some days I think I'm dying but I'm really only trying to get through [closed]

[postictal]

[tw: grief, depression, and internalized self-loathing, lots of mentions of death]

Days pass. It's what they do.

Time crawls along with agonizing, sludgelike uncertainty, and Tim will never scrub himself clean of the sensation of the fragile, trembling man dying beneath his hands as he faded away to nothing. Gone again, like he was never here. He told him, he kept telling him he would stop it, he'd haul Jay back from the brink like he always had and like he failed to, but ignoring the inescapable never made it go away. It was a logical progression. It's been -

He doesn't know how long it's been. He's stopped keeping track. He's let himself crumble, and he knows it. It was easy. Work has been put on hold. He hasn't called in sick. He hasn't eaten, or slept, or done much of anything. Just existed in his shell of self-imposed apathy, because slamming up walls is easier than looking his own failures square in their looming, faceless faces.

And Tim waits.

And Tim waits.

And Tim waits.

Eventually it occurs to him that Jay's stuff is still just - sitting there, pasta box and all those sets of keys and everything, and he's been putting that inevitability off because he doesn't want to look at it (childish), he doesn't want to address it (deluded), he doesn't want to shroud himself in grief again (pathetic), because he already did this. It isn't fair.

When has his life ever cared about fair. Really, now.

So morning finds Tim unlocking the door to Jay's apartment with a hollow feeling constricting his chest, steadily loading the dead man's meager belongings into cardboard boxes. He compartmentalizes everything with manufactured indifference, squeezing it down the smallest possible denominator. Maybe he'll throw the boxes over the bridge. Maybe he'll burn every last one of them. Except - Tim doesn't burn things. That's not him.

'You don't even like me.'

Tim grimaces. He piles the boxes into the hallway with utter disregard for anyone who might be passing through, a miniature cairn of discarded items and cardboard.

Fuck you, Jay, he thinks with vehement, abrupt outrage, feeling a sick surge of satisfaction with snapping the door shut behind him. Fuck him, fuck him, for leaving, again. Fuck him for leaving Tim to clean up his goddamn mess, again.

Fuck him for thinking he could just die and Tim wouldn't grieve over him, even a little bit.

Comments

[apidae]

"I don't know," she says, blowing gently across the surface of her coffee. "But there are a lot of powerful people here, people who could help us and would want to. There must be a way." She pauses to continue typing at the Balladeer, who seems to have picked up on the more unsavory aspects of Tim and Jay's lives; then she sets the phone aside and looks back up at Tim.

"The first thing is probably to see if you can find him in the dreaming again," she says. "Maybe he knows what's happening to him."

[postictal]

"Great," says Tim without any real enthusiasm, and scowls at his coffee. Too bad sleep is near-impossible for him and always has been. Too bad he'll probably just end up trapped in one of his old nightmares, or another rehash of Jay's sudden, horrific death - and now his subconscious has two scenarios to pull from. Too bad he's just as likely to get launched into one of the dreams that seem to serve as the Rift's idea of fun, or share a head with some other rifty, or be trapped in literally a million other possibilities besides actually finding the one person that he, for once, wants to find.

Too bad.

"Any idea how I even do that?" he asks dully. "I mean, sleep's never exactly been easy. Even when I do sleep, I'm pretty sure I'd've remembered if the real Jay ever showed up."

He scrubs a hand through his hair and tries to shove down the memory of half a dozen simulacra of the man himself as they paraded through whatever sporadic snatches of sleep he stole this week.

[apidae]

"I don't know," she says again, taking a sip of the coffee, managing not to make a face, and picking her phone back up. "But people know to keep an eye out for him now. I just heard from one person who says he's very familiar with the dreaming, and he says he hasn't seen him but he'll be on the lookout. And one of the people who has seen him is friend of mine who has powers kind of like mine. I'm sure they can help. At the very least they can keep us informed."

She smiles, a little strained, just trying to look optimistic for him. "I know you're sort of fresh out of hope. But I have nothing but. I can hope enough for the both of us, okay? We'll do everything we can. If Jay's out there, and he's looking for you, I'm sure he'll find you. He seems... well, just from what I can pick up from you - he seems very stubborn." Her smile takes on a little more humor at that.

[postictal]

"Yeah," Tim mutters, and something twists painfully in his chest. "Yeah, he was." Stubborn enough to latch his teeth into a mystery and never let go, even when it nearly got him killed a dozen times, even when it actually got him killed.

"I guess," he says, chancing a look up at her, "I guess now I know to keep an eye out. If it's even possible, uh." Immediately, he has to look away again, shoulders hunching. "I owe him."

[apidae]

"I understand," she says, because she really does. She reaches out, not quite touching, just offering a hand if he wants it. She doubts he'll take it but it feels wrong not to at least offer.

"Thank you," she says, "for hearing me out, and... for letting me come in here. And for the coffee. I'm sorry I was so... Well. I'm sorry." She looks down at her coffee for a moment. "If you ever need to talk to anyone about anything you can always talk to me. I'm right upstairs. Okay?"

[postictal]

Well, she's - she's not lying, he supposes. She would understand if she can see everything. The latent discomfort of that revelation still prickles under his skin, but there's no point in trying to hide it, or anything.

He drains his mug and sets it down, the click of cheap ceramic against tile punctuating the silence of Tim - not knowing how to respond to that. Talking about things with Jay usually translated to something shouting-match-related instead of actually parsing their issues like normal, well-adjusted people.

Normal. Well-adjusted. That's almost funny.

"Okay," he says with a short jerking nod. "Um - thanks. I guess."

He guesses. Wow, way to be tactful, Tim. Ungrateful bastard.

[apidae]

"Sure." She nods kindly and pulls her hand back to sip at her coffee. She doesn't mind his awkwardness. She used to be just as awkward.

"I wouldn't get rid of his stuff just yet, at any rate," she says lightly.

She knows he's not sure what else to say, so she gets up. "I'm gonna go up to my room now," she says. "Text me if you need anything. Food, company, distraction. Anything at all."

At his small nod, she turns and leaves him, feeling jostled from the whole of the interaction. She needs to meditate. She needs to be with her bees. And then, when she sleeps, she needs to help Tim look for Jay.