Jay Merrick (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
deadeyedchild) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
bigapplesauce2015-03-20 12:48 pm
deadeyedchild) wrote in bigapplesauce2015-03-20 12:48 pm
Entry tags:
the funtime friendship adventures of little shit and the reluctant truthsayer
He wakes up engulfed in a hot, smothering prison with no distinguishing qualities. Everything is white, mostly dark with some light seeping through, everything is uneven and collapsing. Fabric? He scrambles and can't find any edges, any way to breach the coverings. Where is he?!
He flails around wildly, trying to fight his way out but he can't seem to push any of it back. It's definitely fabric but it's too heavy for him, and the strangely cushiony surface he's on is vast and difficult to navigate.
Distantly, muffled, he can hear Tim calling his name. "Tim?" he answers, but his voice must be so dampened by everything on top of him, can Tim even hear him? He tries again, desperate: "Tim, help me!"
Nothing. He keeps struggling, having picked a direction that seems right somehow, crawling and fighting his way through. He can barely breathe in here. He has to get out. He has to.
There's a harder line of light up ahead. Escape. He scrambles for it like he's coming up for air, almost there, almost-
The air is suddenly a little cold on his sweat-soaked skin as he breaks free, though he's still on this same surface, something huge and equally, abnormally soft in front of him. He's not covered up anymore but he's still - wait, what the fuck is-
He can hear Tim a little more clearly now, but his voice is all wrong, deeper maybe, or just more resonating? He clambers awkwardly toward the edge of the surface and peeks over it.
Like a cliff's drop. He jerks back quickly, gasping for breath.
That was the floor. That was the floor.
He's on his bed.
"Tim!" he cries. He stands up awkwardly, shaking, wobbling unsteadily on the mattress, waving his arms and bouncing slightly. "Tim, I'm here!"
Everything's starting to make more sense now. Well, a certain level of 'sense'. He can see the rest of the room looming around him, his bedside table and his - that must be his phone. The pile of cameras, the windows. He can see Tim, too, looking like a fucking giant.
"TIM!" he yells again, enough that he hurts his voice and starts coughing a little. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He's about the length of Tim's palm and he has no idea why.
Must be Tuesday.
He flails around wildly, trying to fight his way out but he can't seem to push any of it back. It's definitely fabric but it's too heavy for him, and the strangely cushiony surface he's on is vast and difficult to navigate.
Distantly, muffled, he can hear Tim calling his name. "Tim?" he answers, but his voice must be so dampened by everything on top of him, can Tim even hear him? He tries again, desperate: "Tim, help me!"
Nothing. He keeps struggling, having picked a direction that seems right somehow, crawling and fighting his way through. He can barely breathe in here. He has to get out. He has to.
There's a harder line of light up ahead. Escape. He scrambles for it like he's coming up for air, almost there, almost-
The air is suddenly a little cold on his sweat-soaked skin as he breaks free, though he's still on this same surface, something huge and equally, abnormally soft in front of him. He's not covered up anymore but he's still - wait, what the fuck is-
He can hear Tim a little more clearly now, but his voice is all wrong, deeper maybe, or just more resonating? He clambers awkwardly toward the edge of the surface and peeks over it.
Like a cliff's drop. He jerks back quickly, gasping for breath.
That was the floor. That was the floor.
He's on his bed.
"Tim!" he cries. He stands up awkwardly, shaking, wobbling unsteadily on the mattress, waving his arms and bouncing slightly. "Tim, I'm here!"
Everything's starting to make more sense now. Well, a certain level of 'sense'. He can see the rest of the room looming around him, his bedside table and his - that must be his phone. The pile of cameras, the windows. He can see Tim, too, looking like a fucking giant.
"TIM!" he yells again, enough that he hurts his voice and starts coughing a little. Fuck, fuck, fuck.
He's about the length of Tim's palm and he has no idea why.
Must be Tuesday.
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"Okay," he breathes quietly once it's done. There's a wavering needle pointing unfailingly north - or what he desperately hopes is unfailingly north and that it's oriented itself to them accordingly - and starts following south, ducking through yet more hallways, corridors, labyrinthine and uniform and feeling terrifyingly endless, marking a clear line for south south south.
Their fragile little plan predictably crashes and burns when Tim hits a dead end.
"Oh," he growls under his breath, turning a small circle in an attempt to orient himself, then striking the phone with the butt of his palm out of frustration. He checks and re-checks his orientation, the needle pointing dutifully north, and tracks his route directly into the very insurmountable wall. "Oh, great."
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"Okay," he says, peeking over the top of Tim's pocket. "Um, okay. This is fine. We just gotta go west now, right? To get back to Columbus Circle?" Not that either of them are looking forward to that. At least they could go back to the surface and just walk home. Or look for Daine in the park. He looks around. "There, that door there. Maybe we can just cut through there."
Probably shouldn't just go opening random doors, though. He chews his lip, then looks up.
"Put me on the floor. I can get under there, scope it out first."
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Well, this just completely damages his track record.
"Seriously?" Tim can't think of a worse idea - and, unfortunately, again, he can't think of a better idea either.
He hates today. He really. Really hates today.
"God." He covers his face briefly in one hand, then drops it. "Okay. You know what. Fine."
He kneels, awkwardly trying to dig Jay out of his pocket without hurting him or thinking too hard about how much he loathes everything that's happening in his life right now, until he can finally set him on the floor.
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Tim digging him out of his pocket is horrible. He manages to grab his stupid little camera before awkwardly clinging onto the groping fingers, hoisting himself out, riding his hand the nauseating ride down to the floor. Once standing again it takes him a minute to balance, all shaky like he's been at sea or something.
"Okay," he says. "It's fine. I'll be fine."
Does Tim even care about that? Whatever.
He ducks under the door and finds himself in a huge room that... seems to be some kind of abandoned office. A desk and not much more, really. There is, however, a door on the other side. Score one for him, provisionally.
He ducks back out. "It's clear," he says. "There's a door on the other end. I'm gonna go check that out."
He scoots back inside before Tim can protest. The room's empty, what's the worst that could happen?
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Before Jay can get all that far through the room, a tiny - or possibly gigantic, depending on your point of view, and if your point of view is Jay's, then it probably does range somewhere in the direction of 'huge' - paw slams down right in front of Jay, and one behind him, trapping him quite effectively in place.
Gotcha! says a gleeful voice, coming from the direction of a very furry, feline face looking down at him.
Do be careful, comes another voice, sounding less gleeful and more like a tired librarian who's had to deal with one too many (sadistic) fourth-graders. Won't you join us, Timothy? the siamese adds towards the door.
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He doesn't watch while Jay scuttles off, and it's only when a bright streak of movement tugs at his peripheral vision that he glances up and opens his mouth in warning -
Too late.
It's a cat - it's two cats, it's a cat and it's a kitten, but there's something wrong about them. Something about them that's odd - and it's not until the disembodied voices curdle in his head that he realizes - there's something wrong with their eyes.
There's something wrong with them. Something - he doesn't know what. He can't say what.
They don't belong. They're twisted. They're wrong.
Like him.Tim tries to speak, but he can't.
He wants to swipe the kitten aside and grab Jay and run, just fucking run out of here and he doesn't even care where they end up at this point, he just doesn't want to be anywhere near those - those things.
But he can't.
Timothy.
He swallows hard, and he knows he has no other choice but to advance, wary and trembling and so very fucking afraid, staring at four-inch-tall Jay who is trapped and helpless between that thing's paws. They must know. They must know that's what they have over him. He's not going to just leave Jay here.
Not like how Jay left him.no subject
"Tim-!" he cries, trying to dart out from under the paws of this giant fucking kitten, goddammit, a cat of all things, when-
Voices in his head, not from his head, alien and invading. One here, looming over him, boxing him in between its paws, and one a little further away, watching the door, watching Tim as he comes into the room.
What the fuck, what the fuck is this.
He makes a wild lunge to get out from under the kitten, banking hard for Tim, if he can just get to Tim and get up off the floor, they can get out of here, Tim wouldn't leave him here, Tim would never leave him
except that one time when he did.no subject
Careful, I said! snaps the older cat, whose attention has so far been focused on Tim, but now turns towards the kitten with the tiny human in its mouth. He will hardly be any good incentive if he's dead, now will he?
The kitten petulantly drops Jay, probably a bit higher off the floor than ideal, then proceeds to bap him with its paws anytime he might try to stand up.
You really shouldn't be in here, the siamese continues, suddenly calm again after putting its younger associate in its place.
But don't worry, I won't tell. You'll get to go back to Lilliput, it says to Jay, before turning back to Tim. Then there's you two. I know you, but who's the other one in there, sleeping through this little adventure?
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He can't take his eyes away from them. Those eyes, blank and white and staring. Seeing. Not seeing.
No eyes.
Sees me.
He shudders, visceral and involuntary, and wraps his arms tightly around himself. He doesn't want to say anything. He wants to say something. He needs to deny it fiercely, boiling with indignation, and tell the cats to fuck off and grab Jay and go. He needs to deny it. He needs to deny it.
"It's in my head," he says numbly. "It's always been there. Sometimes it comes out and I can't -"
What is he doing. He tries to clamp his mouth shut, clam up, you're supposed to be so good at this, Tim,
HE IS A LIAR, but the words tear themselves out, prying open his jaw and clawing past the scraping of his teeth like the many-limbed faceless things they are, wrenched out by something raw and mechanical. "I can't see what it does. I can never remember."Something cold wraps around his chest, his throat. Why is he saying any of this.
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And Tim's answer.
What? Why is Tim talking to it? Why doesn't he fight back? Is this just to protect him?
"Tim, don't-" he protests, gasping, twisting to reach for him as though that will make the slightest difference.
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When exactly does it come out? How does it gain control? the cat asks curiously, its head tilting to one side. Could be very useful information. Perhaps that other one will be more interesting. Perhaps they can even bring it out now. Though that might be too much to hope.
tw: panic, dissociation, flashbacking
His mouth opens and closes soundlessly for a minute, jaw working frantically to produce sound without producing it. Everything's wrested out in a furious tumble, and Tim fixes the cat with a look of perfect, outraged despair.
"If I don't medicate. I seize and pass out." His voice breaks miserably at the last word. What are they doing to him? Why is he telling them this. His head jerks once, twice, a physical effort to keep the words down, but they bypass the fragile human instruments of teeth and lips without his permission.
Speak. Puppet.
Do as you're told.
"Don't -" he begins desperately, and the sentence fragments into something else before it's finished, closes off with a strangled, broken sound. "It takes over. It - does things. I don't remember. I don't remember!" Dimly, Tim registers that his hands have clenched into fists and have dropped to his sides, that he can't think for the roaring in his ears and heart and chest, that his voice has become torn and agonized. What's happening to him. There's something - the cats, they're doing something to him, they're making him say things and everything's going wrong. Stop. Stop, stop, stop, he just wants them to stop.
Make them go away, he pleads, inanely, to the tall man in the corner of the hospital room that he knows doesn't exist and can't exist and never existed, and remembers for a burning second how he begged for it to help and it did and it told him to fetch a lighter and he did and it told him to set the bed aflame and he did because he did everything it asked because it was his friend, wasn't it, it was, it said that it was, it said, and now everything was burning and it was his fault it was all his fault and he didn't mean to, he swore he didn't mean to, please, please, please, please, please, please just make them stop.
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"What are you doing to him?" he demands. "Let him go!" He beats a small, useless fist against the kitten's paw. "Leave him alone!"
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It is not our doing, the cat answers, finally standing and walking around Tim's legs while fixing its eyes on Jay. Answers for answers, that's how they operate. Ideally, anyway. It's more a guideline than a rule. One that the kitten in particular is very lax about following. He can leave any time he wants.
At this point, the kitten becomes bored with just holding Jay down, and grabs hold of his foot with its teeth, then starts dragging him along. Shaking him from side to side a bit and lifting him up, just to hear the noises he makes. Not too rough, though. Humans are fragile, and when they break it's no fun anymore. But rough enough to make fun sounds.
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Right. He's Jay's only way out. That's the only reason.
He shivers as the thing flows around his ankles, at the sensation of something fluid and powerful humming in the air beyond what he can perceive.
You're lying, he wants to say, but he knows they aren't. And he knows it. And he knows it. He knows it, he knows it, he knows it, and once he knows something -
Fuck. Oh fuck.
He can't lie.
Whatever's happening, whatever's going on with them now - this is how it's affecting him. It's his private hell. He can't lie.
"I can." He swallows hard enough to keep the tears from pricking the corners of his eyes. He can't let these things see that. He can't let them have that satisfaction. There's only one thing in the world that does that to him, that flays his mind open and lays it bare until he's left screaming and crying and wailing for it to stop like the lonely boy in the hospital room, and it's not here right now. It's just them. Just cats. Cats that aren't cats. And Jay, flailing and helpless and tiny on the floor.
"I can leave anytime I want," he repeats vacantly, because it's the truth. His jaw tightens, teeth aching, and he glares at the Siamese winding its way around his legs. "But I'm not. Not until you let him go." There's a little more of the old thorn and steel wrapped around his tone, lacquering that familiar, brittle hostility over the parts that have been left open and vulnerable. Too little, too late. They've seen. Everyone's seen. Everyone always sees.
No more secrets.His voice hardens, but it trembles beneath. Weak, terrified, scared little boy, Timothy, trapped and huddling in the corner of a room without a window. "Now."
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Distantly he can hear Tim, his voice like thunder, demanding that it let him go.
Run! he wants to say.
Tim's immobilized in the tunnel, that thing advancing without movement, Jay trying to drag him with one hand because he's still holding the fucking camera and he knows he can't save Tim like this, Tim has to get up but he won't, he can't, if he just dropped the camera maybe, if he just-
-and Tim tells him to run, and he does. He did.
Jay left him.
He can't say it. He's too scared. He's a fucking coward.
"Tim-!" he cries instead before his voice gives out.
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Why don't you try it? The cat leans down, putting its whiskered face close to Jay's. Ask him something. He'll have to answer. The cat straightens up, leaving its paw there and watching expectantly. Meanwhile, as its toy got usurped for the moment, the kitten's decided to run around and between Tim's legs in a figure eight.
Why don't you ask him something he's always lied to you about? The problem with trying to get information out of someone, is to get answers you have to know the questions. And when you know very little, you have to guess. So why not get someone else to ask the questions for you?
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He doesn't want to do as it suggests; he doesn't want answers from Tim like this, and he's not sure he wants them at all anymore. What does any of it matter here, when they're moving as hard and fast away from all of it as they can? But he's terrified of saying no. Terrified it'll crush him when he's worn out his usefulness.
Maybe he can ask something he already knows the answer to. Or something he know Tim doesn't know the answer to.
Some small part of him, well-buried, dormant, perhaps waiting, whispers Jessica.
"What..." he says, breathless, and shuts his eyes. He just needs to hear this. The 'I don't know' told as unarguable truth. That's all. "What happened to Jessica?"
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The question rattles out anyway, and Tim can't look at the other man, just lets his own eyes slide shut as his head tips down, grimacing in disgust.
He shouldn't have expected pity, or understanding. Not from Jay. Not when Jay still has to get his answers. That's always been the most important thing, hasn't it? His fucking answers. He's dismantling everything Tim tried to cobble together out of the sad shattered little remnants of himself and everything, everything he - he wanted one person to escape this, one person who deserved it, and if Jay didn't then Jessica had to, and Tim lied, he lied he lied he lied between his teeth because she had to get out, she deserved to have an actual life that wasn't scraped together out of bleeding-edged memories and fearful shadows and nightmares and medication.
But why would Jay care about any of that.
Why should he.
The words leak out dry and rusted, creaking out from under the resigned slump of Tim's shoulders and the wetness in his eyes. "She's alive." It cracks out like a sob. "She got away. She's been away. For months."
Tim's hands hang limply at his sides, trailing and defeated. And something else edges out unbidden, small and exhausted and powerless. "Fuck you, Jay."
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Jay opens his eyes, staring up at Tim in disbelief. What? What?
He had no idea - well speaking of lies, that's one, yeah he had some idea there might be something, just maybe though, he wasn't trying to-
Well, what was he trying to do?
He wants to defend himself, defend his actions, but he can't, he can only stare, gutted, realizing that once again he fucked up.
"She's..." The revelation is too much. He wants to be glad to hear it. She's okay. The one person he wanted to make it out did. No thanks to him. But she did make it.
"Tim, I didn't..." Can't finish that, either. Not now, not still pinned under this demon cat's paw. There's another question now, bubbling up and he can't ignore it, he can't, this has always been his problem, hasn't it? He can't just ignore something when there are doubts. It gnaws at him slow and unyielding. Even when he tries with everything he has to shut it out. Quit. No more.
"How long did you know?" he asks, his voice dull, hollow.
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He has no choice but to answer honestly, tiredly, when he says, "I don't know. Months. Since - the tape. Since we started working together."
Months. His jaw clenches again, unclenches. Jay's being menaced by two things that look like cats
but can't be, in very real danger of being speared on one of those massive claws, and still, still, all he can care about is the lies. The answers.Out of the weight of his own deepening exhaustion, his hands tighten into fists again, fury and frustration uncoiling as he glares at the shrunken man on the floor.
"You ask me anything else," he grinds out, voice hard, "so fucking help me, Jay, those cats can do whatever they like with you and I will let them do it."
It's not a terrible shock to realize that he means it.
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But before the cat can finish contemplating what to ask next - perhaps have Tim clarify what they're talking about, or ask him something else entirely about their time here so far - the kitten grows bored with the lack of attention its getting and bounces back over towards Jay.
Alright, it's my turn to play! it chirps, as the cat draws back its paw. I want to see how many holes I can poke before he stops moving!
tw: suicide ideation
And it's the truth.
Jay feels shattered by it, unexpectedly, that Tim really does mean it, that he's apparently fucked up so much that Tim would let him die here.
The kitten's gleeful threats barely even register with him. Should he surrender? Should he just let it happen? He knows Jessica is alive and Tim doesn't want anything to do with him, so maybe this is as good a time for death as he can get. He got his second chance and this is where it led. Killed by a fucking kitten-shaped whatever-the-hell. Sure. Okay.
And yet when it's actually standing over him, claws extended, he finds himself shrinking and scrambling for escape out of sheer animal instinct, unable to let himself go limp, unable to keep from crying out.
"Tim!" he begs, his voice breaking just as Tim's had. "Tim, please-!
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Tim's jaw aches from how tightly he's been gritting his teeth. He wants to turn, and leave, and for a wild instant he shifts like he's about to. He could make good on his threat. He could leave Jay. That'd fix a lot of things. One less loose end to worry about.
It's direct, visceral horror that stabs at him after he thinks it that stops him.
For a minute there -
No. He wouldn't have actually -
Yes, he would have.
Tim swallows, fighting down the lurching nausea in his gut.
It's not Jay's stupid, stupid pleading that sways him. It's not the kitten's horrific, gleeful declaration. It's not even the sight of those horrible claws snnk-ing out that propels him forward, foot flying out to kick the tiny furry thing pinioning Jay down and send it hurtling across the room.
It's the fact that, for a blinding, terrifying minute, he sounded like Alex.
He ducks down to scoop Jay up and jam him unceremoniously in his pocket without any of the care or delicacy he should be handling him with, and cuts an unflinching line for the door.
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He has almost no concept of what's happening when the kitten is suddenly dislodged from him and he's swooped up into the air, gravitationally paralyzed, moving so fast he almost blacks out. He's dropped back into Tim's pocket and jostled roughly as Tim runs.
He runs for a while. Jay has no idea what's happening and it doesn't matter. He can only sit there, curled up, Tim's last words still ringing in his ears.
He curls tighter and grips his head, pain starting to pound behind his eyes and his temples. Tim's still running, turning, apparently getting somewhere. It doesn't matter. Jay can't help. He never helps. He just makes everything worse.
Do me a favor and stay out of my life.
He wraps his arms around himself and waits.
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