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Brian sighed as he rubbed his eyes, which he had strained for hours as he finished up a paper for one of his classes. Leaning back in his desk chair, he retrieved his phone from a desk drawer, where he had put it to assure he had no distractions. But once he turned on the phone, he frowned. He had a couple of missed calls and texts from Alex and a few missed calls from Jay. Brian swore he could remember that he told Alex that he wasn’t gonna be available to film today.
Shrugging it off, he decided to call Alex back, despite the last missed call being from over an hour ago. The phone rang twice before Alex picked up, “Took you long enough.”
Brian rolled his eyes, “I was busy, now, why were you spamming me? Didn’t I tell you that I wasn’t gonna make it today?”
“I was calling you because Tim didn’t show up today and wasn’t responding to any of my or Jay’s attempts to call him, and Jay got worried and wants to make sure Tim’s alright.” Alex sighed and Brian snickered.
“Maybe Tim got fed up with your attitude on set, you have gotten more snappy as of recently.”
“I have not.”
“Yes, you most definitely have,” Brian chuckled before humming, “So why were you calling me though? If he wasn’t answering you, what makes you think he’s gonna answer me?”
“Because you’re his best friend, plus he always responds to you.”
“Hm. I guess that’s true,” Brian said, drumming his fingers against his chair arms, “I’ll see what I can do.”
“Alright, thanks.” Brian said his goodbyes before hanging up and looking for Tim’s contact. Once he found it, he called him. He pressed his phone up to his ear and waited, expecting him to answer rather quickly. So, that’s why, when Tim’s phone went to voicemail, Brian got concerned. As Alex said, Tim always responds to Brian, even if he’s not feeling well, he always makes an effort to answer Brian’s calls. Hell, Brian can’t even remember hearing Tim’s voicemail before.
So, he called again, but only was sent to voicemail again. Brian frowned.
Luckily, Tim’s house was only a block away from Brian’s. Which meant it only took 5-6 minutes tops for a concerned Brian to arrive at Tim’s place, still in his pajamas. Tim’s car was still parked in the driveway, a sign that he was still home. Brian knocked on the door, “Tim?” He called.
No response.
Brian sighed, knocking again. When he got no response again, he tried to just open the door. And to his surprise, the door was unlocked. Brian blinked a couple of times before pushing the door open and entering the house. Brian called out for his friend again, making it clear that he was inside the house now. All the lights and curtains were shut, so Brian began feeling around for a light switch. He soon found it and was about to flick on the lights, but he was suddenly pounced on and taken to the ground by someone, luckily though, he managed to turn the flip the lights on as he was taken down.
Brian let out a surprised yelp as he hit the ground, groaning, “What the hell-” He muttered. He squinted, the sudden light which filled the room being overwhelming. The first noticeable thing about the person atop of him was the white mask they donned. It was clearly just a cheap plastic halloween mask, but it had certain features (the eye holes, lips and eyebrows) enhanced with what looked like black marker. Brian stared at the person for a few moments before realizing who it was.
“Tim..?” Brian asked, confused as to why his friend had just tackled him and was also wearing a halloween mask considering it was not halloween. Tim wasn’t also the type of person to play pranks, so this just didn’t make much sense. Tim, however, didn’t respond. He just cocked his head to the side, like a confused dog. Brian squinted again, staring at Tim’s brown eyes though the holes in the mask. There didn’t seem to be any recognition in them. Brian frowned, “…Are you not…Tim?”
Tim blinked slowly before shaking his head.
“Oh, um…Then, who are you?”
The masked man slowly cocked his head over to the other side, before shrugging at the question.
“You don’t have a name?” Brian asked, getting another head shake from the male, “Uh, alright, can I call you…Mask…y? Masky? Is that okay?”
The male blinked again, as if he were thinking about it. There was silence for a minute or so before the male finally nodded his head. Brian gave an awkward smile before nodding as well, “Well, uh, Masky..My name is Brian…I’m a good friend of Tim’s.”
Another blank stare.
“Can you, maybe, please, get off of me?” Brian asked, “I’m not gonna hurt you or anything, I just came over to check on how Tim was doing.”
Tim, or rather Masky, hesitantly nodded his head and crawled off from on top of Brian. Brian nodded as well, rising to his feet. Masky continued to stare blankly at the male, still crouched down. Brian cleared his throat awkwardly, “Can you communicate or anything? Any form of communication that’s not just…nodding? ASL, maybe?”
Masky thought about it for a moment before he suddenly got up and rushed off towards Tim’s room, the sudden movement startling Brian. The dirty blond sighed, running a hand through his hair. What the hell was even going on right now? Tim had never told him about…this. Whatever ‘this’ was exactly. After shuffling and a few thumps coming from Tim’s room, Masky returned, with a notebook and pencil clutched in his hands.
Brian watched as Masky sat down on the ground, opening the notebook to a random empty page and scribbling down, ‘HI’ in messy writing. Masky leaned forward, pushing the book as he did so to make sure Brian saw his message.
“Hi.” Brian waved and Masky shuffled, giddy as he pulled back the notebook to write down something else.
‘HI!!!’ Pushing the notebook over again, Brian chuckled.
“Hi, again.” He said, slowly sitting down in front of Masky. Masky nodded, pulling back the notebook. He stared down at the lined paper before writing. He got a few words into his sentence before becoming frustrated and scribbling over it to try again. After a few minutes, he finally pushed the book towards Brian.
‘You r nice. Like you.’
Masky didn’t have the best handwriting, so it took Brian a few moments to realize what the message said, but he gave Masky a small smile once he fully read it, “You seem nice too, Masky…Despite the whole tackling thing…You don’t normally do that..right?”
Masky blinked a few times, before looking aside and trying to avoid Brian’s gaze.
“…You don’t just..tackle random people, right?”
Masky scribbled down a few frowny faces, before crossing his arms and Brian sighed. “You shouldn’t do that, you know? It can hurt someone.” Masky let out a huff, which was muffled due to the mask. Brian sighed again, “Nevermind…Have you been out all day?”
Masky nodded. Well, there was the reason why Tim wasn’t responding to anyone’s calls. The two of them sat together for an hour, Brian asking questions and Masky doing his best to answer.
From what Brian gathered from Masky’s answers was that: Masky’s been around ever since Tim was young, people are usually scared of him and/or don’t like him, he likes the colour yellow, he can talk but he just can’t remember how to right now, he doesn’t like doctors or hospitals (a fear that he has in common with Tim, Brian noted), he’s claustrophobic, he does tackle people but it’s not always meant in an aggressive way and he likes talking with Brian and thinks he’s nice (Masky brought this up several times).
“I should probably go back home now.” Brian yawned, rubbing his eyes tiredly. Masky’s head shot up and he quickly scrambled to his feet, rushing over to the front door and blocking it. Brian blinked a few times and raised an eyebrow, “Am I not allowed to leave now?”
Masky shook his head quickly.
Brian sighed and shrugged, standing up again, his legs somewhat numb from having been sitting crossed legged for an hour. Masky watched his new friend closely as the dirty blond male ventured over to the couch. “Guess I’ll stay here then,” Brian stated. He didn’t have class the next day anyways, so it didn’t really matter. Brian stretched himself out on the sofa. Masky let out a small sigh of relief and shuffled to turn off the light.
Once the room was dark, Brian called out, “Have a goodnight, Masky!”
He closed his eyes, feeling himself slowly fall asleep. As he did so however, he heard more shuffling and then a sudden heavy weight laying on top of him. Brian furrowed his eyebrows, “Masky? Is that you?” Masky grumbled softly in response. He shuffled and moved around before managing to press his mask into the crook of Brian’s neck. Brian let out a small sigh, wrapping his arms around Masky, “Comfy?
“Mh.”
Brian chuckled, “Goodnight.” He repeated before finally falling asleep. He could swear though, that before he drifted off to sleep,
Masky started…purring?