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The house was quiet. Tim should be used to the quiet by now.
It has been a long while since it wasn’t quiet; for he didn’t have anything to show his home had any life left in it anymore. (Not that the man really tried to change that; always too tired from work or from doctors asking questions he couldn’t answer without having to explain the last 5 years of his life.)
Still, he found himself missing the warmth of another body close against him; to hear a voice speak to him softly, and have someone truly understand what he was going through.
To put it simply,
He deeply missed Jay; The best thing that had happened to him during all of… well, that.
Though first reluctant friends, they both found themselves needing each other more than anything; having feelings far beyond what could be considered platonic.
(Or to be considered “healthy” for that matter. Neither really knew how to give love or how to receive it, and the situation only made their approaches to the concept more... Intense and cluttered.)
(But did that really matter? Maybe love itself was meant to hurt.)
(Maybe Tim was meant to forever be in agony for choosing to stay with Jay no matter how dangerous their situation truly was.)
But Jay Merrick was dead. He has been for some time.
And no matter how hard Tim tried, he’d never be able to forget the look of pure distress stuck on Jay’s face even after death; his (now even paler) skin serving a striking contrast against the deep red of his blood staining the world all around him.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to be, not how it should’ve ended.
Tim so desperately wanted Jay to stay with him; to have him choose a life after this with him.
At one point, when Jay was barely recovering from their run in with The Operator, Tim even tried to convince him to delete the channel and for the both to run away somewhere far.
But Jay didn’t want to run away, he wanted to solve whatever was going on, even at the cost of his own health.
“And besides,” Tim remembered him responding with, voice meek and almost like he was afraid he’d pass out mid sentence. “Alex tried that exact thing, and it only ended with him alone and neurotic.” The ravenette wanted to argue back, to be angry at Jay for even comparing them both to that murderer.
But one good look at his thin frame and hollow breaths shut him up, instead wordlessly laying him onto the thin motel bed and holding the man like he was afraid he’d disappear. The latter didn’t protest
(from wanting to be held or lack of energy, Tim didn’t know), just letting himself be suffocated by the shorter man’s arms. His eerily slow heartbeat against one that sounded like it was escaping the other’s chest.
So when his partner tried attacking him (for lying about not having any more tapes), he instead avoided hurting him and only kept him tied up to stop Jay from leaving.
Obviously, it didn’t turn out like he wanted it to.
Tim hated himself the most for that, because he should’ve known Jay would’ve found a way out of those zip ties, even without the help of “totheark”/the hooden man.
Because Tim knew his Jay well; But his stubbornness to “keep him safe” was what killed him in the end.
…
Like always,
It was all Tim’s fault.
Forever his, (and only his) fault for all of this.
“You should really stop thinking like that,” a familiar voice spoke, freeing Tim from the hell that was his brain.
Opening his eyes, Tim saw a lanky man with greyish blue eyes looking straight at him from across the room; he couldn’t tell if it was a look of worry or disappointment.
“Jay…” He croaked out, blinking a few times to see if, like a bad dream, the man would simply flicker away.
Instead he only got closer; so close that Tim could connect their faces together if he were to even slightly lean in.
That would be, if the “Jay” in front of him was actually real.
“You really need to start taking your Schizophrenia medication again, this isn’t good for you.” Jay (or to better put it, the hallucination of him Tim was having) sighed, trailing his frail hands from the other’s neck to his face.
Of course, Tim felt nothing against his skin; but he still shivered at the thought he would be able to do that to him like he did before.
“It’s the only way I get to see you.” He mumbled in response, staring at the nothing that this Jay was.
“I’m not real, Tim.”
The ravenette huffed. Like he needed any reminders of that.
“I know that, It’s just-” Tim paused, trying hard not to cry.
“...This is the only way I get to see you again.”
This time, the hallucination didn’t respond, only staring right back at the ravenette.
“So please, won’t you stay with me for a little longer?” He begged, wanting to look away in shame; but he was too afraid that they wouldn’t be there anymore by the time he looked back.
“Fine, just a little longer.”
“Jay” leaned into Tim, pressing his face against the latter’s.
And despite the little hope Tim still carried,
He felt colder with only the feeling of air touching his lips.
But for now; that was enough. As long as he could pretend that his Jay was there with him, even for just a moment longer.