might have feelings of the same kind. Obviously, he couldn’t, Tim wasn’t a mind reader, and Jay knew acting weird around him was only going to make Tim more suspicious. But he couldn’t really help himself. Maybe if he held his anxiety like Tim, he’d be able to act normal. But Jay Merrick’s every worry radiated off of him like the electric field off an electrified fence.
Tim didn’t seem to notice it, at first, probably chalking it up to Jay’s lack of sleep and general personality. But when their scant interactions only seemed to kick Jay’s anxiety into overdrive and make him stutter and stumble over his words even more, Jay knew he was in store for a talking-to.
“Alright, drop your work for a sec,” Tim said, and Jay had seen it coming. He lowered the screen and turned to face Tim. It was late afternoon, and for the entire day, Jay had been jumping at every word Tim said, stiffening every time he got closer than a foot away from him when he set down Jay’s coffee. Jay knew that with Tim’s tendency to not only observe, but draw fairly logical conclusions from those observations, that he’d been able to sense Jay’s strange behaviour the second it stepped out of the ordinary (and that Tim would be a pretty good detective with such tendencies).
“What’s up?” Jay asked, stupidly opting to play dumb.
Tim sighed, almost annoyed. “I think you know, Jay. You’ve been high-strung all day, I can’t say a word or get close to you without you going all dear-in-headlights on me. Did totheark post a video privately on the account? Or did you see Alex or that – thing outside last night, or in a dream or something?”
“No, none of that, I just – I’m fine,” Jay said defensively, avoiding eye contact with Tim. “I didn’t sleep well last night, that’s all. I’m just a bit tired.”
“You’re tired every day,” Tim said, and sat up on his bed, loosely crossing his arms. “And I’ve lived with you for over a month, Jay Merrick, do you think I don’t know how you get when you’re tired? You can barely form a sentence, let alone a hard-to-believe excuse.”
As much as he felt like he was being scolded, his heart jumped a beat (like a traitor) at Tim’s words. But he silenced the thought just as soon as it started speaking. Only a few hours ago he was reflecting on Tim’s habit of observing and drawing conclusions – that was all he was doing here. It wasn’t because he particularly cared about Jay, and what signs he exhibited when he was overworked and needed rest.
“Then all this must just be getting to me, I don’t know,” he said, trying to come up with any excuse he could. Anything besides the truth. “I mean, I’ve been working on like, the same exact thing since we found the tapes by the tower: fixing the tapes. I must just be getting brain-fried.”
Tim squinted his eyes at Jay before relaxing his face and sighing, and running his hands over his face and through his hair like he had the day before. “Look, is – is it about what I said yesterday? About… about why I’m doing this?”
Jay was taken aback. Once again, he was surprising Jay with his openness to address an issue, and Jay was even more surprised that he thought Jay was bothered by what he’d said yesterday. Did he really think Jay was bothered by what Tim had shared with him? Did he really think that the fact he wasn’t just here because he pitied Jay or wanted answers was a burden to Jay rather than a tremendous fucking relief?
Maybe Tim and Jay had a bit more in common than Jay thought.
“No, god, no, Tim, I – I’m not bothered by that at all,” he said, trying to sound as sincere and earnest as he could. “Why would you – why would you think that?” he pushed, unsure if he wanted to know the answer, or if he would even get one.
“A lot of people wouldn’t exactly be thrilled to hear they’re the only reason some mentally ill, depressed fuck hasn’t offed himself yet,” Tim said in his well-practiced sardonic tone. “Not the thing you really want to hear.”
Jay was, for what seemed the hundredth time in the past 24 hours, thrown off by Tim’s words. “I – I mean, ‘thrilled’ isn’t the word I would use, but that’s only because it… because it sucks that you only have one thing…” Jay was going to finish with ‘worth living for,’ but thought better of it. He continued with something else. “It’s… I’m glad you told me.” He decided to take the plunge into honesty. “I… well, before you told me, I kind of just thought you were doing this ‘cause you pitied me, or you wanted answers, or you wanted revenge on Alex or something. I never… I mean, like I said, it sucks that you don’t have more reasons, but it’s just kind of nice to know that you’re in this for the… for one of the same reasons I am.”
Jay couldn’t meet Tim’s eyes, carrying far less contempt and far more shame for the reason he was doing this than Tim was. When Tim admitted it, he spit it out like he was recounting a time someone he truly hated had actually done something good. When Jay admitted it, he uttered it like he was a holy man confessing his sins to his priest.
Just like their anxiety, they carried their secrets differently.
“Really?” Tim asked, tone indiscernible, but not derisive, at the very least. “I thought you were in this for answers. To find Jessica, and bring back the good Alex, or kill him and that thing.”
“I mean, yeah, those are reasons,” Jay said, and they were. At this point he needed answers, answers to everything: what was that monster and what effect did it have on people; who was totheark and why did they seem to be both helping and hurting; why was all of this even happening, anyways? And yes, he wanted to find Jessica, or at least find out what happened to her, and he wanted to know if Alex was past saving too. Those had been his main reasons at some point. But his underlying reason, the reason he’d begun the investigation in the first place, was because it was something to do. And something to do had gradually morphed into something to live for. “But… I didn’t have a lot going for me before all this. And if there’s a light at the end of this tunnel, I won’t have a lot going for me when we reach the other side. So, yeah. It’s kind of all I have.”
“Well, then,” Tim said, voice much lighter than Jay expected it to. He looked up at Tim, who was stretched back out onto his bed. “Guess we’re just both a couple of idiots with nothing to lose.” He was quiet for a minute, and chuckled to himself before saying, “At least now we know if we get out of this we’ll have something.”
Jay furrowed his brows, suddenly lost. How had they gone from “this is the only thing I’m living for” to Tim laughing? “What do you mean something?”
Tim raised an eyebrow in amusement. “If we get out of this, we’ll have each other. Shared trauma? Living on the road together for god knows how long until we bite the dust or figure this shit out? I doubt we’ll be able to get rid of each other if we tried.”
“I – you – you really think so?” Jay said, trying to sound skeptical and unsure rather than pitifully hopeful. He doubted it was very convincing.
Tim shrugged. “I mean, even if we’re not inseparable, neither of us have anything going for us. We’ve established that much. So, why not stick together? I’ve done enough re-integrating into society to know I’m not going to try again. Not sure what I’m gonna do; just fuckin’ appreciate the fact that I’m alive, I guess. And you don’t seem like the type to settle down, even this hadn’t happened, and god knows I probably shouldn’t be left alone, so, you know, you’re welcome to tag along. Jessica, too, if we find her, and Alex if we can fix him. Hell, if totheark promises to not be a major cryptic dickhead he can join in too. If there’s a happy ending to this I don’t think I’ll be too bothered over that shit.”
Tim had been so nonchalant over the entire thing, and yet to Jay, it sounded like he was indirectly inviting him to stick with him indefinitely if they got through this. What would they do? Keep living on the road. Find work wherever they could find it? Look for a new place to live, see if anyone else was being tortured by this same thing? Whatever Tim was proposing, Jay couldn’t fucking believe his ears. The little hopeful voice in his brain was only getting louder.
“I – yeah,” Jay said, at loss for words, so he just smiled. “That,” he chuckled, at last processing the end of Tim’s words, “that sounds… nice.”
Tim nodded, as if saying “That settles it,” and picked up his book from the side table, closing the conversation. Jay turned back to his laptop, and got back to work.
The uncomfortable air between them dissipated after that, and even though Jay suddenly saw everything in a different light now that he knew about his feelings for Tim, he felt far more relaxed in Tim’s presence. Tim actually wanted him around. He wasn’t pitying Jay, he wasn’t just decent company for the circumstances; if Tim had meant what he said, it had to mean he thought Jay was an actually decent person to be around, supernatural horrors and psychopaths and masked stalkers or not. Sure, it could’ve been an empty promise – Tim could secretly think that any possibility of getting out of this alive was nonexistent and had just said what he’d said to chill Jay out, but Jay decided to take solace in Tim’s words anyway. Tim didn’t seem the type of guy to blatantly lie about what he thought just to comfort someone, especially not about something as big as likelihood of survival. Who knows, maybe Jay had Tim all wrong; at the end of the day, he decided to trust his judgement.
The next day, Jay was finally able to get one of the tapes working (the success of which he attributed to the previous day’s burst of energy, fueled by Tim’s words). When he finally watched it, the contents did sully his good mood – what Alex said in his phone call with Amy hardly sat well, and seeing Alex get so close to the monster, even all those years ago, was… disconcerting. After he looked over the tape one last time and made sure it was in as good a condition as it would probably get, he showed it to Tim, who seemed to have a similar reaction.
Tim sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “I mean, I can’t say I’m completely surprised by him lying. Even back then, near the end, he was pretty fucked. And that playground at the end, it looks like the one from one of the first entries.”
“Entry four, yeah,” Jay said. “I just… I hate seeing him rush that thing. It’s like he’s not… not afraid enough of it.”
“It’s like seeing someone run up to a grizzly, or a serial killer. Or fuckin’ Cthulu,” Tim grunted, and Jay couldn’t help but laugh a little.
“I don’t know when to post it. I know it’s not much, but I don’t know if I want Alex to know we’ve seen this yet.”
“Well, he already knows we have the tapes. He has to know you’re bound to doctor some of it.”
Jay sighed. “Yeah, I guess you’re right… I’ll just tweet that I’ve saved some of it, and get it out in the next few days.”
“Don’t stress too much about it,” Tim advised, getting up from the crouched position he’d been in to watch the footage. “Who knows what the fuck Alex can figure out if he’s actually working with that thing. And totheark, they clearly know more than we do, whoever the fuck they are.”
“Doesn’t mean we have to find everything we share the second we figure it out, though.”
“Feigning ignorance doesn’t really work when you’re the one most in the dark. And we might as well be in a cave compared to those two.”
Jay only sighed again and shrugged. Tim made a similar shrugging gesture then made his way to the door, grabbing his coat from the closet. “I’m gonna go for a smoke break then get coffee. You want any?”
Jay nodded. “Sure.”
“Be back in a bit, then.” Tim already had a cigarette halfway to his mouth when he closed the door.
It all came to a head two days later. They were out at a diner for the first time since the night Tim played Bowie on the jukebox, both of them opting for a cheap dinner of the chips and granola bars they could pick up at a gas station. The diner was a different one – Jay preferred to avoid going to repeat locations as much as possible, as going out for food was when they were most vulnerable, most likely to be seen, and if Alex or totheark were keeping tabs on any of the places they’d been, it could be suicide to go back to some place they’d been spotted at – but might as well have been the same, with everything just an inch offset: the plastic covering on the seats were red instead of blue; the table was sticky wooden vinyl instead of sticky white vinyl; and the neon lights shone red and green instead of blue and pink. No jukebox stood forgotten in the corner.
Tim had been considerably more open and talkative the past couple days, and Jay realized how much more Tim felt like a friend rather than just someone who was also there. When Jay took his Tim-mandated breaks from staring at a screen, Tim wouldn’t just ask how things were going, asking questions and mentioning things that had nothing to do with the situation. If anything, it felt a bit like first-date small talk, but Jay enjoyed talking about something else for once, regardless of what it was. His own thoughts were consumed so often by thinking about Alex or the monster or totheark or getting footage off old, half-burned tapes, it was nice when Tim led the conversation elsewhere, even when it felt awkward or forced. Jay was pretty sure Tim was doing it for his sake, and he appreciated the effort.
“I overheard the couple staying next door talking earlier,” Tim mentioned over their meal. They’d both been in a lighter mood all day, and when they’d arrived at the diner, they’d decided that splitting pancakes sounded fun. It was all about the small pleasures, these days. “They said there’s a video store in town. We should rent a movie or something.”
Jay looked up at Tim, eyebrows slightly raised, surprised he’d suggested it. It sounded much more like something Jay would suggest, at which Tim would roll his eyes but humor Jay and go along with it anyway. “Yeah, that sounds fun. We can run out and look tomorrow? I think we’re low on food, anyway, so we can run by the store.”
“Cool,” Tim nodded, and returned to his pancakes.
Being back in a diner reminded Jay of the other evening, and what with Tim’s recent attitude, he thought that if he wanted an answer, now was the best time to ask.
“So, what was with you and the jukebox the other night?” Jay finally forced himself to say a moment later.
Tim paused, fork brought halfway to his mouth. “I don’t know, really. You seemed a bit down after our talk, and when I saw the jukebox I thought that might bring up your mood a little. And I like Bowie, so.” Tim shrugged, and finished bringing his food to his mouth.
“I – thanks,” Jay said, unsure of what else to say. That was certainly something he’d be percolating on for far too long. “Didn’t peg you as the type to like 80s rock.”
Tim chuckled. “Yeah, most don’t. It… Brian introduced it to me. I never really listened to music growing up, but that stuff was his favourite. He gave me most of the taste I have.”
“Must be nice memories of him.”
Tim nodded, face gone slack. “Yeah.”
Jay looked at him, concern etched into his features. “We can try and find him, too, Tim. After all this is over, or… we can find him.”
Tim only nodded again.
The rest of their dinner passed in relative silence, but a fairly comfortable one, and as they drove back to the hotel, Tim in the driver’s seat and Jay beside him, camera in hand, filming the road ahead, Jay felt like some strange, unspoken boundary had been crossed. Pondering it in the dark of the car, the orange glow of the streetlights intermittently brightening the car, so that when Jay glanced over at Tim his face looked like it was illuminated by fire, left Jay in a strange frame of mind which he carried with him through the mostly empty parking lot and into their cookie-cutter room, which blended into every other room from every other motel he’d stepped foot in since he abandoned his last semblance stability all those years ago.
It was in this smeared and smudgy reality Jay Merrick existed, and through the liminal wall which, in that moment, separated his existence and Tim’s, he asked the question that would change his life.
“Why do you care so much about me?”
Both men were sat on their beds, Tim sprawled out, holding a book, and Jay cross-legged, with his laptop, the TV droning quietly in the background. Tim tensed at the question, but didn’t seem uncomfortable, exactly, merely taken aback. He lowered his book, but didn’t close it.
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“All the things you do for me,” Jay said, staring at his screen. If there was any time he couldn’t bear to make eye contact with Tim, it was now. Something else was running his brain, making him say these words which he’d been dying to say for more than just a few days, and looking at Tim any more than in his peripheral would shatter whatever hold this other creature had on Jay. “You get me coffee, make sure I don’t sit at a desk for twelve hours straight, make me eat breakfast and dinner and play me fucking songs on a jukebox because I look down.” Jay wasn’t sure what tone his voice was conveying, but he hoped it wasn’t angry or pissed off. That was the last thing he was. If he was angry or pissed off at anything, it was not knowing why Tim went out of his way to do these things for him.
“I mean, you’re the only one keeping this whole thing together, man,” Tim said, speaking quickly. “If you’re not conscious everything kind of comes to a standstill.” He was trying to sound amused, like he was passing it off as nothing. Jay could rarely read Tim easily, but might as well have been a children’s picture book. Emboldened by Tim’s loss of his normally aloof front, Jay swung his head around to look at Tim, and lost none of his own confidence. Tim was anxious about something, and he was letting the panic fly off him, just like Jay.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” Jay said, and turned back to his laptop. He could look at Tim when he was struggling for words, but still couldn’t manage to speak to his face. “And don’t say its just what anyone in our situation would do, either, because most people in our situation would have fucking up and left already.”
“I already told you why I’m doing this,” Tim said, forcing his voice to stay as level and quiet as he could. “I’m just trying to make sure you don’t inadvertently kill yourself while in the process of keeping yourself alive.”
“But that’s what I’m asking!” Jay said, voice raised and an unexpected anger bubbling to the surface. For so many days Tim had been opening up; now all he was doing was closing up again and shutting down every question Jay asked. “Why do you care so much about that? You could easily carry on this investigation yourself, if you were so fucking inclined, and if you forgot, there were months, maybe even years, where you couldn’t give a shit, when you gave less than a shit about what fucking state of health I was in! So, Tim, what gives?”
“Don’t get all fucking pissy with me, Merrick,” Tim sneered. “I didn’t care about you? You leaked my fucking medical records. At least I had a reason to not give a shit.”
“I fucking apologized for that,” Jay growled, “and its not like you didn’t spill more shit in the hospital than what those records said. And stop avoiding the fucking question!”
“It’s irrelevant to the investigation, to any of this shit, so I don’t see why you’re suddenly so obsessed with this.”
“It’s relevant enough! You did claim that you were only doing it to keep me alive so we could keep this investigation going; that sounds pretty fucking relevant!”
“Just put it to rest, Jay.” Tim’s voice had suddenly gone very quiet, the growled words tense and strained.
“No, I fucking won’t! You tell me not even a week ago that the main reason you’re here now, sitting on a shitty hotel bed, subsisting off diner food and coffee and cigarettes, is because you had no fucking reason to stay alive otherwise, and now you can’t just fucking tell me why you give a damn about my wellbeing?”
“Because I love you, Jay!” The confession exploded from Tim’s lungs like a condemnation – against which man, neither knew. He took a choked breath. “I fucking love you, Jay. There’s your answer.”
Jay wasn’t sure if he had heard Tim correctly. He’d said it twice, so he must have, right?
When Jay had finally gotten his bearings, Tim was already on his feet, jacket in hand and walking toward the door.
“Wait! Tim!” Jay said, scrambling to push his laptop off his crossed legs and stand.
“Don’t fucking bother, Jay, I’ll go sleep in the car. No point in booking another room, we’re leaving soon, right?”
“No, I –,” Jay began, but Tim stopped him, turning and holding up a hand.
“I don’t need any sort of fucking consolation or whatever, it’s fine.” His hand was on the doorknob and about to pull it open when Jay grabbed his arm and pulled him as far back into the room as he could manage. Tim was stronger, but Jay had a height advantage on his side.
“Give me a fucking chance to talk, stubborn asshole,” Jay said.
“Listen, I’m not exactly in the mood to hear the same shit I’ve heard before,” Tim’s voice cracked, and he took a breath before finishing. “So save your breath.” Tim made to pull his arm away.
“I feel the same way,” Jay said, voice far more timid than he’d expected after his tirade. Tim froze.
“You do?” he said, sounding quite skeptical. His eyes met Jay’s.
“Yeah,” Jay said, and he couldn’t help giving into the magnetic pull that seemed to suddenly be drawing him closer to Tim. “I do.”
Their lips met in a kiss a moment later, and Jay felt every worry he’d had since his revelation evaporate. The warmth of Tim’s mouth against his, the brush of his stubble against his cheek, the pressure of Tim’s hand against his neck as he held Jay and pressed him into the kiss; he’d felt nothing comparable to this in years. The endless string of torturous months seemed like nothing, now that he knew they cumulated in this.
When they finally parted, Jay felt as if an eternity had passed, one he wanted to relive over, and over, and over again.
“Shit,” Tim muttered, “you do.”
“I never imagined you’d feel the same,” Jay said. “Kind of figured I’d just be pining over you until this whole thing was over.”
“Then pine over me without the constant threat of death hanging over your head?” Tim joked.
Jay laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”
“Well, now neither of us will have to do any pining.”
“At least it makes both our jobs a lot easier.”
“But really, at the end of the day, you’re just exchanging one distraction for another,” Tim said suggestively, and he inched closer to Jay.
Jay smiled, and made to close the distance between them as well. “A much better distraction, though.” The space was filled, and they kissed again.
It was longer, more sensual than their first, with Tim’s hand settling behind Jay’s neck and on his back and Jay’s arms wrapping around Tim’s waist, though not before tugging off the coat Tim had hastily pulled on. Tim playfully bit Jay’s lip, which made Jay’s hold on Tim tighten. It dawned on him exactly what his feelings being requited meant, and his mind flashed with images of kissing Tim more, both casual, quick kisses and long, passionate ones, and sharing a bed with Tim, in every implication of the phrase, and being able to stare at him, unashamed, and hold his hand. The prospect of each made him warm inside, but pulling Tim into bed seemed by far the most appealing option at the moment.
He gripped a side of Tim’s shirt – by some stroke of luck he was wearing his red and black flannel, by far Jay’s favourite article of clothing of his (besides a particular pair of jeans that Jay had only recently begun to allow himself to fully admire) – and began walking backwards towards the beds, keeping his lips on Tim’s. But once Tim realized what Jay was doing, he chuckled softly and pulled back.
“As excited I am to get to that, too,” he murmured against Jay’s mouth, “if you’ve been worrying about this as much as I think you have for who knows how long, you need sleep.”
A noise that sounded embarrassingly close to a whine escaped Jay’s lips. “C’mon, Tim, I can sleep any time.”
“And we can do this any time,” Tim said. “But,” he added slyly, “maybe if you sleep for a while, I’ll wake you up in a couple hours and we can have some fun then. As long as you promise you’ll make more noises like the one you just did.”
“Fuck,” Jay breathed, and he was tempted to tell Tim that he’d have a damned hard time getting to sleep if he was hard. But he doubted that would go over very well, and he very much liked the proposal Tim had set out. “Fine, then. I promise,” he whispered.
“Finally, an incentive to get you to take care of yourself,” Tim huffed in amusement, and gave Jay another peck on the lips.
“Guess you’ll be able to make me do anything now,” Jay said, leaning in an returning the brief kiss.
“’Anything’ is a very broad term, Jay Merrick,” Tim said.
“I’m well aware, Tim Wright.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to start defining it.”
“I guess you will,” Jay said, and couldn’t stop himself from leaning in to kiss Tim one more time. When they parted, Jay spoke again, voice soft and quiet. “I’m glad you love me, Tim.”
“I’m glad you love me, too, Jay.”