Chapter Text
Matt whirls back around to face Jay, fully pissed off now. “Fuck you!”
Jay flinches, which just makes Matt feel even crazier. “Wh- what?”
“Fuck you!” Matt says again. “All week? You've been planning this all week? And you just let me- just let me make a fucking fool of myself, thinking we were on the same team, thinking we were in this together?”
“I- I didn't-”
“This entire time, I've been making plans for you, microwaving food for you, paying the bills for you, and you were scheming behind my back to betray me? To completely fuck me over?”
Jay gapes at him. “You don't get to be mad!” He wails. “You kidnapped me! You knocked me out! You just- you grabbed my- you don't get to be the mad one!”
“And oh my god, look at these texts,” Matt switches topics to something he has more ground to stand on, because he cannot talk about that last thing right now. “It's like you've never seen the English language before. I don't know how you fucked up the autocorrect, but some of these typos should have been caught immediately, and the rest- whatever dictionary it's using, it needs a new one. I'm stunned Stefanie can even read these.”
Jay looks like he's near tears for what must be the third or fourth time in the past 24 hours. “I write normal,” he protests, sounding like a toddler approaching a meltdown. “And that's not even the point, Matt, you-”
“And oof, look at the ones she sent. ‘Don't forget to pack underwear.’ ‘Make sure you bring your passport.’ ‘Do you need directions getting to the airport?’” Matt pitches his voice up mockingly. It's insane to him how friendly these reminders sound, like all of that isn't Matt's job to take care of, like she isn't actively destroying Matt and Jay’s lives with all this. “It's like she's texting a child! You need this much reminding, this much help? How stupid are you?”
“I'm not stupid,” Jay says weakly.
“Your sister sure thinks you are,” Matt tells him. These texts are driving him crazy. There's so many of them, so much planning, and Jay really let Stefanie slot right into Matt's place as if he'd accept anyone with half a brain for it. “Your mother was right about you.”
“No-”
“She warned me, you know, she still warns me, because she still talks to me, and she doesn't even ask about you. I bring you up and she doesn't even care. Just tells me I can't rely on you, you're too selfish, too disloyal, too stupid to count on. She says you never know what's good for you, you don't listen, you always run away. And she's right! Look where you are now!” It isn't a complete lie- this is what conversations with Mrs. McCarrol had devolved into until Matt stopped taking her calls a few years ago. He'd only taken them in the first place to have someone to talk to about Jay, and once she stopped caring about monitoring his every move- and then, slowly, stopped caring about him at all- Matt had no reason to talk to the bitch anymore. What else did he have in common with a 60-year-old terrible mother?
“Why are you saying this?” Jay asks pathetically, eyes big and wet. “Are you mad at me?”
Matt can't help the laugh that explodes out of him. “Am I mad at you? Jay, I'm fucking furious! How the hell did you think I was going to feel reading these?”
“You weren't supposed to know...” Jay whines.
“That's worse! Can't you see how that's obviously worse? This is exactly what your mom was talking about, it's like you don't care about anyone but yourself. I'm your best friend, Jay, and you were going to leave like it was nothing!” The fire in Matt's chest is only getting bigger. He's humiliated by the way Jay talks about him in some of these texts, calling him weird and uncool and controlling, blaming him for everything Jay doesn't have.
“Sorry, Matt, I'm sorry, I-”
“‘Matt's got another stupid plan today,’” Matt reads out loud, struggling to get the words out past the knot in his throat. Half the words are misspelled but Matt’s always been able to understand Jay, whether he wants to or not. “‘Matt's not even a real musician.’ ‘He's so embarrassing.’ ‘Don't tell anyone-’” Matt cuts himself off, throat closing at the exchange in front of him.
dnt tell NE1 I thing matts n love wme
Two hours later, from Stefanie: woah, that's pretty big, dude. do you think you feel the same way?
Jay responded in under a minute. m not gay
thats not what I asked
Another immediate response. IM NOT GAY
Matt's jaw drops in what can really only be called horror. He can feel Jay's watery eyes on him. “Are you mad at me?” Jay asks again. As if the answer might have changed.
Matt doesn't even know how to answer. It's like every nightmare coming true at once, all the worst things he ever imagined Jay saying about him written out for real in these texts. He has to kill himself or something- maybe burn down the house with himself, Jay, and the phone all inside, so none of this ever makes it out of here. He feels a need to make sure Jay never sees these messages, as if he wasn't the one who wrote them, as if it wasn't him saying these things.
Matt jumps to the most recent message, a reminder to Jay about leaving for the airport on time, and silently types out a response. Changed my mind, I'm staying with Matt. Mind your business. And, with that, he throws the phone to the floor and crushes it as hard as he can with the heel of his foot.
“Fuck!” With no shoes on, it hurts his foot as much as the phone, so Matt picks up the phone and bashes it against the corner of the piano, over and over and over again until he's sure there's no part of it that can ever be repaired. The only thing he can hear over the ringing in his ears is the sound of his own heavy breaths.
It isn't enough. He takes the shattered shell of the phone to the kitchen sink and soaks it, then pushes it down the garbage disposal and flips the switch. The machinery groans to life and finally there's a new sound- the crunch and squeal of the disposal struggling against the metal of the phone, the engine rumbling to beat the resistance. There are a few sparks, quickly put out by the running water, and a terrible burning smell. By the time the motor finally gives out, there's almost nothing left.
The ringing in his ears has gone down drastically. With the adrenaline fading, Matt has the thought that maybe completely destroying the phone was a bad idea. He turns the water off and fishes out a piece of what used to be Jay's phone from the drain. It's just a small chunk of plastic now- there's no saving it. That's probably bad, in terms of convincing Stefanie. Matt doesn't regret it. He wishes he could fix the disposal and wreck this last bit, too.
He tosses it back into the sink and trudges back into the living room, where Jay is doing his best to cower away from him. There is a pit of sludge in Matt's chest that weighs down his entire being. He is no longer angry. He is exhausted. He wants to go back to last week and make it so none of this ever happened. He'd do it better this time, fix it so Jay never wanted to leave, so they could just keep having fun together forever the way they always had. So Jay never wrote those things. Never even thought them.
Matt can't be here right now.
He lumbers over to the front door, pointedly ignoring the shaking body in the bed- maybe this is how Jay felt earlier, walking out without looking back. He grabs a jacket and his wallet from beside the door without even glancing at them.
When he gets outside, he closes the door behind him and then stops. He doesn't know where he's going. He has nowhere to go, if he can't go home. Nowhere worth going by himself.
But he can't stay here. Wherever he goes, it just needs to be away.
So Matt picks a direction, leading nowhere in particular, and walks.
-------
It's not right. It's not right, it's not right, nothing's the way it's supposed to be. He messed up. The world has gone sideways, he's frozen in place, and Matt and his mother are yelling at him in one voice.
How many times do I have to tell you- you always need me to do it for you- why are you like this- you don't care about anyone but yourself- I've never been so disappointed- you never know what's good for you- how could you be so selfish- disloyal- stupid- stupid- STUPID.
Jay doesn't want to be stupid, likes to pretend he's not, but he is, he knows he is, he knows he gets distracted and forgets things and doesn't understand them. He knows most kids learn to talk way before 4 years old, he knows he was in classes for kids who were not quite special needs but not quite smart enough for regular classes either.
He knows he's stupid because everybody has always told him he is, his parents and teachers and even Matt, but he's never felt it so much from Matt. Usually it's couched in jokes or patient pauses, like they're in it together, but they're not in it together anymore and it's Jay’s fault. It's all Jay's fault.
And he also knows he's stupid because even now he doesn't actually fully remember what's going on. Matt's mad at him, maybe madder than he's ever been, even when he used to bring girls around, and he doesn't really remember what he did wrong. He remembers that the whole day has been a disaster, that Matt was reading his texts and Jay hurt him, but he doesn't remember what he wrote in those texts to make Matt so upset.
And then Matt started breaking something, hitting and hitting and hitting it and Jay got scared like a girl and tried to hide but he couldn't because… he's tied up? And he's tied up because… because he's kidnapped, Matt kidnapped him, because Jay doesn't know what's good for him. Because Jay was about to make the biggest mistake of his life, trying to escape, and Matt had to stop him, because he needs someone smarter than him to make the decisions and because Matt loves him.
And obviously this all was a mistake, because even without remembering half of it Jay knows this has been the single worst day- night? he's not sure what time it is- of his entire life. He was dying at one point, he remembers that, and maybe it would have been easier if he could have followed through on something for once.
No, no, that's wrong, he doesn't- he doesn't think that, does he? Whose thoughts are these? They sound like Matt, but even more than that they sound like his mom. Is she in his head? Maybe she'll do a better job in there. No, he doesn't think that either, he never wanted that. That's not him.
Except that some of it might be true, because right now he can't think of one thing he's ever done right. That's why he feels like this, that's why his mom won't even answer his calls, that's why Matt's so upset. Jay is bad, he's awful, and he doesn't want to be here but since when does he really know what he wants anyway?
What he wants is Matt. Right now, scared and in pain and spiraling into oblivion, he wants Matt. He doesn't want to be alone, he wants someone to tell him a funny joke or pet his hair or even just tell him he's not the worst piece of sh*t ever born.
His mom was right. He wishes she was here to fix all this like she did when he was younger, when she was always running after him cleaning up his messes. But she's tired of him now, like Stefanie would get tired of him, like anybody would be tired of him if they had to deal with him for very long.
Anybody but Matt. Matt still wants him, Matt doesn't get tired of him.
But Matt isn't here. Jay wants him to be here, but he's gone, where did he go? Is he mad? Jay did something wrong, he thinks. He must have really done a number on himself because he's all sore and his head is- it's like his brain fell into the ocean and it's caught in the waves and it's got saltwater in its eyes. Did Matt go to the Harborfront? Is he coming back?
Jay keeps going in circles, spiraling and forgetting and spiraling again, and when the door finally opens he's so relieved he could cry. He doesn't want to be alone anymore.
But it isn't Matt who comes in- it's Jared. “Hey, guys, you ready to-”
Jared stops when he sees Jay. He looks around, obviously trying to find Matt. Jay’s never been that big a fan of Jared, honestly, but right now Jay would settle for anybody. “Jared!” He starts, and then can't think of what to say next. All he can think about is how grateful he is not to be alone, so he says that. “I'm so glad you're here!”
“Oh.” Jared makes a face. “Uh, is Matt here?”
Jay takes it like a shot to the chest. “I don't remember,” he admits, voice high and shaky. “I think he's mad at me. I think he left. It was scary, he left and I got scared and now I'm sad.”
“Okay,” Jared says. “Um, should I just film you then?”
“No!” It’s an automatic response- Jay doesn't want to be filmed like this, so pathetic, so helpless, and when Jared films it's like he goes away and Jay can't be alone again.
Jared readjusts his camera bag uncomfortably. “Maybe I should just wait outside.”
“No!”
Jared grimaces.
“You can film,” Jay offers quickly. “Tell Matt I let you film me even though I'm alone and scared, tell him I did it because I know he likes it, so he's not mad anymore.”
Jared shakes his head. “I don't want to get involved, man, I'm just an observer. If you two are tying each other up now, that's between you. My job is just to get it on camera.”
Tied up? Who’s tied- oh! Oh, no, Jay doesn't like that. He forgot, how did he forget? What's wrong with him? Stupid, stupid, like Matt said- did Matt say that? Did Matt tie him up? Because he's leaving. He's leaving? Is he supposed to be somewhere? “Jared, help me up.”
There's no response. Jared just keeps staring at him like he didn't say anything. He said something, didn't he?
“Can you- please may you untie my hands?” Jay tries again. He forgot to be polite last time.
Jared looks away, sinking to one knee and unzipping his camera bag.
“Jared? Jared, can you help me? Please?”
The only answer is an awkward puff of air as Jared pulls his camera out.
“Are you mad at me, too?” Jay asks, voice small.
The cap comes off the camera lens, which seems to zoom in on him. Jay hides his face.
“Everyone's mad at me,” he whines. “I don't wanna be here. I don't know where Matt went but I want him to come back. I think he's right. I think I can't do it by myself.”
The camera makes a whirring sound. It's the nicest thing anyone's said to him all day.
Jay hums to himself, fingers twitching in place to mimic playing a piano the best he can. He wants a friendship song, something safe and happy and not lonely. The theme from Cheers- he always liked that show, used to watch it with his dad when he was too young to even get most of the jokes, but he liked sitting with his dad on the couch and laughing when the audience did and feeling like he was really in on something. So Jay sings it lowly to himself, over and over, hoping Jared might join in like his dad used to.
He doesn't.
After the fifth or so rendition of the song with absolutely no reaction, Jay tries talking instead. He can make conversation, he thinks, but what actually comes out is “I think I did something bad. Like maybe when I was a kid or something I did something really bad and God got mad at me and now I can't- now there's something wrong with me and I can't do it right. I try to be normal and it doesn't work and the only one who likes me is Matt and he's- he's not even here. He's mad at me.”
That wasn't what he meant to say at all. There's no verbal response from Jared- instead he just moves to an angle where Jay can barely even crane his neck to see him. Jay's heart beats in double time. He has to fix this. Say something normal.
“It's a bad day today. The weather is- it's dizzy in here, it's sad and scary and- are you scared in here?” Make conversation. Something relatable. “Um, is it just me or are your hands- uh, are you- can you move or is it just me? Isn't it so- so trapped in here? Ha, um, haha, don't you hate it when- don't you hate when you- uh, when it's me? It's- do you hate me? Jared? Do you hate me?”
Jay hears shuffling and can just make out movement in the corner of his eye. He's f*cking it all up. Jared won't talk to him, why won't he talk to him? They've never had a real conversation in the decade they've known each other but if someone doesn't tell Jay that everything's okay in the next 5 minutes he's going to actually explode and right now Jared is his only lifeline. And he's still f*cking it up.
“I'm being good, Jared, tell me I'm good, it’s all okay, everything's okay! Nobody hates me, I'm not broken, I'm just Bird, right? I'm just Bird? I'm not- I'm not dying, I'm not alone, I'm not- not- I'm not doomed, it's okay, I'm okay, right, Jared? Right, Jared?” His eyes sting. He's so stupid. He's so stupid he can't even remember how to breathe right. No wonder Jared hates him, his mom hates him, Matt hates him. “Hey, Bird, you're- you're fine, man, chill out, nothing- nothing's wrong,” Jay chokes out, and it sounds entirely wrong in his own voice. “You're okay, Jaybird.”
Silence. No, not silence, because he hears himself, his own breathing and his breaking voice and that's not very good at all, it sounds like sh*t, he's never been any good at writing music without Matt.
Jay tries to bring his hand to his mouth to bite it- a nervous habit he thought he gave up in high school- but he can't, because he's tied up, how does he keep forgetting that? And the rope burns against his skin, he wants it off, how much longer is he going to be here? “I want it to be over now, please,” he says out loud. “Please please please can it be- can we be done now? Can it be over please?”
Nothing.
“Please?” He's begging now, he thinks. He might be doing it wrong. “Uncle,” he tries. “I give up, I lose, uncle. Please?”
There's a click, the shuffling of a bag and a body, and then Jared comes into view. Jay flinches at the sight of him. How long has he been here? Is that who Jay was talking to? Where's Matt?
“Jared,” Jay says, almost like a prayer. It's all he can think to say. “Jared. Jared. Jared.”
Jared is giving him a look Jay can't even begin to read. It isn't a good look, it isn't happy. He knows what it isn't, but not what it is.
“You're here, Jared, you're here. You're here. Jared.” Jay is trying to make him understand. It isn't coming out right. “Jared. Jared.”
“Uh, I texted Matt.” Jay perks up at this instantly. Matt? Is Matt here? Matt will help him, Matt will know what he needs. “He says to just come back tomorrow, and I think I got what I need here, so. Good luck, man.”
Jared turns to go and Jay thinks he might actually die if Jared leaves right now. “No, Jared, stay, I can- I can-” Jay can't think of anything he can do that anyone might want. Useless, stupid, selfish, alone. “Stay, Jared, please, please, please, don't go, don't go- Jared, please-”
The door shuts and Jay is alone again and he doesn't die. He's still trapped here by himself where nobody wants him and his head and his body hurt. Trapped alone, alone, nobody wants him, he's all alone.
Jay screams, and it sounds ugly and bad but it's better than silence. He screams again, and again, and again. Nobody hears him. Nobody cares. Like he's not even real, like he's going to rot here, like he never even existed. It would have been easier if he never existed. It would have been easier if his mom had just killed him as soon as he was born. It would have been easier if Matt had just shot him in the head.
Matt. Is Matt here? Is he coming? Is he happy? Jay doesn't remember. He hopes he's not mad. He hopes he's coming back soon. Coming back… is Matt gone? Is he coming back? Is he happy? Jay doesn't remember. He wants to die here. He doesn't know if he was ever even alive. He doesn't remember.