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i.
“Have you ever been in love?”
“What?” says Jay.
A few minutes past three am and they’re sitting in some dirty all-night diner. Neither of them sleeps much nowadays, and they haven’t had an actual meal in God knows how long. It’s kind of nice.
“I mean, like really. You meet someone, and it’s like everything stops. Like love at first sight or whatever.”
Jay looks up, briefly, from his phone.
“No.”
“I was once. At least, I thought I was. It sure felt like it. Brian thought I was just going crazy.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
Tim shrugs.
“I was gonna tell you seven years ago. But, well, stuff happened.”
Jay looks up, opens his mouth, shuts it.
“Yeah,” he says eventually, “I guess it did.”
ii.
Jay has nightmares. Some nights, Tim looks across the room, the few feet separating them, and sees him twitch and turn, as if pushing someone out of his dreams. Some nights, Tim goes to him, says, “You’re okay, ssh, you’re okay, just sleep,” stays with him, strokes his hair. Some nights, it works.
iii.
They run out of Rosswood, and they don’t stop running. They reach the carpark, breaths ragged, heartbeats wild, and Jay leans back against his car like he’s going to keel over, so Tim steadies him, holds him by the shoulders, and Jay is shaking, and he tips his head back like he’s drowning and says “Tim…”, all croaky and needy, so Tim presses him up against the car and kisses him. He doesn’t stop until Jay stops shaking, and then he leans their foreheads together and cups Jay’s jaw with his hand, and breathes, and breathes. Jay feels so fragile against him, like a little bird in the palm of his hand.
“We should go,” says Jay, and Tim nods, lets him go.
It doesn’t happen again.
iv.
“Sorry. Mum called. She was kinda freaking out.”
Jay looks up from his camera. Tim’s been gone awhile but Jay doesn’t seem worried, like he knows now, if Tim leaves, he’ll come back. Tim sits on the bench next to him.
“Does she know? About…”
Jay makes a vague gesture that Tim takes to mean ‘you running around in the woods at night with a mask and our friend turning psycho and you know the whole fucking Slenderman thing’.
“No, no. She thinks that all went away when I was a kid.”
“What did you tell her?”
“That I ran away with another dude. He’s kinda dumb, and a fuck-up. Still love him, though.”
Jay’s eyebrows shoot up, and he starts fiddling with his camera.
“I guess that’s one way of explaining it.”
“I don’t lie to my mum.”
“Yeah, well, that’s not all true. Is it?”
“Sorry, Jay,” Tim sighs, and ruffles his hair, desperately fond, “But you really are a fuck-up.”
v.
“Tim? Tim?”
Tim doesn’t open his eyes, just says, “Mm?”, croaky with sleep.
He aches, and he’s cold, and it’s probably about five in the morning, and there’s a crick in his neck, and he never wants to sleep in Jay’s backseat again.
“Were you really in love with me?” Jay asks, his voice low.
“I wrote a song for you. On the ukulele.”
He can just hear Jay’s smile.
“You’re… kind of adorable.”
“Only kind of?”
“I think it’s the sideburns. ”
“My sideburns are glorious.”
Jay laughs, and Tim cracks one eye open to see it. It’s still dark, but he can see Jay, muffled under a blanket, his smile like a crescent moon. Tim reaches out, runs the back of his hand up Jay’s arm.
“Go back to sleep,” he says.
Tim wakes up with the sun in his eyes. His hand is resting on Jay’s chest. He stays there awhile, just feeling the rise and fall as he breathes, the low, steady pulse, as if to convince himself Jay is really there.
vi.
One night, Jay wakes up screaming.
“Shit,” says Tim, and practically falls out of bed trying to get to him.
Jay’s sat up, sheets bunched around him, panting.
“Are you okay, man?” Tim asks, putting a hand to his forehead. He’s hot, but it’s not a fever.
“‘m not the one who fell out of bed,” Jay mumbles, but he’s leaning into Tim’s touch.
Tim chuckles, holds Jay’s head in his hands, studies him.
“What did you see?” he asks.
“You.”
“That doesn’t sound so awful, hey?”
Jay shakes his head. Tim realises Jay’s clutching to him, hands fisted in his t-shirt.
“You were – Alex shot you. That day, with Jessica, we went up the stairs, and he shot you, and I ran to you, and you couldn’t breathe, you were coughing up blood, and she was screaming and he was shouting and you – you…”
“Hey, hey, ssh,” says Tim, and pulls him into a mangled sort of hug, “I’m here, I’m here.”
He holds Jay, rocks him like a child. They’re there for a long time.
“You gonna be okay?” Tim asks eventually.
“Yeah,” says Jay, his voice muffled by Tim’s chest, “Once you stop crushing me.”
“Sorry,” says Tim, lets go.
Jay smiles, a little awkward.
“Thanks.”
“Anytime. I’m great at hugs. I do kisses too, actually.”
“Yeah, I know.”
There’s a pause.
“Think you can go back to sleep?” Tim says.
“Maybe. If you got off my bed.”
“And there was I hoping for a cuddle,” says Tim, with a heavy sigh.
Jay smiles. Tim kisses him on the forehead, goes back to his own bed. Tries not to think about how empty it feels.
vii.
After – after entry 72, Jay breaks. He curls himself up and he shivers and he flinches when Tim comes near, won’t let him touch him, won’t even look at him. He just sits and stares into nothing, and he’s here but he’s not here, he’s not with Tim, not really. And Tim is terrified.
“Jay, don’t you recognise me?” he says, “It’s Tim. Remember? I punched you in a parking lot once. I kissed you in one, too. I think you remember that, even if you act like you don’t.”
Jay’s body is tense, limbs turned in on themselves, defensive, blocking him out.
“Please. Jay, please, don’t do this.”
Tim touches him, just a couple of fingers to his cheek. Jay shuts his eyes. Then he starts crying. Real, proper sobs. The kind you cry when you’re a child and you’re alone and scared and no-one is coming to find you and everything is wrong and it’s never going to be right again.
“Don’t,” says Tim, “Jay, don’t.”
But Jay won’t stop. Tim wants to hold him, the way no-one ever held Tim, wants to tell him he’ll be right again, one day, he’ll be whole. But he can’t touch him. He never fucking can, because Jay is a coward who hides under his hat and behind his camera, and God forbid he ever says what he feels, ever says something true, because Jay is scared of a lot of things but of himself most of all. Tim knows fear. He’s spent his whole life with it sleeping by his side, never really knowing what it was he was so damn scared of. But now, here, he can pin it down. He is scared of losing Jay. He is scared of being alone again. Maybe that’s what love is, maybe it’s just fear, and nothing more noble or beautiful than that.
viii.
A week after, and Jay’s still out of it. Tim’s getting tired. He doesn’t want to sleep. He’s scared something might happen. So he just sits on Jay’s bed, fingers in his hair, and tries to stay awake.
“Why’d it have to be you?” Tim says, Jay’s head all but resting in his lap, “Why do I have to love you?”
“It’s not like anyone else does,” Jay mutters, stirring a little, “Maybe you’re making up for it.”
Tim didn’t even know Jay was awake. But then, he’s pretty exhausted himself, his eyes nearly shut.
“You know, I think that’s the first time you’ve not just ignored it.”
Jay’s fingers curl around Tim’s leg, getting comfortable.
“Guess it took a while to get used to the idea someone actually cares about me.”
“Said you were a fuck-up,” says Tim, but it’s warm.
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
Tim does. He dreams of a blue jay, singing outside his hospital window.