Chapter Text
It’s hard at first. There’s no way of denying that.
Blood is shed and bruises blossom across sun-starved skin every other night. Blades that ought to be used for food are used against flesh and glass crashes in a kitchen that doesn’t even belong to them. Words that can never be taken back stand out boldly at the backs of their minds as they fall asleep in dead and stony silence.
(but)
But even people as broken as they are can manage it.
(they made it through something brought on by an inhuman and invulnerable force)
(they can do anything, fuck you very much)
—
Jay and Tim arrive there first, slipped away from the creature where it lay screaming for flesh (how had they gotten away how were they alive so many questions even they don’t know the answers to). They keep running and running and running, cars nearly out of gas by the time they reach the edge of town where the night is quiet but the day is even quieter.
They find solace in an empty home that has no owner to its name. For a night or so, anyway.
Then—
“Please, please let me in, I don’t have any money.”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“But, Tim—”
Alex slips his way into their makeshift home soon after, begging not for forgiveness but for shelter. They still have no idea how he found them. For all they know, Alex could have been following them since they first fled the college, aimlessly chasing after their familiar faces.
Tim isn’t exactly thrilled; Jay must see something in his scarred up face that Tim doesn’t, though, because he says it’s okay.
Tim can’t tell if Jay is stupid, overly forgiving, or if he’s too good to turn someone away when they’re in need. Sure, they all know by then that it’s impossible for Alex to shoot Jay down again, but that doesn’t mean he’s incapable of making their lives hell.
Which he does.
The first fight seems to go on for hours. Jay tries to ask if either of them want him to go out and get some fast food. Neither of them wants him going off on his own out of some misplaced sense of protectiveness. And of course, neither of them wants the other to be the one to escort Jay.
“You tried to fucking kill him. What makes you think I trust you alone with him?”
“/I/ didn’t do shit! That thing made me do it! You weren’t there to stop me, what’s that say about you, you incompetent—”
“Oh that’s fucking /rich/, coming from—”
Everything past that is drowned out by the thuds of their bodies hitting the floor and bone meeting bone.
Jay runs out and doesn’t come back until the next morning, clutching three separate bags of McDonald’s with white knuckled hands. Tim remembers seeing him walk into the living room, his view skewed because, well, he’s lying on the floor clutching his head with Alex passed out across from him. But it isn’t exactly the worst wakeup call, seeing as Jay has the decency to leave the individual bags right beside their prone forms.
From that point on, every night begins to blur into the next, too similar in violence and anger for them to stand out against one another.
Someone says something the other doesn’t like. Jay flinches, and flees. He tip toes around the wreckage the next morning, like he’s hoping if he’s gentle enough, he won’t set off any land mines.
He’s never very successful.
—
There’s no way of telling who initiates the healing.
Probably Jay. He’s not one for words, nor is he exactly the most aggressive out of the three of them. Quite the opposite, actually.
(Tim remembers finding him in bed with tears streaking his face and Alex recalls finding his camera, but it was switched off for the first time since they met up that night in Benedict Hall. Like he didn’t want their less-than-human behavior captured on tape.)
It’s funny; he was willing to record his own ‘death’, but not this. It’s like now that he knows they’re unable to kill each other and have nobody else left in the world, he can’t bear to keep on capturing the pain on the little black rectangles for future reference. Too much to carry for a lifetime that he can’t jump ship out of.
But— that’s just it. That’s where it all starts to turn into one jagged and ugly scar instead of a sore that the three of them insisted upon reopening at every given opportunity.
He reminds them that they’ve only got each other.
“What the hell’s the point of kicking each other’s teeth out anyway?!”
It’s the first time Alex ever heard him yell like that. Tim, yes, when he took away the camera, but it wasn’t even this desperate because this was actually Jay talking. He stands at the top of the dusty stairs, resembling a broken child stumbling upon his parents fighting in the middle of the night.
“Would you stay out of this?” Alex tells him tiredly, and Tim hates him so much in that moment because he has /balls/ telling Jay what to do after trying to shoot Jay down in cold blood. It’s hard to keep his fists at bay; he holds himself back, but not for Alex’s sake.
“How can I stay out of it when I’m part of it?” Jay huffs, stamping down the steps. He goes to stand between Tim and Alex, a pathetic sight indeed. None of them came out of The Operator’s grip unscathed, but he couldn’t look any smaller standing next to the pair of them. “I’m as pissed off as either of you are for all sorts of reasons but I’m not taking it out on your faces, am I?”
“Yeah, ‘cos you’re not stupid enough to go looking for a fight you can’t win,” Alex says, clenching his fists. Tim opens his mouth, hot anger bubbling in his throat at the potential threat in the other man’s voice, but his words falter when Alex continues to speak. “Unlike Tim.”
“You sure you wanna say that when I’m right here?” Tim snaps, jerking forward. If Jay wasn’t standing between them, he likely would have pushed Alex to the floor right then. It takes one word from him, one word, and everything breaks. Hearing his voice is bad enough, because all he can associate it with is danger.
It takes all of Jay’s strength not to shrink away from Alex. There’s a rubber quality to the air between the three of them, one that’s being stretched to its limit, and he can practically feel it getting close to its end.
“Come on, guys, you know we’re stuck here together and we—”
“I’ll say whatever I want,” Alex interrupts loudly; Jay might as well have been silent. “I might as well, when you two’ve been making me out to be the bad guy and I never got to say anything for myself.”
“Yeah, and you proved us right the minute you went and tried to kill both of us!” Tim says, voice cracking with something that sounds hideously like hysteria.
A jarring cry tears from his throat when Alex shoves Jay aside to leap at him. Bodies crash to the floor and Alex screams at him, positively /screams/— “It wasn’t me, you asshole, it wasn’t fucking /me/!”— and teeth find skin and nails find faces. Tim’s knee cracks against Alex’s ribcage, and Alex’s fist aches as it comes away from Tim’s cheek.
They could have gone on for hours.
But Jay’s voice is what breaks them apart.
He doesn’t have to say anything. The only sound that leaves his lips is a pained groan, and they both whip their heads around to see he’s at the bottom of the stair case, cradling his head. They can’t tell if he’s bleeding.
But he doesn’t give them the chance to figure it out. The man gives both of his old friends a glance, tired and indignant, then dashes away up the steps, using all four limbs for balance.
Something about the sight of Jay battered up like that from hitting the steps breaks Tim and Alex apart. They breathe heavily and don’t look at each other as they move in separate directions, rubbing at their individual injuries.
“I’m not saying I’m done with you,” Tim says between heavy breaths. “But I am saying maybe we should listen to what Jay might have to say about this.”
Alex scoffs, but he doesn’t brush Tim’s suggestion off either. He turns away from him and stomps to the kitchen, shoulders stiff and eyes to the floor.
“Just stay out of my way.”
Tim has to keep from laughing aloud at that.
He can do that, quite gladly.