these words are knives that often leave scars [closed]

[postictal]

He spends the entire day and night off, out. He has no goal in mind, no place to stay; he simply meanders, directionless, and steadily burns his way through an entire pack. He doesn't want to see Jay. He doesn't want to talk to him, or anyone, preferably again.

But like it or not, Tim's dependent on him for shelter - sort of, anyway, but he's not about to bother Johnny with his problems again no matter how much he's tempted. He misses the pattern of quiet simplicity he and Johnny fell into, no needing to talk over their shit so much as let it hover unaddressed, or barely addressed, and that suited them both just fine. Johnny never pried anything out of him, just urged him gently. Never used him. Never left him behind. Never took advantage of who and what Tim is.

Maybe it would have been a matter of time. Isn't it usually. Tim's the common variable in everything that's gone horribly, irreversibly wrong in his life. He knows it's on him. Usually. And the few times it isn't -

His last cigarette's smoldering stump is extinguished under the grind of a heel as he stamps into the building, shoulders up and hunched almost to his ears, hands jammed uncomfortably into his pockets. The rattle of pills in his jacket pocket is too high-pitched, too few objects rolling around in their orange bottle with the shredded label. He should be worried about that. But he isn't.

The door's locked, but Tim had the forethought to grab keys, if only out of impulse. He hadn't thought he would be coming back at the time - or, no, really he hadn't been thinking at all, period, simply tore open the door with the mindless, infuriated yank of an arm, spilled out of the building and onto the street, and there he'd stayed. Walking and smoking and not thinking.

But he had to come back sometime. No more running and hiding, remember, Tim? Or had he resolved to only ever run and hide, never confront things brazenly, because isn't that what Jay made a habit of doing and look where it got him - but he's made so many pointless resolutions and so many of them have failed that he frankly can't remember what he's meant to be doing anymore.

So he comes back. He lets the door swing shut behind him, neither slamming nor closing but snapping shut with frosty neutrality while Tim pins down the apartment's sole tenant with a glare.

Comments

[postictal]

Yeah, okay. Staying silent, watching and waiting, that's all Jay's ever been good at. Assertive in all the wrong ways. Better than opening his mouth and inserting his foot directly into it.

Not one to let this lie, Tim bites first. Someone has to, and Jay's clearly (rightfully) too scared to be the initiator.

"So." Short and brusque, heavy with the packed-away anger that's long since faded to an unhealthy simmer. Tim folds his arms. "Great talk."

[deadeyedchild]

Jay can't even manage the smallest, dryest smile in response to that. He just ducks his head back down, staring at the bed and his idle fucking hands.

"I'm sorry," he says as levelly as he can. "You were... you were right. About everything." His fingers dig into the sheets. "I shouldn't have asked you that. I shouldn't have said anything." His shoulders slump with the effort, the weight of admission. He struggles to find more to say and comes up hopelessly short. He shakes his head, feeling hollow and useless.

"I'm sorry," he mutters.

[postictal]

Wow, apologies. Nothing familiar about this scenario.

"Right," he says neutrally. "Just like you were 'sorry' before, huh. You know, Jay, I'm starting to recognize a pattern." He keeps staring at the man, unwavering, watching him sweat and fidget with a twisted feeling of satisfaction. "Where you just keep apologizing for things, and then just never do anything to fix them. Or change the bit where you keep fucking the same things up."

Tim realizes, distantly, that he's being an ass to the one guy in his life who actually almost one-hundred-percent gets it, who's being unusually sincere and actually seems to be trying this time - but he doesn't care. He doesn't. Jay's never been a quick learner.

[deadeyedchild]

"I know," he says, hunching over, bristling. "I know, all right? You already made that pretty fucking clear. How I don't do anything. How useless I am. I got it, okay?" He looks up, finally managing to meet Tim's eyes. This has been bubbling up for too long; so much of it he'd already known and denied for as long as he could, and there just isn't any fucking point anymore. "I couldn't save Alex, or Jessica, or me. I made everything worse for you. I know that. What do you want me to do?"

[postictal]

Tim huffs, soft and derisive, and finally shifts from his position to pace the length of the room.

"Do something about it," he snaps back. "Don't just say it. Don't keep fucking poking your head in, all right? Whatever we've done, whatever questions you have - leave it alone." He halts, pivots, and fixes Jay with another cold, unrelenting look. "All of it. No more questions. No more answers. That's the only way we make this work."

[deadeyedchild]

Jay looks down again, chuckling grimly. "Yeah. Fine." He holds his hands up in a gesture of surrender. "It's not like there's anything here to find anyway. I just thought, you know, between you and me - I mean, whatever. Doesn't matter anymore."

He huffs and turns his head.

"I'm glad you're back," he mutters.

[postictal]

Not really the most graceful segue, but Tim didn't expect anything better. He hadn't gone in expecting anything at all. He eyes the other man suspiciously. Sincere or not, Jay doesn't have a history of keeping his promises, and it probably won't be long until he breaks this one too.

Tim wishes he could be dependent on someone else. Anyone else. Maybe Johnny was the better bet. He was better for Tim, unquestionably, someone who didn't try to compete over whose issues were worse, or squirm his way into a situation that wasn't his to deal with.

But, no. He's stuck with Jay. Lucky him.

"Yeah," says Tim lifelessly, shrugging, then turns back to the door. "I gotta go."

[deadeyedchild]

"Wait, what?" Jay looks up, startled. "You just got here!"

Did this go worse than he thought? Is Tim leaving for good this time? Maybe that was his plan, just bring the keys back and get in a few final digs and then go.

He doesn't want to look desperate. Especially when Tim's already so angry, and when apparently nothing Jay says can fix it, so much for all his effort. But when faced with the likelihood of Tim turning right around and leaving again he feels it like a punch to the gut: he really, really doesn't want to be alone.

[postictal]

He stills, hand rigid on the knob, and debates internally for a minute before turning back.

"To work," he clarifies coolly, entirely aware he skipped over that rather important step. In about thirty minutes, actually, but he doesn't think he can physically bear being in the same room as Jay for any longer than necessary. He still needs that distance, that cushion of space between them right now. "That potential job looks like it might work out. You know, assuming I can get there in time."

[deadeyedchild]

"Oh." Jay fidgets and drops his eyes back down, embarrassed by his own reaction. "Right. Okay. Good."

It is good. They'll need more than just his little stipend, probably. And Tim will need his space. They both will.

He runs a hand through his hair. "Don't you even want to... like, shower or something?" he mumbles, feeling a bit pitiful.

[postictal]

He looks at Jay for a minute - slumped in defeat, probably stewing in his own guilty conscience. Good. He should. With a couple of questions and a well-aimed betrayal he'd singlehandedly dismantled the tentative, weird state of stability they'd begun to work out between them.

With an acquiescing grunt, he releases the door entirely and stumps over to his meager little bag of supplies, all his personal ephemera he hasn't even gotten around to unpacking for fear of establishing some sense of home in this place and, well. He's just more or less had it proved to him why that would be a bad thing.

"Guess I should change," he admits, yanking his other shirt out to exchange it with his current one, snapping the bathroom door shut firmly behind him.

[deadeyedchild]

Jay looks dully at the bathroom door, sighs and gets up. He heads over to the kitchen, pulling out a few things to string a breakfast together.

"You want some coffee or something?" he calls through the door. He feels like a dog trying desperately to please after making a mess and being locked outside. It makes the resentment rise back up for a moment, but only a moment. He swallows the bile and it's quelled.

[postictal]

"Um." Tim emerges from the bathroom, looking hopefully slightly more reputable and frowning at Jay with an undisguised mixture of confusion and distrust. Apparently guilt is one hell of a motivator, but then - Tim already knew that. "Sure. Got a few minutes. I guess."

[deadeyedchild]

Well good, cause he's already making some. He slouches against the counter, waiting for it to be ready, and doesn't look at Tim.

"I didn't mean to use you," he murmurs after a long pause. He pours Tim a cup and slides it over. "I thought you didn't know where she was. I believed you, I wasn't trying to-" He shuts himself up abruptly and looks away, working his jaw. Probably not helping.

[postictal]

Oh.

Tim utters a tiny noise of frustration, pushing the hair from his eyes, and makes a beeline for his bag to toss his other shirt back inside.

"Oh, yeah," he mutters, the irony leaching back into his tone with full force. "I'll bet you did. My word just wasn't good enough for you, and now -"

He snaps the sentence off and raises his eyebrows meaningfully. Alex's words ring dull and discordant in the furthest, most isolated, most unhelpful region of his skull, intoning with furious, static-torn agony: everything that's happened is your fault.

"Whether you meant to or not?" The corner of his mouth twitches coldly. "You did."

[deadeyedchild]

"I know," says Jay, frustrated, irrationally annoyed that Tim isn't taking his admittedly mediocre peace offering of coffee. "I just wanted you to know I didn't-"

He breaks off again. Rubs his hand over his face tiredly.

"I'm sorry," he says, again, through his fingers. "If I could do it again I wouldn't ask."

Is that even true?

He can't be sure.

He drops his hand and stuffs both of them awkwardly into his pockets. "There's a lot I would do differently if I could," he mutters.

That, at least, is true.

[postictal]

Tim rolls his eyes and zips his bag shut. Regret, yeah. Been there, done that, experienced the unrelenting guilt and remorse for doing it, and so on and so forth.

"Sure you wouldn't," he says waspishly. "So next time? Do do it differently." He scoops his keys from his pocket and fiddles with them, running one thumb over the dips and ridges of one edge, burning with the need to do something with himself. "Maybe then I'll believe you."

[deadeyedchild]

Jay looks at him, worn and miserable, like the challenge is a kick to the gut. "Okay," he says vaguely, his eyes slipping down again to fixate on the counter's edge. "I mean I'd rather we never had to deal with anything like that again, but yeah, if we do, then..." He shrugs haplessly. "Then I'll do better."

He hesitates, then reaches out, picks up the coffee mug, and holds it out to Tim in a wordless offer.

[postictal]

It's something. Better than a spat-out apology in a darkened parking lot, at least.

Tim doesn't have the money to bet that it won't last.

He accepts the mug with a low mutter of, "thanks," and sips intermittently. He's been up all night. Wouldn't be the first time, but he could use the caffeine. He finishes either far too quickly or not quickly enough, torn between contemplating the seeming sincerity of that promise and the jittery, unsettling tension that's been left out between them.

Draining all but the dregs, Tim sets the mug into the sink with a quiet clunk, rinses it, then, left with nothing else to do with his hands, shuffles back to the door.

"Gotta go, I guess," he offers in shrugging, mumbled uncertainty.

[deadeyedchild]

"Yeah." Jay's relieved, as relieved as he can be, that this didn't end worse. It's something. He'll take it.

Whether or not he can keep the implied promise is something he's not sure of, and he would also bet money he doesn't have that Tim doesn't trust it either. But he has to try.

All that shit he left behind, the unraveling mystery that he never solved, the problems he never fixed, the unanswered questions that ended up killing him - all of it for a man he saw only once, just once after the whole thing started (everything else he forgot), and he didn't even say a word, just pulled the final trigger - it's all starting to slip away. What does any of it matter to him now? To all that, he's dead with no body; here, he's nothing, just some cipher waiting to find a new project.

Maybe he doesn't need one. Cameras aside.

And all he has is Tim, whose need for shelter is the only thing tethering him, whose attachment is worn to a few fraying threads.

Tim is all there is. Jay cannot fucking lose that. He won't.

So yeah. Next time he will do better.

"Good luck," he says.

[postictal]

Tim clears his throat awkwardly, nods once. "Yeah."

Yeah. He doesn't want to think about this right now. He's gonna go to the first day of his mindless job so they - they, plural, even after everything they keep doing to each other - can scrape together something better than what they have. Maybe they can.

(Realistically? No. No, they can't.)

(But Tim's used to the disappointment.)

He ducks out of the apartment before the silence stretches into irresolution and closes the door behind him.