Chapter Text
Matt and Jay are nine. The Johnsons are on vacation at Wasaga Beach. Jay got to come along because Matt's older sister pulled out of the trip at the last minute, leaving an open spot in the car. Being thirteen and moody, she'd rather spend the weekend at her friend's house than with her family. Matt has been bouncing off the walls ever since she dropped out, ecstatic that Jay could come along.
Overall, it's been a fun day. The Johnson brigade pulled up to the rental house and all the kids—Matt, Jay, Matt's younger brother and even younger twins—immediately ran down to the water, leaving the parents to bring everything inside.
The sun is warm and the water is cold. They swim until well past their fingers prune and then head back to the beach to heat up. Matt tries to convince Jay to let him bury him up to his neck in the sand. When he's unsuccessful, he wrestles one of the twins into agreeing instead.
After lunch, Matt runs back toward the water, pulling Jay along with him. His hand slipping from his grasp stops him right at the shoreline.
"Dude, come on!" Matt groans upon seeing Jay standing a few feet behind him in the sand, antsy.
"But…" he starts, "cramps… we have to wait a half hour. My mom said—"
Matt groans loudly again and rolls his eyes and makes a whole show of it, "Bird, oh my god. Fuck your mom! Come on!"
When Jay still doesn't move, Matt marches up to him and takes his hand and pulls him in. "Cramps are a myth anyway, dude." He darts behind Jay, puts both hands on his back and pushes. Jay squawks and falls into the water.
He pops up for air with a gasp and a gleam in his eye. He splashes Matt with a big wave that gets his hair wet.
"Oh it's like that, huh?" Matt jumps into the water and pushes Jay back under. They go back and forth splashing each other until the fight evolves into a half-underwater tussle, shrieking and laughing the whole time.
A storm rolls in a few hours later, and a flash of lightning has Matt's mom sending everyone inside. She tries to involve everyone in a group puzzle as consolation, but Matt just drags Jay to their shared room with a roll of his eyes.
The sky outside is dark and tumultuous (Matt had just recently learned that word— he liked to read through the dictionary before going to bed). He sits at the big window in their room and watches the rain come down in sheets with rapt attention. Trees are bowing in the wind, Matt can see the waves down at the beach going crazy.
A bright flash of lightning and a loud boom of thunder have Matt up and cheering. He hopes the power goes out— a storm had cut the power at school last year and half the girls in his class had cried. It was awesome.
"Bird!" Matt calls to the bathroom next door, where Jay has been for the last ten minutes, getting ready for bed even though they plan on staying up all night. "Come look! It's really comin' down out here!"
"Uh… one second!" Jay calls back. It's the same thing he's said the last two times Matt has asked.
Matt rolls his eyes and heads over to the bathroom door and knocks. "Bird, come on, seriously. What are you even doing in there?"
He's about to bust the door down when it finally swings inward. Jay's standing there in his pajamas, but he's all hunched in on himself and wringing his hands together. Weird. Maybe his stomach just hurts or something? Whatever, nothing an all-nighter can't fix.
Matt pulls him into the room and jumps on the bed. "Finally, yes! I brought my GameBoy. What do you wanna play first?" He hopes Jay suggests Donkey Kong— it came out last month and Matt's been playing it almost nonstop.
Jay trudges behind him and sits criss-cross on the bed. He's making weird little noises. His face is doing something weird, too. It's all screwy. What is wrong with him?
"What's up, Bird? Afraid you won't be able to stay up all night?" Matt's still jumping up and down, "Don't worry. I brought a bunch of games so we won't get bored."
Lightning flashes outside. Rain beats at the windows. Jay curls up into a ball and keeps making a weird noise. It sounds like he's humming? Not a song, though. It's just one low note that keeps going and going.
Matt tilts his head. "Don't wanna play GameBoy? We can do something else."
Jay still doesn't say anything. He's not even looking at Matt. Rude. He's looking down at his hands and fidgeting with his fingers.
"Hey, say something, dude," Jay's really starting to take the wind out of his sails now. Matt does one more big jump and lands criss-cross on the bed across from Jay. "You're not normally this quiet," he reaches a hand out to poke at Jay's head. Jay screws up his eyes and frowns at him, recoiling. "What's wrong with you?" he asks curiously.
Thunder claps above them so loud it rattles the house. All the lights shut off at once— the power's gone out.
"Aw yeah!!" Matt cheers, reactivated. He scrambles off the bed and runs over to the window. "Bird! The power went out! Ha ha ha! Isn't that so—"
He spins around to find open air where Jay was just sitting. "Bird?"
Matt climbs back into the bed to find Jay curled up in a ball under the covers. His eyes are screwed shut and he's got his hands tucked up to the middle of his chest and he's trembling.
"Hey, Jay?" Matt leans forward and pokes at him again, getting a whine in response. "You okay?"
Matt's more than aware that Jay's a nervous kid — he's always pointing out how dangerous Matt's stunts are, or how throwing bikes in the river is gonna get him sent to jail, and he's always trying to talk Matt out of doing things. He whines constantly about what his mom says they should or shouldn't do (as if that would stop Matt. Like he's ever gonna let Jay's mom tell him what to do. Yeah, right).
Matt knows that when Jay gets really scared, he makes himself small, like he's doing right now. He also knows Jay got another pair of big headphones he wears sometimes, even if he doesn't do it around him much anymore. If they're in a crowd, he'll grab Matt's hand because he's afraid he'll lose him. Apparently, now he also hums and picks at his hands and goes completely silent. Maybe he's been doing it the whole time and Matt's just never noticed.
"Birdie, seriously…" Matt's quieter now, watching Jay shake in the dark. This seems worse than the other times he's been scared.
Matt crawls under the covers too so he can be closer to his friend. "Are you afraid of the storm?"
Jay nods a little. He looks miserable.
"The— the power's gonna come back on soon, dude. It'll be okay,"
Overhead, lightning and thunder strike at the same time. Jay whimpers and shakes his head and curls up even further into himself. He's breathing faster now. Really fast.
"Whoa, Bird, hey—" Matt tries, reaching a hand out halfway between them but unsure what to do with it. He's at a loss and he hates it. He doesn't like not having the answers — not knowing what to do, how to help. He normally knows everything.
But Jay has the answer for him, apparently. He grabs Matt's outstretched hand and curls it into a fist and presses it firmly to the center of his chest and takes forced, deep breaths.
Matt looks at him with bug eyes. He can feel the hard bone of Jay's sternum (he reads anatomy books, too) underneath his fist and the way Jay's chest expands with each breath. "This is… helping? Pushing down on it like that?"
Jay nods, still clutching Matt's hand tight to his body.
"It feels good?" Experimentally, Matt takes his free hand and presses a fist into his own sternum. He takes a couple breaths like he's at the doctor's office. He doesn't feel any different. Guess it's just another weird Jay thing.
A grin spreads across Matt's face, "You're so weird, Bird."
Jay finally looks up at him, a wounded little frown on his face.
"No, it's okay!" Matt reassures enthusiastically. He shakes his fist in Jay's hold, kneading a line up and down the bone with his knuckles. "I'm weird, too!"
It's true. Matt hates wearing tight pants and touching velvet and feeling the seams in the toe of his socks. Sometimes at night when he has too much going on in his head, he sneaks down to the kitchen and listens to the dishwasher run to calm down. He gets told he talks too loud and that he annoys his teachers with how he's always bouncing off the walls. He doesn't like things other kids like, either. No one wants to talk about Magic cards with him, and he knows more about the Ninja Turtles than everyone else in his class combined. Matt knows he's weird, but he doesn't really care. Not as long as Jay likes hanging out with him. They can be weird together.
Jay drums his fingers against Matt's wrist, looking at him and then away. Matt can see him thinking. "Um," he starts, to Matt's surprise, "I've never… slept away from home like this before."
Matt blinks at him, trying to figure out what that has to do with anything. Jay sleeps over at his house all the time, why is this any different?
Jay will do that sometimes, at Matt's house. He'll go kinda quiet and then call his mom to come pick him up and he'll try not to let Matt see him cry as he walks out the door. Matt gets really upset when Jay leaves early. It makes him feel bad, like Jay doesn't like him. He'd yelled this at Jay once, while they were waiting for his mom to come, and Jay had explained through his tears that it's not that he doesn't like Matt, it's just sometimes he gets scared of Matt's basement and the creaking noises from people walking around upstairs and how sometimes he just really wants to sleep in his own bed.
Matt thinks about it. Jay really doesn't live that far from him. Maybe a ten minute drive. Here, they're almost two hours away — he can't just change his mind about sleeping over and go home.
"Oh…" Matt says slowly, trying really hard not to get upset, "You wanna go home?"
"I dunno," Jay mumbles, "No." Lightning flashes outside. Jay flinches. Matt's still moving his knuckles in that little line. It's seemed to calm Jay down significantly. "Don't like storms, either. Want the power back on…"
"Ohhhhh," Matt nods, things starting to click, "you're afraid of being away from home and storms and the dark." He knocks on Jay's chest, "For a bird, you're really such a scaredy cat!"
"Maaatt!" Jay whines, and it's almost like they're back to normal.
"Don't worry, Jay, I'll protect you!" Matt exclaims in an honorable, knightly sort of voice. "Nothing's gonna get you while I'm around!"
Jay laughs. His vice grip on Matt's hand loosens.
Matt grins wide. "Hey— we don't need power to play Battletoads! We can play it until the lights come back on!"
"That sounds fun," Jay agrees, fully releasing Matt's hand so he can go get the GameBoy.
They lay side by side on the bed. Jay has both his arms wrapped around one of Matt's, leaning in close to watch the screen. Matt plays the game and occasionally bumps his head against Jay's.
He wasn't really joking about protecting Jay — he's already internally vowed to keep a running list of ways to calm him down. Jay is pretty much his favorite person on Earth, so he'll do what he can to keep him happy. It makes Matt feel important.
Outside, the rain keeps beating down, but inside, pressed close together with Battletoads playing from the GameBoy's tinny speakers, it's safe and warm.