Chapter Text
Tim awoke with a start a couple of hours later, jumping out of his chair at the sound of the door slowly opening. He immediately placed himself between Jay and the door before realizing it was just the nurse from earlier coming to check on them.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” she said, closing the door behind her.
Tim ran a hand through his hair to try and collect himself. “No, it’s fine. You here to check on him?” He moved out of the way of the nurse, though he failed to ignore the flare of anxiety in his chest that told him he couldn’t fully trust her—that he had to keep Jay safe. She had been kind to him so far and she and the other doctors had helped Jay—he had no reason to distrust her.
“Yes, and I’m also here to let you know that you’re allowed to stay past visiting hours unless something about his condition changes drastically. I think he’s been through the worst of it now, but I want to warn you just in case.”
Tim nodded, trying to shake the idea of Jay’s condition getting worse from his mind.
The nurse went about her business in the room, tending to Jay as Tim stood by awkwardly in the corner zoning out. He distantly noticed her glance at him a few times, but neither of them said anything to each other. As she was about to leave around ten minutes later, she spoke before walking out the door.
“Are you doing okay?” She asked, her voice softening. “We have a counseling service here if you’re interested at all.”
Tim internally cringed at the mention of therapy. He had nothing against therapy in general, it just seemed to never quite click with him. He supposed part of it had to do with the fact that he felt he couldn’t be completely honest with a therapist, especially not after he found the Marble Hornets channel and Jay. He had known people who would say too much in a therapy session and then get sent to a psych ward—he wasn’t going to risk that happening. Hallucinations were already such a touchy subject—when people think of hallucinations they normally default to “that person is crazy”—he didn’t need to bring the whole “one of his hallucinations was real” and stalkers thing into the mix. Maybe there were therapists who would handle things like that well, but Tim wasn’t going to take that chance. He couldn’t end up in a place like that hospital ever again.
“No.” He cleared his throat, “No, I’m okay. Thank you though,” he said, forcing a smile. He knew she didn’t buy it for a second but, mercifully, she simply nodded.
“Well… If you ever change your mind, just let me know, and I can direct you to our counselor here,” she said, smiling back at him.
He nodded as she turned around and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her. Tim thinks maybe he should’ve been paying more attention to what she was doing while he was zoned out, because what if she had done something? What if she had made a mistake? What if she intentionally administered something to Jay that she shouldn’t have?
She didn’t. She wouldn’t.
Tim took his spot back at Jay’s bedside, watching him silently as his mind started to wander.
A few days passed, each one much the same as those prior. The nurse came in to check on Jay, she briefly checked in with Tim, Tim anxiously and hurriedly got food from the small cafeteria a floor down, he eventually fell asleep, woke up from a nightmare, watched Jay for a few hours before he drifted off again, and the cycle repeated. He had yet to shower once since arriving—knowing it would take longer than a simple run to get food—and he could tell it was starting to show. Yesterday, the nurse had been visibly more concerned about his well-being, and he was starting to disgust himself with how greasy his hair was. He knew he’d have to shower eventually, but he was so terrified of leaving Jay alone for an extended period of time. If something were to happen while he was gone…
It won’t. Nothing will happen. Everything is fine, they’re safe.
He’ll just be quick. A quick shower wouldn’t hurt anything. If anything, it would give him one less thing to worry about.
Tim gathered up a handful of clean clothes from his duffel bag he had dragged in a few days ago, and put his hand on the door knob, hesitating to turn the handle. He looked behind him, his eyes lingered on Jay’s sleeping form before he sighed and walked out the door, shutting it behind him. While he had hated Jay’s habit of setting the camera up to sleep when they first started working together, he wished he had the camera so he could set it up in the hospital room while Jay was alone. Some part of his subconscious recognized the camera resting on the ground when he found Jay in Benedict Hall, but he was too worried about and focused on Jay to take the time to pick it up and bring it with him. He regretted that a bit now. He also knew it would be one of the first things Jay asked him about once he woke up.
He remembered the beginning of them traveling together and how many arguments they had over that stupid camera of his. He always insisted on putting it where it had a vantage point of the whole room while they slept, meaning it was not only filming Jay, but Tim as well. He tried to talk Jay out of filming them while they slept, of course he did, but Jay would never have any of it. Tim understood the paranoia to an extent, but knowing something as vulnerable as his sleep was being watched constantly—even by an unfeeling camera lens—made him feel trapped.
He distinctly remembered the first time he had a nightmare on camera. Jay had done his best to comfort him, in that slightly distant, awkward way of his, and eventually Tim was able to get himself under control. The following morning was filled with arguments over what they should do with the footage from the night. Tim wanted to delete it. He didn’t want there to be even a possibility of anyone ever seeing him like that—he was uncomfortable enough as it was with Jay seeing him like that—whereas Jay insisted they needed to keep every single second of footage the camera recorded. He ensured he wouldn’t post anything to the channel, but that wasn’t enough to relax Tim. He remembered, somewhat childishly, storming off mid-conversation for a smoke break, abandoning Jay in their hotel room. He took the car with him, needing to get away for a while—he ended up smoking in some random gas station, he thinks. When he came back, Jay looked significantly worse than he did before Tim left. Tim could remember the look on his face, how his eyes were wide, how his body was shaking, how his head shot up at the sound of Tim unlocking and opening the door, how his breath was heaving.
He thought Tim had left him. He thought Tim had left him stranded in that hotel room with no car, never to return again. Tim had softened considerably by that point, reassuring Jay that he just needed a second to calm down, and he wouldn’t just abandon him like that. Even if he was pissed at him.
But he had. He had abandoned Jay, just like he said he wouldn’t. He shook the image of Jay struggling on his floor, wide, angry, eyes boring into his very core.
Tim made his way down the hall and into a different wing of the hospital where there were a few showers for ICU patient visitors—while it would’ve been better to not be in a hospital at all, he got lucky that this one was big enough to have showers and a decent food selection.
He opened the door to the male shower room and was pleased to see that they did actually have stalls, and it was empty. He had no experience with general hospitals and was worried it would be a locker room type of situation. There were only three stalls in the room, with a few locker-type cabinets along the right wall next to the door, and it thankfully seemed really clean. To the right of the empty cabinets was a shelf stocked with towels and below that was a small hamper. He opened one of the cabinets and put his clothes in there before grabbing a towel to hang on a hook near the stall. He didn’t own shower shoes, and he briefly considered showering in his socks to avoid touching the floor before deciding the sensory experience of wet socks would be much worse than his issues with using other people’s showers barefoot. Besides, all things considered, the floors looked clean. He had walked around abandoned buildings and the woods in much worse conditions than this. He would be fine. He first took his well-worn shoes off, followed by his pants, boxers, and shirt, throwing them all in a heap in the cabinet above his clean clothes. He was suddenly very thankful there were no mirrors in his vicinity. He didn’t need visual proof of how rundown he was.
He opened the stall door and got inside, glad to see it wasn’t cramped on the inside. The hospital had its own soap dispensers for body wash and shampoo thankfully, as he didn’t have any of his own. He turned the water on, fussing with it a bit before it got to a temperature he could tolerate before stepping into the stream. The water beat against his back, a steady and relatively grounding pressure as it landed on him and ran down his skin. He started by washing his hair, already feeling slightly better—or at the very least less gross. He was trying to be as quick as he could, wanting to get back to Jay as soon as possible.
Everything was normal until the water slowly turned pink, and then red, and then a darker, thicker, red. Tim could feel his heart pounding, could feel his breathing quicken as he stared at the blood spiraling down the drain. He glanced up at the shower head, wondering if it was coming from the thing itself, before realizing the water coming from the fixture was clear. He lifted his arms up, freezing as he saw blood covering every inch of his skin.
It flowed off of him endlessly, being washed away by the water and down the drain, but never being removed from his skin. He didn’t notice himself hyperventilating as he scrubbed frantically at his skin, trying to remove the red liquid from his body. The water started to burn his skin from how hard he was scratching at it as he sunk to the floor, curling up and bringing his knees to his chest and squeezing his eyes shut. At some point, he shuffled to the corner of the stall, barely in the water anymore as he tried uselessly to catch his breath. Every time he got close to steadying his breathing, it would pick up again moments later at the thought of opening his eyes to see even more blood. He sat huddled in the corner for who knows how long before he finally cracked his eyes open, feeling himself slouch with relief when the water was clear, and it was as if nothing was ever there. His legs and arms were clean, though red from the heat of the water and the force at which he was scrubbing at them. He shakily stood up and turned the water off, not even remembering if he cleaned himself off completely.
He didn’t care.
He just needed to get out of that shower stall. While it had felt roomy before, it now felt cramped and much too small. He got out and grabbed the towel he hung up nearby, and dried himself off as fast as he could. He paid no mind to how the towel slightly scratched at his irritated skin. He put his clothes on, feeling the fabric of his shirt cling to his back due to the water he had failed to dry off. He shoved his shoes on, barely bothering to tie them properly, grabbed his dirty clothes, and left, nearly fleeing out of the room.
He needed to get out.
And he needed to get back to Jay.
He barely resisted the urge to sprint down the hallway to the elevator, settling for speed walking as quickly as was socially acceptable. Not that he cared much about being socially acceptable. Not anymore. He made his way back to Jay’s room, slightly out of breath from how much he had worked himself up. He stood in front of the door, almost afraid to open it. It was quiet enough and nothing seemed outwardly out of place.
That did nothing to quell Tim’s anxiety though.
He placed his hand on the knob and slowly turned it, opening the door and cringing at how the hinges creaked ever so slightly. He felt his heart pound faster in his chest before opening the door the rest of the way, his hand sliding off the door from the adrenaline leaving his body.
Everything was fine.
The steady beeping of the heart monitor still filled the room, and Jay was as still as he was before. Tim wasn’t sure if he was grateful or bitter that Jay hadn’t woken up while he was gone. On one hand, he didn’t want Jay to wake up alone, already knowing he would freak out—not even including his worry that Jay would think Tim had left him. On the other hand, it meant Jay was still asleep. He couldn’t stay like this for much longer, right? He’d wake up soon? Tim hoped so. He didn’t know how much longer he’d be able to handle this.
He walked into the room, shutting the door behind him, and collapsed onto the chair at Jay’s bedside. He was exhausted, the shower having drained him or any energy he might have had. He was just glad the episode hadn’t triggered a seizure. He didn’t need that on top of everything else. Tim reached into his pocket and dug out his pill bottle, shaking two oblong pills into his hands. He briefly considered taking more than two but decided against it—two was already more than was prescribed, and he was mainly taking them as a precaution at the moment. He was fairly confident he wouldn’t have a seizure, but that didn’t stop him from worrying. If he were to have a seizure and he lost control again… lost time again… he wouldn’t let that happen. Not now. Not ever, if he had anything to say about it.
Jessica… he still had no idea what he had done to her. What he had caused her. What he had caused everyone, really. If Jay lashed out again when he woke up… what would he even do? What would he do if Jay didn’t want him around? He had told Tim to stay as he was bleeding out in his passenger seat but was that Jay talking or the blood loss? Did Jay want him or was he just clinging to Tim because he was all he really had? Jay had apologized to Tim, as if he didn’t think he’d get to do so later. He had spoken as if he was going to die—Tim thought he was going to die.
Speculating about it wasn’t going to do Tim any favors, but what else was there to do? He was tired. He was tired of all of this. The paranoia, the lying, the hallucinations, the seizures, the fear, the stalking, the death. He needed to get out of Alabama.
He wouldn’t though.
He would stay with Jay for as long as Jay would let him. He would follow Jay almost anywhere, he thinks. Even if he isn’t wanted. The sickness had already ruined so many people, including himself, he would not let it ruin Jay. Jay could wake up and want nothing to do with him, and he would still stay. He would do better this time, he wouldn’t let him get hurt again. He wouldn’t lie again.
“Jay, please,” he muttered, “please wake up. I can’t stay here on my own for much longer.”
Tim rested his elbows on Jay’s bed and put his head in his hands. How had Jay survived on his own for so long? Tim had only been on his own for about a week now and was already getting too paranoid for his own good. Tim supposed the setting of a hospital and having your only friend nearly die in your arms didn’t really help matters. He had heard no sign of Alex or Totheark since Benedict Hall. He wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not—it was almost too quiet. Though Tim still hadn’t updated the YouTube or the Twitter so maybe that was why Totheark was refraining from saying anything. If Jay wanted to post an update when he woke up he could, but Tim wasn’t going to be the one to do it. Especially not if Alex thought Jay was dead. Alex was smart, he probably figured out that Jay had survived by now, but just in case he hadn’t, Tim wasn’t going to just hand that information to him. Or Totheark for that matter. He still had no idea what their intentions were with any of them. He knew they hated Alex, and they seemed to help him and Jay, but they also stole Tim’s medication and indirectly caused him to have seizures. He could talk to Jay about it when he woke up; maybe he learned something knew in the time they had been separated after Jay took the tape from him.
A day or two ago—Tim wasn’t really sure, they were all blurring together—the nurse told him Jay was doing well, and he should wake up in a day or two max. They were finally able to cut back a bit on anesthetics which had been part of what was preventing him from waking up. With his shower out of the way and no intention to do that again any time soon, Tim would be here for him when he woke up, no matter what that looked like.
He wasn’t leaving him again.