"Cut the bullshit." A chill lifts the hairs on the back of his neck while Jay blanches an alarming shade of sickly white. Fuck, but it's terrifying to hear him talking like that. Jay who went down struggling and gasping, still earnest, still and always just wanting to help, armed with nothing more than a camera and a self-righteous need to fix everything, and he's folding like he's something broken. Fuck. Because he is something broken. He was dead.

No. The Rift doesn't get to do this. It isn't allowed. It doesn't get to toss him here and then yank him back. And he can't tell - if this is out of some twisted sense of obligation, if he actually cares at all about the man bleeding out from some phantom injury, or if he's simply so selfish that he can't bear to be left alone again.

"I'm not cleaning up another one of your goddamn messes, Jay," he growls, even if it was never Jay's mess to begin with, it was always Tim's.