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Like clockwork, or like a sick joke from the universe, Jay finds himself gasping awake at 3:09am every night, drenched in a cold, sticky sweat that covers him from head to toe.
The sensation in his chest is the first thing he notices—tight, almost suffocating pain that feels like his own ribcage is trying to squeeze all the oxygen from his lungs. It doesn't even matter if he's on the top bunk or the bottom bunk; no matter how much space he has around him when he sits up, frantic and terrified, he always feels claustrophobic, like the walls are rapidly closing in on him.
His eyes have to adjust to his surroundings once he's awake. The darkness of the house—their house—is always a mindfuck. If he squints, the movie posters and the VHS tapes and the miscellaneous pictures they have hung on the wall all disappear.
All of a sudden, he's in a different place. A different time. A different timeline, back when lightning hit the CN Tower for the second time and the RV was engulfed in white and blue flames, and twenty-plus years of friendship flashed before his eyes.
Matt was there. And then he wasn't. And all Jay had to do was erase one word on a whiteboard and it was as if nothing had happened at all.
"Bird!" And now Matt's here again. His head is upside down as he peeks into the bottom bunk, stretching his body over the wooden railing. The sleep in his eyes is incredibly apparent, but possibly more prominent is the uncharacteristic worry in his voice.
Jay is panting when his head swivels towards the sound of Matt's voice. He finds that his eyes are suddenly spilling over with tears, flooding down the sides of his face as he attempts to catch his breath, bring his heart rate to a normal, non-critical level.
"Jay?" Matt says, frowning now. "What's going on? You were—you were shouting."
Jay's quiet. He'd like to say something but his throat burns, feels dry and prickly. He closes his eyes and shakes his head instead, waving Matt away.
Matt's face disappears and Jay suddenly feels the bunk bed swaying and creaking, and in an instant he sees that Matt has climbed down from the top and crawled into the bottom. He pulls back the blanket curtain and sits on the edge of the bed, just staring at Jay.
Even in the dark Jay can feel Matt's eyes on him—expectant and intense.
Matt blinks at Jay, who is still trying to catch his breath. "Bird. I said, did you have a nightmare?"
"N-no," Jay mutters, almost silently. His voice is hoarse and small and honestly pathetic. "No, I—Matt, I'm okay."
"Really?"
"Yeah."
Matt frowns. He doesn't have to say anything for Jay to know exactly what he's thinking. I know you're lying, Bird. Why the hell would you think you could hide anything from me? I know you. I know you inside and out—all your weird little quirks and nasty little secrets. We've been friends since we were fourteen and shoplifting from 7-11. I've seen every single inch of you, every fucked up part of your soul. I know you. Don't act like I don't.
Jay shakes his head, trying to get Matt's voice out of it. He clears his throat and quickly wipes away the tears still lingering on his cheeks, pawing at his skin with his sweaty palms. "I'm okay, Matt," he murmurs, although he isn't sure how effective he is at convincing Matt. He never really was good at lying, especially to him.
"You don't look okay," Matt says, and for once he sounds genuine. Earnest, even. He scoots in closer, chuckles to try and break the tension. "Jaybird, you were—well, I mean, you were practically screaming crying. In your sleep."
"It was just a nightmare, Matt."
"Yeah—a really fuckin' intense nightmare."
"Well—"
"I mean, Jay, you were screaming so loud I thought you were getting attacked or something." Matt anxiously runs his hands through his hair. "You can't…you can't just tell me that's nothing, Bird."
Jay lets out a heavy breath, running his hands over his face. He doesn't want to look at Matt but he can still feel his burning gaze directed straight at him, like a heat-seeking missile, like twenty-something decades of knowing.
Matt lets out a soft laugh that sounds like a mix between disbelief and bewilderment. "Bird. You know—like, you know you can talk to me, right?"
Jay pulls his knees up to his chest, keeps his hands over his face. He doesn't dare move them, doesn't dare compromise his position.
He wants to hide. To run away. He wishes Matt would just go away and drop this, leave him alone to be with that great, ravenous beast that is his shame, his guilt, his horrible, horrible secret that he can never tell anyone, ever. He's almost digging his nails into the skin of his face, dismissing the pain, knowing things could be much worse. It's fine, anyway.
This is his cross to bear.
He deserves this.
Matt pulls his legs into the bed and now his body is fully inside. He draws the blanket curtain closed and turns towards Jay, legs criss-crossed, hands open. Granted, he doesn't know what to do with them, and Jay can't even see the gesture from how he's sitting, but it doesn't matter. Matt scoots in closer one more time and their feet touch.
"Bird," Matt says gently, trying to smile. "Bird, you know you can tell me anything. I know we kinda fuck around all the time, but…we're still friends, aren't we?"
Nothing from Jay. He stays curled up.
Matt takes a deep breath and lets out a heavy sigh. "Birdie? You…you don't wanna talk?"
Jay shakes his head, his face still buried in his hands. His entire body shivers in the darkness, curled up and hiding. He doesn't move at all. Now that his eyes start to sting and his chest gets tight again, he doesn't see how he could.
"Bird." Matt moves closer, turning so he's right next to Jay and facing the same way he's facing. Their shoulders are touching now. Matt reaches out his hand to touch Jay's. He's gentle, careful, like he could shatter with one wrong move. "Just talk to me, man. It's just me, okay?"
And that's the problem, Jay thinks, feeling guilty and cynical and absolutely nauseous. Matt's here. He's not supposed to be here. This isn't Matt, at least not the Matt he's known for more than half of his life. All those years, all those plans. All those late nights playing on the 64, drinking warm milk, scribbling nonsense on the whiteboard, switching bunks, coming up with juvenile, half-baked songs.
All those years. Decades spent together, joined at the hip. They were hardly ever apart, and if they were, it wasn't for very long. It was always just Matt, and Jay, and their one, holy, seemingly unattainable dream that they never gave up on.
Jay doesn't even realize he's crying as hard as he is.
The tears running down his face feel sticky and hot this time, each tear rolling down burning his already-ridiculously-warm cheeks. The walls had never stopped closing in. He can feel them now, pressing in close. He can barely suck in a breath or do anything at all. He's stuck here, stuck in this timeline that isn't really his. Stuck with Matt, innocent and clean.
Jay chokes out a sob and tries to turn away from Matt, hugging his knees in tighter.
Matt knows he should hang back but he finds himself drawn to Jay, moving in closer like a magnet. He puts a hand on his shoulder and squeezes gently, trying to resist the urge to pull back when he feels how much his friend shivers.
"Jay," Matt says softly. His voice is low, gentle, careful. Jay thinks he might be afraid. "Jay, please, man…you're—" An awkward, possibly terrified chuckle slips out between his lips. "You're scaring me."
Jay can't bring himself to answer, as much as he wants to. The only sounds that escape from his mouth are wretched sobs—horrible, painful sobs that come clawing up violently out of his throat like bile.
He hides his face because he can't bear to look at Matt. He doesn't want to face it—face him—at all. All he can do is cry, and cry, and cry, knowing it will do nothing, that it will change nothing. Even still, he can't help it. He can't help but let out the monster that's been cultivating inside of him. His cries become louder and more painful and he lets out another sob that rips right through him.
There's a shift in the bed when Matt wraps an arm around Jay's shaking frame. He tightens the grip, holds him close to his body.
"Jay," Matt whispers. "Jay, just…just—okay." He lets out a quivering breath and leans in even closer. "We don't have to talk about it, okay? I'm—I'm sorry. Just—I'm here, though."
"D-d-don't be sorry," Jay sputters through the tears. He can't help the way his words spill out, riddled with cracks and whimpers. "Matt, d-don't—"
"Hey, you don't have to talk. It's okay."
"No, I—I'm the…the one that should be fuckin' sorry, Matt."
"Bird, what the hell are you—?"
"I'm the fuckin'…I'm the one that did it…"
"Jay, c'mon, just—"
"It wasn't s-supposed—you weren't…it…it wasn't supposed to be—"
"No, no, no, Jay. Shh. Just breathe, c'mon." Matt rubs Jay's arm, applying a decent amount of pressure to try and calm his nerves. "Don't talk, mm? Just…yeah. Just breathe with me, dude. Just…deep breaths. It's gonna be okay."
Jay feels his insides crumble even more with Matt's soft, tender words—so gentle and so innocent. Knowing he's holding this horrible secret, harboring this terrible guilt, from his best friend, and knowing that he can't tell him or do anything about it—it makes Jay want to just explode. He wants to disappear, to go away forever, to go somewhere where he can just be with Matt—his Matt—again. Sneaking into Valence's office. Going to Canada's Wonderland. Just sitting at the piano, listening to the squeak of the whiteboard marker.
God, it hurts.
It may have been ten minutes, it may have been forty minutes, but after a while, Jay's crying dissipates, turns slowly into hiccups and soft, sputtering breaths. He's still curled up under Matt's arm, still shivering like a leaf in the wind. The pain in his chest has lessened but it lingers there; it will always linger. He still hasn't removed his hands from his face.
When Matt notices the sobbing cease, he pulls away and positions himself so he's facing Jay. He puts his hands, which are trembling, on Jay's wrists and carefully tries to pry them from his face.
"Can I…look at you, Bird?" Matt asks. Jay can tell his voice is laced with apprehension and fear. Desperation too, maybe. A lot of desperation. He's never seen him so vulnerable.
Still, even with the guilt boiling in his gut, Jay lets Matt remove his hands. Slowly he lets them down to his side, and Matt lets his own hands move up to Jay's cheeks, which are still warm and wet. He brushes away the remaining tears with his thumbs and locks eyes with him.
Matt's eyes are wet too. He smiles, though. "Jay?"
Jay blinks, frozen.
"Jay, I—" Matt scoffs, a heavy breath exhaled from his nose. "I…I don't know what you're going through. Um. But…I'm here for you. It's me, okay? It's Matt. It's just me. And I'm…well, I'm here for you."
Jay's speechless. His lips part as he tries to say something to Matt, but he finds that the only thing that escapes from his mouth is a shaky breath, a pathetic attempt at speech. The air feels cold and tight as he locks eyes with Matt and tries to take a deep breath. He can feel his lungs fill up with poison. He can feel it coursing through his veins.
"Jay," Matt says cautiously. He watches Jay sniffle, wipe his nose with his sleeve. "I promise we don't have to talk, man, okay? Just…like, let me know you're okay. That you won't fuckin' scream your head off if I help you get back to sleep, okay?"
Another shaky breath leaves Jay's mouth, and he musters up the strength to push out a weak yeah in response. He blinks hard, runs his hands over his face, sucks in another deep breath. "I'm good, Matt. I…I'll be okay."
"You sure?"
"I…" Jay looks at Matt. Peeks out at the living room. Notices all of the posters and framed pictures and knick-knacks and VHS tapes. Wonders what happened to the other house when he left.
After a beat of silence Matt, unable to sit in the quiet for too long, tilts his head and smiles warmly at Jay. "How 'bout I get us some warm milk, hm? We'll try to go back to sleep? I'll put on the Chrono Trigger record, low volume?"
And it's things like this that make everything so terrible, so difficult to grapple with for Jay.
Matt knows how to calm him down. He knows the ins and outs, the little secrets, the surefire comforts. He knows Jay (because of course he does—he's Matt, after all), yet at the same time he knows nothing about him.
It's Matt, but it isn't, because Matt—Jay's Matt, the real Matt—is dead. He's dead. He's gone forever, and it's all Jay's fault, and there's nothing he could possibly do to bring him back. There's no rewind button or save file. What's done is done, and now Jay has to live with that.
He doesn’t notice Matt slipping out of the bottom bunk and scuttling into the kitchen, pouring two mugs of milk to put in the microwave for forty-five seconds.
He has to live with it now, even as Matt rummages through boxes of stuff to look for that Chrono Trigger record. Even as the crickets chirp just outside, probably perched on the windowsill, singing peacefully, naively. Even as the streetlights peek through the curtains and wash soft against the silhouette of Matt, holding a steaming mug in each hand. And even still, in the dark, Jay can see that he's smiling down at him, beckoning. Welcoming.
This is how it should have been. He wishes he could take it all back.