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There’s a sickeningly sweet taste, before it sours, and he hurls himself and his lunch onto stained carpet. He ignores the ache in his knees and snot running down his face, and the hot bile that his hands sink into when he tries to right himself on the floor.
“Shit man, Jay-” Tim says off to his side somewhere, the old mattress creaking under his shifting weight. Jay barely manages to peel himself off the floor before he hurls again, the rest of anything he’d eaten between now and yesterday spilling out at his feet.
There’s a hand at his side, grabbing at his shoulder to pull him off the carpet and his foggy head nearly tips right off his shoulders. Another hand wipes at his sweaty forehead, and he sort of registers that he’s being pulled toward the bathroom.
The shitty, cramped motel bathroom, yellow fluorescent flickering and ringing above his head. He winces, feels that familiar heat rising in his throat and doesn’t have time to think about it as he throws up more stomach contents right onto his shirt. The black haired man makes a disgruntled noise but continues dragging Jay into the bathtub.
The cool porcelain against his feverish skin is not unwelcomed, but he has snot and spit and bile running down his chin. Tim runs the sink, wetting a ratty washcloth and presses it to Jay’s face. He wipes away the liquids collecting there, his free hand brushing sweat-slicked bangs away from his forehead.
“Sorry,” Jay gurgles, tired eyes closing for once in his life. Tim shushes him, cleaning his hands and tossing the dirtied washcloth into the garbage before leaving to fetch water.
Jay’s on the comfortable edge between being awake and asleep, curled in on himself in the tub when Tim returns. He presses the rim of the water bottle to the sick brunet’s lips, a large hand cradling the back of his head as he tips the liquid into his mouth. It’s cold, shocking to his system but he greedily sucks it down. There’s a finger on his bottom lip, and he parts them without opening his eyes.
Tim pushes a round pill into his mouth and makes him swallow beyond his quiet protests. “Just take it, Jay.” His voice is gruff, but there’s an underlying softness that the cameraman isn’t used to.
Once he finishes off half the bottle of water, Tim puts it aside and reaches deftly for the hem of Jay’s shirt. The man does very little to protest, letting his black-haired friend peel it off his sweltering skin and over his head. The offending material is tossed off to the side on the tile floor, and Jay is thankful.
“Come on, Jaybird.” Tim murmurs softly, hands wrapping around boney upper arms to pull him back out of the tub now that he wasn’t spitting up any and everything in his stomach.
Jay’s head is still heavy, full of smoke and he giggles. But he knows that Tim is strong enough to lift him without much trouble, he really doesn’t weigh much. With a grunt, his friend has Jay up and back onto his feet. Sort of.
He’s more-so dragged than carried back to their shared bed, rolled onto his side and tucked in. The sheets are nice and cool against his skin, and he wiggles his legs comfortably under the material. Tim’s hand runs gingerly down his bare arm before he pulls away fully, and Jay whines pitifully at the loss of contact.
“Sleep.” Is all Tim says, then he leaves the room. Jay’s sure he went outside to finish off the blunt they’d been puffing on. Jay wasn’t much of a smoker, of any kind, but he indulged his friend’s request.
It was a nice feeling, mellowing out his aches and stresses, like he was floating on a cloud. His head was so far buried in the soft cotton, not a single thought on his mind beside how the smoke felt burning deep in his lungs and between his lips.
But Jay got sick when he got stoned.
He’s sure Tim won’t ask him to smoke again.
A week after hurling his lunch on the carpet, a new set of shirts and a change of motels, Tim asks again.
“You ever shotgun?” Jay looks at him for a moment, then shakes his head. Sure he’d been a college student at one point, but he never participated in peer activities. He’d maybe been to two parties in his entire three years of school. Of which he was dragged along to by Alex, and then sat in the corner nursing a drink by himself.
“Just figure it might help with your whole getting sick thing.” Tim says offhandedly, and Jay tries to not think too much about it, or the way his cheeks heat up. But he accepts the offer despite himself.
Tim sinks into the bed, back pressed against the cheap headboard and holds the blunt between his lips. Jay thinks of nothing. Except Tim’s mouth, and hands and how he looks lighting the blunt, and how his cheeks suck in when he takes a drag. There’s absolutely nothing on Jay’s mind.
The brunet climbs onto the bed, mattress sinking under his weight and Tim practically pulls him in his lap. He sucks on the joint again, fingers sliding into the back of the mess Jay calls hair and pressing their hot mouths together.
Jay nearly chokes, hacking as the smoke blows into the back of his throat and he jerks away. He isn’t sure if his face is red hot from the coughing or inadvertently kissing Tim, but his friend chuckles at him. Then he takes another long drag, eyes never leaving the lanky man.
Once Jay settles again, shifting to sit beside Tim instead of on top of him, he reaches a hand out. Boney fingers latch onto the black-haired man’s face, dragging against his scruff and pulling his head to the side. Tim gets the message, puffing on the joint again and leans in.
Their mouths meet, but this time Jay doesn’t choke up, parting his lips to let the smoke in. He inhales it greedily, holding it in his lungs and neither of them pull away for longer than is necessary. When Jay leans back, smoke billows out of his nostrils and cracked lips, blowing right back into Tim’s face. But he doesn’t complain or pull away, eyes flickering over Jay’s mouth and then back to blue eyes.
“Feel better?” Tim murmurs, taking a last drag before he puts the blunt out on an ashtray he’d kept at his side. Jay hums, brain weighing down comfortably as mellowness overtakes him. His friend chuckles with a lazy expression on his face, eyes tinted pink. It’s nice again.
Jay isn’t sure how he ends up laying on his back, staring up at the popcorn ceiling of the motel, but he does. Tim is no longer at his side, he’d slipped away somewhere a while ago.
He tries not to remember the feeling of Tim’s lips against his, soft and chaste, and tasting of cigarettes and the sweetness of weed.
It’s not until a month later that Tim asks once again. They’ve been through hell and back, battered to no end. But moments at whatever seedy, bad-end motel they ended up were the most normal. The most domestic.
There’s an aching between his ribs, and Jay’s not sure if it’s from being attacked or his heart beat so hard it’s wedged itself where it shouldn’t be. But he gives in, craving anything, any sense of normalcy. And he certainly doesn’t crave the taste of Tim’s lips again.
Tim drives them out to a field, claiming he just needs a change of scenario from the yellow-stained motel walls. Jay doesn’t comment on it, sitting idly in the passenger seat as the black-haired man drives through overgrown grass. The car comes to a rest, rocking gently as Tim rolls the windows down and turns off the ignition.
The field is endless plains of green against peachy-yellow horizon, and Jay sucks in fresh air. It was nice to be somewhere new, nothing like the run-down buildings or thick woods they found themselves running through often.
Tim makes a grunting noise, leaning back his seat as he reaches for his lighter to light up the third blunt they’ve shared in the past how many months. He can feel Jay’s eyes on him and glances sideways at him, “You want the first hit?”
Jay gives it thought for a moment, then wordlessly leans over for Tim to place the joint between his parted lips. He lights the end, tossing the chunky silver lighter somewhere on the dashboard. The brunet wraps his fingers around the familiar weight, sucking in sweet smoke he’d grown accustomed to.
Tim watches with amusement, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as Jay exhales a thick cloud of gray. He passes the joint, content to let whatever he inhaled settle into his bones.
It doesn’t take long for either of them to feel the calm, weightless feeling that came with getting high. Jay kicks off his shoes, propping his legs up on the dashboard with a comfortable sigh. Tim puts out the nub between his fingers, heavy eyes finding their way across Jay’s feature.
He’s staring out the windshield, off in his own world, body slouched lazily in the passenger seat of Tim’s car. And the black-haired man wouldn’t have it any other way, because despite their differences or situation or any of the frequent fights they got in, Tim cared for Jay.
Maybe even loved him.
After however long of comfortable silence, Tim leaves the keys in the ignition and switches on the station, twisting the knob until it lands on a station playing 80s. He keeps the music low, fingers tapping along the steering wheel as he hums along. Jay shifts in his seat, glancing over at his companion and giggles. Heat rises to his cheeks but he hums along, random lyrics spilling from his lips at random intervals. Tim finds it endearing.
Jay isn’t sure when humming along turned into singing at the top of their lungs or how they somehow ended up outside the car. But he doesn’t complain over the feeling of Tim’s hands on his wrist, or the weight of his body pressing him to the hood of the car.
Tim leans over him, smiling widely, hair more disheveled than it was earlier. He mouths something but Jay isn’t listening, his head is full of fog, and oh so full of Tim.
“Kiss me.” He says, and who is Tim to deny such a simple request?
Their lips mold together so easily, tongues sliding into place like they’re two pieces of a puzzle. Jay’s hands find their way from under Tim’s, snaking around his broad shoulders and pulling him impossibly close. Their bodies shift against each other, and Jay’s on top of the world.
In this moment, they can forget about everything. About Alex, Brian, Jessica, the operator. It’s just them, alone in this world, in this moment. Their foggy heads swim against the current, together. Lips find sensitive skin, trailing from mouth to neck and back. Hands wander, touching every inch of exposed skin and then some. Jay’s not sure where his body ends and where Tim’s begins, but he doesn’t complain.
In the end, everything they do, they do it alone.