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Matt's legs are dangling limply and his feet are bare. Jay's hand brushes against the skin there, by accident, as he loops his arms under Matt's knees, trying to bear his whole weight. Too little, too late, he thinks, even though Matt's still warm, even though it feels like the side of his palm is burning where he brushed against him.
Detached from his body, he wishes he was screaming, crying out for help, sobbing or something. He hates that the cameras caught the look on his face in the entryway, less terrified and more puzzled. His rapid breaths catch in his chest and again in his throat on the way out and it feels almost like a laugh. Like when Matt makes - made, used to make - him laugh so hard it tears the air from his lungs. Bizarrely, involuntarily, he chokes out a strangled half-laugh. It reverberates through Matt, through his body, where Jay's head is pressed against his upper thigh. Makes him sway like a wind chime. No, too delicate, the physics are all wrong, more like a cut of meat hanging from a butcher's ceiling.
He can tell words are spilling out of his mouth now but he's not sure if it's censored swears or pleas or just Matt's name. He wants to ask why, Matt, why'd you have to do it, why'd you have to care about me so goddamn much, but thinks that asking and not getting an answer might kill him too and then Jared would be left to clean up. Right, the fucking cameras, catching all of this. Jay remembers laughing, accidentally, sometime in what feels like the distant past. He wonders whether when he rewatches the footage, the laugh will sound more like his final response to Matt's final karmic joke on him or if it'll be more like the start of his descent into madness like something from a cheap psychological flick. He bites the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood.
Time moves in unsettling pauses and rushes. He can't tell exactly how long he stood in the doorway for, how long he's been on his knees for, holding Matt up. Dropping down to one knee had been instinctive. Only now does he register the irony of it. He's never going to be in this pose again, he thinks. Not just because the scene is already burning itself into a memory that he knows will come rushing back any time he sees a flannel shirt or a red scarf or the living room to their apartment, but because he wouldn't dare to hit any of those looming life milestones without Matt by his side to embarrass himself at his bachelor party. Really, he wouldn't be able to do anything at all without Matt there. Wouldn't instead of won't clues him in that it still hasn't really hit him yet. He wonders dizzily when the next time he's going to eat will be. Whether he'll play the piano ever again. Whether he should just–
"Matt," he says, feeling the name in his mouth finally. "Matt, baby, please, I'm sorry," he gasps. He still hasn't looked at his face since he found him. Will his eyes be open and glassy and dull, or closed? Will he look mad at Jay for leaving him, for making his worst fear come true, that final emotion written across his face? Jay's mad at Matt, blindingly so, hating him for leaving him like this. Wishes he could get back at him somehow, find a way to one-up him. Right then, for a fleeting second, he understands Matt entirely. Then it's gone and he tilts his head up, slow, terrified.
Matt's eyes are closed. His face is blank but the corners of his mouth are turned up in the faintest smile. He looks so young like this, his shy smug baby-face and his fluffy hair. Like when Jay lingers by the bunk bed for a moment longer than he should, watching his friend doze off. He has to jerk his head down suddenly.
He had been expecting something more grotesque, maybe swollen and distorted the way corpses in movies always look, but instead it's just Matt, frozen at 23 forever. That thought makes Jay jealous suddenly, which forces out another gasp-laugh. He wants to freeze with him, to match his dumb little smile, to stop time together. Jay doesn't know exactly how long it's been since – he can't even think the words – what matters is he's, what, maybe half an hour ahead of Matt now, and that stretch of time is growing every second, and it'll never stop, and for the last few years he's subconsciously measured time starting at the day he and Matt met, the day his life became what it is, but now he knows it'll have to be from the moment he – found him –
It finally starts to hit him like an elbow to the solar plexus. Oh god, Matt, he says desperately and he feels bile in the back of his throat and a terrible numbness in his hands where they're clutching Matt's leg – and his vision blurs and then sharpens to a point, his field of view zeroing in randomly on the knit scarf holding Matt's hands together, and he sways a little, knowing he might well pass out, and the panic isn't unfamiliar but it's multiplied by a number bigger than he knows the name of, and the only thing that's ever made it subside a little bit when it gets him in its clutches like this is Matt. He forces himself to look up again.
Matt's half-smile looks more like a grin now. Jay freezes.
Matt's eyes are open now, crinkled at the corners.
Matt tosses his head back and laughs, mocking, amused. Tracking his face as he swings from side to side makes Jay even dizzier than he already is. He holds onto Matt's leg for a second too long before shoving him away, scrambling to his feet, stumbling into the kitchen.
He does some dumb gesture with his still-tied hands, you really thought I was dead, how funny is that, and Jay doubles over laughing. Once he starts he can't stop, caught up in relief and anger and amusement, and Matt looks so fucking dumb like this, and he feels insane, he feels possessed, it feels just like the days they'd spend together as kids, getting in trouble, Matt trying to lie their way out of it, spinning some lie just stupid enough that Jay would lose his shit right as the person was about to believe them.
He has to place a hand on the counter to steady himself so he doesn't collapse back onto his knees again. His chest aches.
"Fuck, Jaybird, I really got you there, didn't I?" Matt's voice sounds like it's coming from a thousand miles away. Like he's hearing it in a dream and he'll forget the sound of it when he wakes up. All of a sudden, the weight of the moments he spent on his knees comes rushing back and the sparks of laughter fade. Why did Matt wait so long? The stupid stunt was bad enough, Matt couldn't just show him why he should never leave him, he had to punish him with the five stages of grief too? Jay coughs and spits into the sink. He watches blood pool on the metal. Maybe it is funny after all. He lets out another involuntary peal of laughter.
"Yeah," he says, voice breaking. "You got me. You really surprised me."
Matt hmms but doesn't elaborate. "This is actually making my back hurt pretty bad, you know? Wanna help, uh, cut my body down?"
Those words push him past some kind of breaking point. He turns his head to look at Matt then wrenches it back as he heaves and vomits into the sink. His chest hurts like nothing's ever hurt before and he wonders if maybe his heart is about to give out, leaving Matt in some fucked up romeo-and-juliet situation. He wonders if Matt would be able to get himself down. Distantly he remembers hearing the door close behind Jared and wonders why he just left like that. The pain swells and his stomach empties itself again. He misses the sink this time. He loses his grip on the counter, falls back to his knees.
"Oh shit, dude," Matt sounds a little bit concerned now. "Are you good? Ew, Bird, gross, are you like, okay? Birdie?"
Jay squeezes his eyes shut, slumps sideways, presses his face against the cool tile of the ground. His heart is still racing but at least the stabbing pain is starting to subside.
"C'mon, help me down," Matt says, his voice a little uncertain. Jay doesn't think he's going to be able to stand up at all. But Matt had said his back is hurting, and Jay can't just leave him like this. He hauls himself to his feet.
He can't look at the way Matt swings back and forth as he walks over. The distance from the entryway to the middle of the living room feels a thousand times longer than it did when he'd come home. Fuck, had that really just been a few minutes ago? He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
"Ew," Matt says again. "Can you try to uh, not touch me with your puke hand when you help me down?"
Jay ignores him, wraps his arms around Matt's waist, trying not to put any emotion into the gesture. Matt slips his head from the noose, clumsily unties the rope around his waist. Then Jay's bearing all his weight, and obviously this whole thing was a dumb idea, because his knees give out underneath him again. He goes down to the floor once again, falling backwards this time, and Matt falls with him. Trapped under him, air knocked out of his lungs, he thinks for a second what if he'd trusted me too much to hold him up, what if he'd undone the ropes in the other order? His mouth fills with saliva but there's nothing left in his stomach.
"Matt," he says petulantly, "ow, Matt, get off me."
Matt does, scrambling to his feet. He offers Jay an arm as an olive branch and Jay takes it, standing slowly. He sways on his feet for a second, half-expecting Matt to catch him, to hold him up like Jay did for him. Instead Matt just snickers out another laugh. Jay laughs too, but there's no warmth, no mirth. The anger from before threatens to eat him from the inside out. His chest squeezes and he dry-heaves.
As soon as he's righted himself, he shoves Matt, hard, or as hard as he can manage. It barely does anything, so he takes a swing, punches him right in the chest. Now that one Matt feels, and he stumbles backwards just as Jay tackles him, knocks him back down to the ground where they'd been embracing each other just a few seconds ago.
"Birdie, Jay, what're you–" Matt sounds taken off guard now. Good. Matt still looks so composed, so proud of himself, and Jay's sure that he himself is a wreck. He can taste blood in the front of his mouth, vomit in the back. His vision is still blurry with tears.
He headbutts Matt in the chest, hard. "I'm gonna fucking kill you," he spits out without meaning to. As the words hang in the air between them, he thinks about whether he should take it back and decides against it. He thinks about the disgusting, dizzying whiplash. About how every time Matt laughs he hears you really cared that much, you were that upset, stupid Jay, freaking out like that. He doesn't know how to square the relief, the anger, the amusement, all the emotions he's used to Matt making him feel, with the all-consuming grief that he can still feel even though he knows now it's useless. He thinks maybe if he could just hit Matt until he stops laughing, until he stops moving, it'd make it a little easier. So he doesn't take it back, he digs his hole a little deeper, he puts his forearm against Matt's neck. Says it again on a shaky exhale, "Matt, I'm gonna kill you."
He's shaking too hard to really press down, though, and Matt shoves him off easily onto his back. They're usually pretty evenly matched, but however long Matt was hanging there doesn't seem to have taken as much of a toll as the minute that Jay had to hold his body for. "Jesus, Bird, are you kidding me? You're mad that I faked my own death, so you're gonna kill me? That's like the dumbest thing I've ever heard." Another fucking laugh, and Jay sees red. He coughs and then spits on the floor, just an inch from where Matt's starting to stand back up.
A little rational impulse in his brain says drop it, tell him you're sorry, beg him wordlessly to say it back and then you two can go back to normal. Another less rational impulse, painfully aware of how close their faces are, offers up an even worse idea than killing Matt, but he reminds himself how gross his mouth tastes and shuts that impulse up. Plan A doesn't sound too bad, and he's just starting to sit up to apologize when Matt grabs his shoulders and shoves him back to the ground. His head hits the floor with a dizzying thud.
"Are you really gonna try to do it, Birdie?" Matt asks like he's taunting him. "I'm not gonna make it easy, you know."
Fuck Plan A. Jay squeezes his eyes shut and tenses his muscles, ready to spring into action as soon as Matt drops his guard. He can see Matt tense up too, eyes darting around the room like he's looking for something to defend himself with. All at once he drives his knee into Matt's crotch, summons the last of his strength to push him away, and dives over the couch through the window onto the roof.
He crouches on the other side of the window and listens to Matt's stream of expletives, waiting patiently as they get louder. Of course Matt would follow him out. All according to plan. Matt half-falls the few feet from the window, looking around, calling out "Jay?" a little uncertainly, and Jay pounces. Sends the two sprawling back to the ground. This time it's Matt's head that hits the floor and he shouts. They're just a foot from the edge of the roof. Jay's plan was perfect for once.
"You think I was joking around? Just 'cuz you were?" He wraps his arms around Matt and rolls the two of them over, even closer to the forty-foot drop. Panic spreads over Matt's face as the realization hits that Jay's got a plan, that he might actually be serious about the whole thing. Usually, on the rare occasions when Matt gets scared like this, Jay's focus immediately diverts itself to calming him down. Right now, it's the most beautiful expression Jay's ever seen him wear.
"Jay be careful this is fucking stupid don't actually," Matt says, all in a rush. Jay plants his feet against a crack in the tiles, uses it as a springboard to push the two of them awkwardly even closer. "Bird! Are you serious–"
"It's not fair, you know?" Jay tries and fails to keep his voice out of that petulant register that Matt loves to mock him for. "I left you alone for one day and you wanted to make me think that you were gonna–" that horrible painful laugh bubbles up in his chest again, and his voice shakes as he says, "–leave me alone forever…"
"Aw, Jaybird," Matt says, dislodging an arm from underneath him to tangle it in Jay's hair. Jay thinks it's meant to be soothing, both Matt's hand in his hair and his tone, but it has the opposite effect entirely, giving him a flare of some unnamable emotion that he'd rather throw himself off the roof than confront. He feels fucking insane right now, like, Matt-level insane, probably worse. "That's why you were so upset?"
"F–k you," Jay spits out. He brings the heel of his hand down hard against the bridge of Matt's nose, hoping to feel the bone break under his palm. It barely seems to hurt, though, and it does nothing to wipe that put-upon fond, amused expression off Matt's face. Fine, Jay decides, and rolls the two of them over again, bear-hugging him. Matt's on top, now, but Jay's holding him too tight to escape, and they're no longer all the way on solid ground. Solid roof, whatever. Jay's head is half-over the open air, and he hears the wind rushing past his ear.
"If you push me," Matt says, strained with fear but matter-of-fact, "I'll grab onto you."
"Yeah," Jay says. Obviously. Is Matt incapable of understanding a plan he didn't come up with?
"Oh. Are you really gonna do it?" It's the third time he's asked. This time it's almost goading. "Me and you? To teach me a lesson, or something?"
Jay answers his question with another question. "What would you have done if I hadn't come back today? If I'd had enough, of the band, of you?"
Matt looks more surprised than he did when Jay had punched him. He thinks for a second, then another. "You wouldn't get to know," he finally answers. "Wouldn't be your problem or your fucking business anymore." His eyes flick to the window back into the living room. The noose and the longer rope are still hanging from the ceiling, moving gently in the breeze wafting in from outside.
Jay mulls the answer over. He runs his tongue over the hole he'd bitten in his cheek. He shifts his weight suddenly, making as though he's about to send Matt over, testing the waters. Matt doesn't even flinch, just stays still on top of him. His hand tightens just a little where he's grabbing Jay's suit jacket.
"Bird?"
"Yeah, Matt?" Jay is suddenly aware of how exhausted he is.
"Think the Rivoli will do a tribute show for us?"
"Yeah," Jay says quietly. "I'm sure they will." Matt nods, looking like he actually believes him. Now's his chance, it'd be just like that book about the rabbits or whatever, it'd be so easy. He knows Matt's serious about holding onto him, too.
Matt picks up on it too. Jay almost wonders if that was why he asked. The moment passes, and Matt tries again. "You think it'll sell out?" Now Jay knows he's doing it on purpose.
"Yeah, man," Jay tells him. "Everyone'll be there. All… crying and talking about how great we were. We'll be famous, finally. Way better than anything we could've done today with those other bands." He makes the mistake of turning his head, looking down. He didn't think that the dizziness could compound any more, but it turns out that my best friend killed himself-dizzy and I'm hanging off the edge of a roof-dizzy are additive.
"Cool," Matt says. He closes his eyes and takes a long breath in. Holds it for a few seconds. Jay watches his brow furrow when he realizes he's not being thrown to their deaths. Impulsively he brings a hand up to Matt's face, runs a thumb along his forehead. For some inexplicable reason, that makes Matt flinch.
"Um." Jay feels stupid. He feels like when they're doing something dangerous, sticking to a plan, and he just can't bring himself to do the next step. What does he do in those situations? He waits for Matt to– "Tell me when you're ready."
"What?" Matt's confused. "I thought you were going to, uh…"
"I'm scared," Jay confesses. "Of, you know, dying. Even with you. And scared that, like, one of us is gonna fall on top of the other one and just get really hurt, and one of us is gonna get squished. And scared of how long it's gonna take to fall." He exhales long and slow. "Will you count us down?"
"Jaybird, you're being stupid. I have a better idea," Matt says. Jay will never admit it, but those are some of his favorite words to hear. "Don't move, okay?"
Jay nods. His heart is in his throat. Matt's going to do it instead, like he always ends up having to do when the plans get too much for him. It makes sense. Matt had been the one to tie the noose today, anyway.
Then Matt's rolling the two of them, and it takes Jay a second to register that they're moving away from the edge of the roof instead of out into nothingness. Once they're back on dry land, Jay on top again, he spreads his arms out. "Let go of me, Birdie."
Jay immediately obeys without even thinking about it. Matt squirms out from under him, sits up, dusts himself off, lets out a long whoof as he stands. This time he doesn't offer Jay his hand, even when he notices that Jay's shaking too hard to even brace himself with his forearms.
When Jay comes back down from the bathroom, after scrubbing at his mouth like Lady Macbeth for longer than anyone but a dentist would recommend and trying (and failing) to blot away the red from his eyes and cheeks, Matt's sitting on the couch. He looks up at Jay. "Hey, man."
Jay doesn't reply. He just sits down heavily next to Matt. The only sound is the wind, still whistling through the window, and the dangling ropes brushing against each other. Jay doesn't want to look at them, worried that he might accidentally picture Matt there again. He thinks he might see if he can get a lobotomy or something, to get that image out of his mind for good.
The silence feels like something physical between them. At first it's almost nice, he thinks if he and Matt were as close as they usually are it might finally break him. Then, little by little, it becomes muddy, oppressive. He opens his mouth to break it and finds that Matt must have been thinking the exact same thing.
"Where'd you–"
"Were you–"
Their eyes meet and Jay almost laughs. Matt's face breaks into a smile. Jay's always jealous of how easily he can shrug off a bad mood. Usually. At least, when Jay's there to see it.
"You first," Matt says.
"Oh. Uh, where'd you get this flannel? It's not yours." Jay wonders when exactly he started categorizing every piece of Matt's clothing. Probably around when they'd started living out of each others' closets.
Matt has to think about it for a second. "Oh, I stole it. Just grabbed it off some guy's truck. I forgot my jacket and it was fucking cold in High Park."
"You think maybe he got cold? There's something called a social construct..." Jay tries to keep his tone level, playfully disappointed. His voice shakes.
Matt dodges the question. "Were you really gonna push me off the roof? You can say yes, I'm not gonna, like, call the cops on you or kill you in your sleep."
Jay folds forward, buries his head between his knees. "Matt…"
"I'll answer your question if you answer mine."
"You already told me, you stole it from some poor guy."
"No, not that, I mean. If you left for good. I would probably either hang myself or get up on the stool and then chicken out." Like you did, Matt doesn't say, but of course they're both thinking it. "Today, when I went and got the rope, I kind of didn't have a plan besides that. Good thing I came up with one, right?"
The feeling rises in Jay's chest again, threatens to overtake him. He grabs an empty plastic takeout bag, clutches it to his chest. It's easier to clean vomit off of a tile floor than off of their couch. "Why? Matt… why me? Why is this…" Why am I that important to you? What do you see in me that nobody else does?
"I don't know what I am without my best friend," Matt answers immediately, honestly. "I don't know if there is a Matt without his Jay." Jay's heart hasn't caught a break all night long and it certainly isn't getting one now. His Jay? It's too much to think about. He lets out a quiet groan, curls up, hides his face again.
"Aw, Birdy. Hey, are you okay?" Matt's hand comes to rest between his shoulderblades. Jay's half expecting it to start traveling down his spine or weave into his hair, but it just stays there, warm and, okay, fine, a little bit comforting. "You don't have to tell me. About the roof, I mean."
"I don't know," Jay says in a small voice. "Maybe. I don't know. I just wanted to scare you like you scared me. I didn't think you'd be, like… okay with it."
"Idiot," Matt scolds him. "If you really wanted to scare me like I did, you should've just threatened to jump."
The thought hadn't really crossed Jay's mind. Deep down, he'd assumed that Matt wouldn't have responded the same way Jay did, that it was something uniquely fucked up about him that got him more terrified at the idea of his b-friend dying without him than both of them together. But he can picture it now, Matt on his knees, pleading with Jay, trying to talk him away. The image is satisfying, like a retort dreamt up in the shower for an hours-old argument. And yet…
"I kinda didn't want to put you through all that," he admits.
Matt seems stunned into silence. "Bird," he flounders, "you, you, you threatened to kill me! Like, a lot!"
"You've almost actually gotten me killed a few times," Jay says. "That's not that bad. Today was… I was so…" He peeks up at Matt from between his knees and when he sees his messy hair, his wide searching eyes, the image of Matt's seemingly-lifeless body comes rushing back to him. He pictures a funeral, cleaning out a bedroom, walking past the Rivoli on his own. He fumbles for the plastic bag but the wave of nausea subsides. The snapshots don't, though.
He gets these flashes a lot, these involuntary awful thoughts. Sometimes, when he's lucky, saying what he's thinking about makes them go away. "I keep picturing myself, like, in my nicest clothes, telling your parents I'm so sorry. And watching movies alone. It only stopped when we were fighting. And I'm scared about trying to go to sleep tonight." He feels like a dumb child again, half-waiting for his mother's voice to tell him stop bothering me, Jay, can't you try and just stop thinking about that? it's all the violent television you've been watching…
Finally, fucking finally, it seems to really hit Matt. He squirms awkwardly. "Look, man, in retrospect, I shouldn't have…"
"You think?" Jay laughs. Jay wonders when his laugh will go back to normal. It keeps startling him. "In retrospect?"
Matt drops his hand from Jay's back with a sigh. It must have been some kind of tether to his dignity, because all of a sudden, Jay's crying, not panicked sobs but real tears, soaking into the knees of his pants. He leans closer to Matt, falling sideways into him, and Matt gives a little oof in surprise. "F–k you, Matt, god, holy f–k, I thought I…"
"Oh, jeez, Jay, I'm sorry." Matt sounds overwhelmed. "Fuck, I'm really sorry, Bird… I just wanted to make sure you wouldn't, um. Leave me. Are you – stupid question, sorry, obviously you're mad at me… are you gonna leave? I'm sorry."
"I hate you," Jay sighs, burying himself in Matt's side. "I hate your guts." Then, after a second, "Sorry for leaving."
"I forgive you," Matt says instantly.
"Okay, well, I don't forgive you. Not yet. And if you ever try and pull this stunt again, I'll wait until you open your eyes and then make you watch me shoot myself," Jay says impulsively. He doesn't have a gun, so it's kind of an empty threat, but it makes Matt's face twist in exactly the way Jay had hoped. Matt doesn't reply, and Jay's tired of filling silences, so he stands up slowly and roots through their CD collection. From the bottom layer of a triple-stacked cardboard box he grabs The Natural Bridge, stares at the emerald and black for a second. It's not Matt's favorite – actually, Jay knows Matt hates it, thinks it's too depressing – but Jay likes to play along with the stripped-back guitar. He's at the piano by the second bar of How To Rent A Room, but his hands shake too badly to press the keys. Defeated, he heads back to the sofa, to Matt, who at least has enough sense to hold his tongue about the music selection.
"I'm sorry," Matt says again, when Jay settles down next to him. Impulsively, Jay grabs his hand, intertwines their fingers. Just so Matt can feel how badly he's shaking, how cold and sweaty he is. That's all. Though he can't deny it does do wonders to calm him down. It makes Matt smile, too, and he squeezes Jay's hand lightly.
"It's gonna take just as long for me to forgive you no matter how much you beg," Jay says. "Can we just talk about something else?"
"Okay. Yeah." Matt's oddly quiet too, though, which is rare.
"I like the flannel," Jay tries. There had been a split second, after he'd seen Matt but before he'd registered what was going on, where that had been the only thing on his mind. That looks nice on him. He doesn't know why he remembers that, but it's seared into the events of the day.
"Really?" Matt's head perks up a little bit. He sounds relieved to not be getting scolded anymore.
"It makes you look like a dyke," Jay says, "like, like you're about to tell me that your jeans are ripped so your hairy legs can scare off males, you know, pigs."
Matt grins. "C'mon, Jay, if you're trying to insult me, it'd work better if you didn't sound kinda impressed."
"I'd worry about competition from you," Jay says, aware he still sounds so tired, so flat, "but you don't even look like the kind of lesbo that would pull pretty girls."
"You like it," Matt says, and squeezes Jay's hand.
When the CD finishes, Matt restarts it without standing up. Somewhere between the second and third play, Jay starts to doze off. He keeps jerking awake, though, and accidentally making eye contact with the empty noose. Sometimes he sees Matt up there and his head spins again. Then he feels the warm body pressed against his and half-relaxes. One time, he looks to Matt for reassurance and sees rope burn on his neck, pink scratches leaving a ring around his Adam's apple. He tries to move his hand up to touch, to rub, to soothe, but he's too tired to even move a limb, which is probably for the better. Eventually, finally, sleep takes him.
When he wakes up the next morning, Matt's not there, which makes him panic at first until he hears water running in the upstairs bathroom. Looking around the living room, it takes him a second to notice that the noose and harness are gone. He's quietly grateful.
Matt comes downstairs without even the good sense to look apologetic. Jay's eyes immediately flick to his neck. The marks are still there, framed almost artistically by his shaggy hair. Fainter now, but when Jay spots them, he laughs.