Work Text:
July 31st, 2013
Tim couldn't sleep unless he had his back to a wall, and if the bed he was in wasn't pushed against a wall, he could barely sleep at all. It was a leftover from his childhood that he just couldn't seem to scrape into the trash.
Night had never been safe. Neither had day, but at least he’d been able to see what was coming... and the things that had been coming had at least been human.
He used to wake in his little room in the hospital, used to wake just knowing there was something standing beside him, next to his bed, ready to kill him if he so much as moved. Tim used to wake like that nightly, for years and years, knowing that if he showed that he was awake, if he so much as breathed wrong, the monster would kill him. He hadn't needed to see it to know that it was there, or what it looked like, at the time. He just knew. Though he couldn't for the life of him remember what it looked like now.
He had a guess, though, with everything he and Jay had seen.
When he was a kid, he would slowly try to pull his blanket up to his chin, to cover the exposed back of his neck, making sure the movement was slow enough that it wouldn't be noticeable, that it wouldn't alert whatever monster was waiting for him that he was awake. The feeling of having the back of his neck exposed had been sickening. It still was now, sometimes, if he woke in the middle of the night for any reason. The monster was never there now, but the sickening fear of it still was. Especially since he and Jay ran into that thing at Alex's old house a month or so ago.
The stress of keeping an eye on Jay had been getting to him, waking him in a panic in the middle of the night, then the vague memories from his childhood would take over and pin him to the mattress. He was thankful for the nights where he woke with his back to the wall, looking out into the hotel room he and Jay were sharing to see Jay awake and woozy, walking around like he was lost. He'd been a little fucked in the head since they'd run into that thing at Alex's old house, they both had, Tim supposed.
The thing was, he'd needed it to stop pretty much as soon as it started. Jay hadn't seemed to know who he was, where he was, or even who Tim was, and for the most part that had been fine… Until Tim had woken in the middle of the night with his back to the room and something dipping the mattress behind him. At the time it had just been Jay, dazed and confused and trying to… do something? God knew what. Tim didn't know, didn't care. But it had brought up memories of that hospital, of those times when he'd wake in the middle of the night, paralysed by the knowledge that there was something behind him. It rarely ever did anything, well, nothing much, nothing more than standing there and filling him with the knowledge that if he moved he'd die.
But then sometimes it would do something. Not much, never much, it never touched him or spoke to him, but sometimes he'd wake to the feeling of the mattress dipping behind him as the monster climbed into bed with him, sleeping still and ice-cold behind him and vanishing once morning came.
When it had happened with Jay, a few days after they first got to the hotel they were staying in, the full force of that terror had pinned Tim to the mattress all over again. His heart rate had skyrocketed, pumping in his throat like it was trying to suffocate him, and his breathing had slowed and become shallower. He'd almost forgotten he'd learned to breathe like that, near silently, it was a skill he hadn't needed to use in so long… but then again, he hadn't woken with a monster lying in bed with him in years. Ice had slid across every part of Tim's skin that was exposed to the hotel room, and he hadn't even been able to think that he was in a hotel room rather than his room in the hospital. Every single part of his mind had been screaming about what he needed to do to survive, because the monster was back.
With so little breath in his lungs that it hurt, he'd pulled his hand in from where it stuck out from under his comforter, his movements painstakingly slow: calculated, careful. Because even if it had been years since this happened, he still knew how to keep himself alive.
He just had to pretend he was still asleep.
He couldn't let it know he was awake.
It had taken him what felt like an eternity to get his shitty hotel comforter up to his chin, hands holding it in close so that there wasn't a single gap for anything to get in. He'd laid there for god knew how long, slowly overheating under his comforter with how tense he was, fear icing his blood and his comforter trying to cook him, all at once. He'd felt sick, he'd needed to piss, and he couldn't move to do anything about it because it was right there.
Waiting.
It just needed him to make one mistake, one movement too sudden to have possibly been made in his sleep, and it'd be over.
He'd fallen back asleep like that, sweating and uncomfortable under his comforter, his sleep light and fitful. It felt like he'd half-woken nearly a dozen times after that first time, fear instantly pinning him down again because it was still there.
When he's finally woken up the next morning, with light streaming in through a crack in the curtains and his comforter half thrown off, he'd sat up and frozen again as he felt the weight on the mattress beside him.
He waited for something to happen.
It didn't.
He steeled his nerves to turn and look and find—
Jay.
Stupid, out of his mind, Jay.
Jay was lying curled up on his mattress beside him. Not some monster, just fucking Jay, fast asleep and peaceful. Tim had nearly given into the rage that filled him, telling him to shove Jay off the bed. He wanted to fucking scream at him. Because all that!? All that fucking terror, and it was just Jay? Just Jay, who was out of his mind still after they'd run into that thing at Alex's old house? Not the monster from Tim's childhood back to haunt him, not anything dangerous, not anything that could kill him.
Just Jay!?
Tim had woken him more harshly than he'd needed too, shaking Jay's shoulder roughly and feeling far too much sympathy for the way Jay shot upright, eyes wild and unseeing before they settled on Tim and softened with hazy recognition. Tim had excused himself to go for a walk at that point, telling Jay to stay put, before he left the room and got in his car.
He'd ended up at the nearby gas station, parking his car as far away from its door before slamming his hands on the wheel and screaming as loud as he fucking could. His whole brain felt like it was screaming with him, different voices from different stages of his life screaming out how scared and angry they were.
Eventually, he'd cried himself hoarse and got out of his car to get himself something to eat.