entrancelogs | shadows creep and walls have eyes

Entry tags:

shadows creep and walls have eyes

Who: Jay and Tim
Where: Tim's Room
When: March 7th
Rating: PG-13; The usual CW for mental health discussion
Summary: Tim's got an unlimited supply of pills. Jay's learned something that keeps slipping out of his memory. They both nearly got eaten by a dinosaur. There's a lot to talk about.
The Story:

This is bad. He knows it's bad, Sans confirmed it's bad, and now he's got to tell Tim and hope he doesn't just wind up pissing him off. He wound back the tape--no, he just looked at his notes. Just looked at the study guide. Sans was a scientist. There was an experiment. It went wrong, and now Sans is the only one left, and the others have been written out of history, and even though Sans can remember it, Jay--

Jay what?

Right. He forgets.

There was a doctor. Sans said his name, right? (He didn't. He doesn't think he did. It feels familiar, asking, and checking, and asking, and checking again, until he writes it down. He thinks Sans didn't say it.) There was a doctor, but he's not the important part here. The important part is letting Tim know there's something he shouldn't know.

Great. Now he just has to keep it all straight when he can't--

No, he's got the footage. If there's something missing, he's got the--no, wait. It's written on his arm below the wrist brace, in a cramped, faded scrawl.

File 0209y2_6.mp4 1:05:15-1:20:32 transcribed in notebook 12/0209y2_6.txt. Check FIRST.

Right. He wrote it down to save time. Maybe he should have brought the notebook himself, but maybe that would make things harder. If Tim does get curious, he shouldn't have the information right there.

He scans down his arm, reading his other notes.

Content of memory not dangerous. (Probably.)

Knowing = dangerous.

From world w/ monsters and souls.

Alright. He's got this. He can do this.

With one hand in a brace and the other holding the camera, he doesn't knock on Tim's door. Instead, he lightly kicks it. Should sound about the same.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Something clunks up against the door, like someone's just kicked it. The earbuds pop out with a sharp jerk of Tim's wrist and he slouches to his feet, torn between grateful for a distraction and annoyed at having to exert the requisite effort to get at it.

There are only so many people it's likely to be, at the door. So he's not shocked when it turns out to be the one person he's been needing to talk to the most in recent days - and has, subsequently, not talked to at all. How much is he supposed to say? How much dares he say?

He'll start with the obvious.

"Good thing you were carrying something important," says Tim. "Otherwise I'd have to ask why you kicked the door instead of knocking like a normal person."

That’s enough to knock Jay off his expected trajectory. He looks down at the door, following the gray scuff mark left by his shoe.

“Wonderland fixes that stuff up, right?”

Not exactly the dire warning he’d intended to start with, but it’s something. It doesn’t help that seeing Tim, here, in one piece, the right dimensions and not a scared little kid running through the underbrush, is enough to give Jay pause.

“Good to see you...y’know, not...being dinosaur food or anything.”

Right. Just one of the many, many things they ought to talk about. Tim shifts back, a muscle in his jaw twitching as it clenches and unclenches without any particular rhythm. He sighs, rocks back from the door, and lets it open entirely.

"Right," he says, without much enthusiasm. "Guess not. And, uh...you too."

Great. Steller. He is nailing this fucking "normal conversation" thing, isn't he? Just have a conversation! Alex Kralie shrills from the furthest reaches of his memory.

(Shepard looks at him with palpable anguish, and he can't think about this anymore.)

"...what's up?"

What's up?

A lot. A whole hell of a lot is up right now, between that confession his shadow dragged out of him and Brian--Brian Thomas, in a yellow sweatshirt--showing up before disappearing into the goddamn ether and the thing he came in here to talk about, the...

...the Sans thing. Right.

One at a time.

"Uh."

Jay's sure he rehearsed this. He wouldn't have come here without a script, but when he reaches for his lines, there's just a blank space and a faint headache needling at his temple. This can't be a coincidence. If it's already affected him this badly, he has to warn Tim, and to warn Tim, he just has to--just talk, god!

"Bad news." He's not even watching Tim's eyes on the viewfinder. He's just staring at the edge of the screen. "We're not...I mean, this isn't..." How the hell does he word this?

"We're not...the only ones...with, like, stuff that people aren't supposed to know." Vague. Uselessly vague. Again. "I mean, where the dangerous part isn't...isn't the information. It's just knowing it at all."

"Okay," says Tim, drawing out the word with a subtle narrowing of eyes, wondering where the hell Jay is going with this. Fearing that maybe he's got a little too clear an idea, considering what he knows of Jay already. "And this is surprising to you because...?"

Does it function in the same way? Hell if he knows. Memetic shit like this is bound to be possible across the boundaries of universe after universe, but given that the thought is far from comforting, he doesn't spend too much of his time thinking over it.

Unlike Jay, who apparently does.

"Look." He's got his shoulders hiked up, and he's still pointedly looking at neither Tim.

"Look, I know how this sounds, so don't..." Don't laugh, he nearly says to the guy with anhedonia. Real nice. Then again, he's not feeling particularly nice at the moment, so he almost says it anyway. "Don't."

He's trying to keep an even keel here. He's trying, alright?

"I found something. Like that. And now I'm--" He gestures wide with his injured arm, allowing his notes to be visible for a moment. "--I'm having to write things down on me, 'cause apparently cameras aren't enough for what this is."

He's not quite pacing, but he's shifting back and forth, camera pointed down at his feet.

"So I'm fucked, basically." It's blunt, but he's not posting this anyway. "But you're good if I just tell you not to--to go looking."

He looks up at Tim, trying to get in before Tim says a word, before Tim even gives him a look. He knows. He knows what it sounds like to have him telling somebody not to get curious. "Don't."

Don't give him shit about this. He knows. He knows.

"So why're you writing it down instead of not going looking?" He has no idea what Jay's priorities here are, or why he's scrambling things out in the way he is, or why he saw fit to inform Tim as to any of this at all when the most efficient means of ensuring that anyone doesn't go looking for something is to simply not tell them what it is in the first place.

And Jay ought to know. Because Tim isn't him.

"I mean, I dunno if you've forgotten, Jay, but memory loss is kind of a thing with us." He opens a hand, palm up, before gesturing loosely at his own head. "Y'know how many life-changing things we've both seen and then immediately forgotten about?"

"Yeah, sure, but our stuff has rules, sort of, and we only figured out why all this was happening by...by at least trying to piece together all those life-changing things we missed!"

It's been a while, hasn't it? It's been a while since he's felt quite this pissed off.

"You know you could'a just not told me, right? Like, that would've significantly reduced the risk that I'll go looking for something I shouldn't?" He's too tired of this shit to sound anything but exasperated, running a hand up through his hair until his fingertips settle around the familiar curve of the back of his neck.

"Why's it matter to you, anyway?"

Aren't they both fucked regardless, at this point?

"'Cause I'd rather one of us have to deal with this than two."

Why is he even asking? What about warning other people with a history of memetic brain bullshit about some new memetic brain bullshit doesn't make sense here?

"And yeah, maybe it'd reduce the risk you'd go looking. Sure. Fine. But it'd increase the risk you'd run into it on accident." His eyebrows raise. "Y'know, like I did."

Tim snorts at that one. He can't really help it. The level of fucking hypocrisy here - does Jay honestly not hear himself?

"Oh, it was by accident, was it?" he says, waspish. "What, like the last time?"

That, that bit - maybe that was unnecessarily nasty on his part. But jesus, did Jay really take the time to storm here in a panic just to tell him not to go looking for something he doesn't even want to try looking for?

"Maybe you've forgotten what it's like for other people," snaps Tim, "but I'm not you. I don't go poking things that might kill me for the hell of it, and I don't do it for no reason."

Jay's eyes flash.

"For no reason."

Sure. Sure, Tim, he's here for no reason. Just like he tracked down Alex for no reason. Just like he figured out they'd been forced to forget. Just like he learned their lives were in danger. Just like he went looking for Jessica for over a year. No reason at all, Tim. Thanks for fucking asking.

"Listen, S--" Jay chokes it off. Maybe it's fine to say it. Maybe it's not. Until he gets a chance to put together another script, he'll err on the side of caution. The fewer details the better. "S-someone broke into my room, and he was--he was scared, alright? And he didn't realize he'd been saying something dangerous until--"

It takes Jay a moment for his brain to catch up with his mouth, but he hears it eventually. He hears what he's saying, and he clamps his jaw shut.

He straightens himself out, makes himself a little taller, like that'll somehow salvage it. He tries to look straight ahead. It doesn't last long.

“You could’ve walked away at any point until Alex got involved, so yeah, I’d say you reasoning was pretty flawed there, all right?” Jesus. This is already a disaster. One hand creeps up to knead at Tim’s brow, his eyes screwing shut to ward away his budding headache.

He’s really not any good at this.

“Did you...I dunno, plan what you were gonna say before you said it? Or did you work this out the same way you make all your plans, and just figured you’d wing it? ‘Cause a little bit of constructive criticism here? You’re not very good at it.”

He could have walked away, Tim says, like he has any idea.

"Y'know what?" Jay's voice climbs. "I did, actually! I've got these...bullet points--" Jay gestures to the row of black scribbles down his arm. "--and I don't-I wouldn't've done that that if I hadn't had some kind of a plan."

He doesn't know that for sure, but...no, he knows. He'd've planned this, just like the times he spoke to the camera.

"But, surprise, I don't remember it. I don't--" Again, he swings his injured arm up, ignoring the way pain shoots from his wrist down to his fingertips. "--remember writing this."

"Yeah, 'cause you always have a fucking plan, don't you? First, it was to find Jessica. Then, it was to find me." And then stalk him obtrusively with a camera for months on end before revealing any of what was really going on - and by then, it was far too little and far too late, now, wasn't it?

And now his plans seem to revolve exclusively around telling Tim things. Telling Tim that he shouldn't know things.

"You could'a just kept me in the dark. Y'know, maybe you should've. Done it plenty of times before, right?"

"Yeah?"

There's something familiar in the way that his eyebrows lift, the way his voice cants up. You watch the footage enough times, you start to pick things up, right? Nothing weird about it. Nothing weird about parroting back a guy's mannerisms right after he called you an idiot and a liar. Nothing weird in wanting to borrow his composure for just a sec.

"And then we can just assume Alex wouldn't've gone camping in your attic, right?" Down a couple steps, and he could've put a bullet in Tim's head while he was sleeping. Wouldn't have known why. "Tim, you threatened to crush his head with a rock."

"You need a recap on that now, too?" He starts forward, two brusque steps, his shoulders set and his jaw squared. "You need someone to jog your memory over how that wasn't really me?"

And Alex - he figured this shit out way before either of them did. It's possible he knew. It's possible he didn't care.

Would it have mattered, if he'd seen fit to finish things the way he always wanted to? Would it have really been the worst thing ever, considering that he was right?

Seems like Jay even thinks so too. That's more than a shadow of someone else arching his brow.

"You wanna know something else about how that went down, Jay?" The words are thin and hissed-out, vaguely strangled. "You wanna know what happened after he shot you and left you for dead? Never did tell you the whole story, huh? So where you wanna start? The part where he burned my house down? The part where he said I should've stayed, and just let myself burn? Or maybe," he's shouting now, he's really - he's shouting, too loud and too fierce and too angry, "maybe the part where he was right?"

Tim's voice echoes off the walls of his room, with space for one guy and maybe a desk and a closet and definitely not some asshole asleep on the ground, and Jay shuffles back. Takes a second to regain his composure.

The house is gone. Tim's house is gone. The wood-paneled kitchen counter and the musty carpet ~~and the way it dissolved at the edges of his vision like the lens is smeared with Vaseline~~--burned down, in an attempt to murder Tim.

Alex wanted Tim to burn alive.

~~Screaming.~~

"Alex wasn't right!" He's rushing forward again, and he's not reaching for Tim's shoulders or the front of his shirt, but he's taller, and maybe that'll be enough to lend his words some weight. "He killed--we think he-- Tim, look. Alex...wasn't...this stuff, that thing changed him. You've seen the footage."

He's thinking of a burn-scarred body in a bathtub.

"So if I'm not...impartial anymore, then Alex definitely isn't."

Wasn't.

"And, I dunno, maybe I'm not inclined to think the guy who tried to burn you to death had everybody's best interests in mind."

The same man who buried a bullet in his side, but he's not thinking about that right now. He can't think about that right now.

"It was my fucking problem, wasn't it? Me, leading that thing into all of our lives!" Should've just sat in the hospital, and let it crumble around him. Let it fucking burn, every last shred of it, and let a couple of college idiots make a student film without that specter hanging over them.

Does it matter what any of this was about, in the first place? Because now they're shouting again, like they always do, indistinct and escalating, without any intention of salvaging the conversation whatsoever.

Maybe he should.

Breathe out.

"...what was your point, Jay? Was that it? Was that all there was to it? Just...telling me not to go looking for something that you didn't have to tell me to not go looking for?"

And Tim's...calming down. Even though he just tried to get the last word, and the last word was utter bullshit, and Jay can feel a response pressing at the back of his throat, it's not time for that right now.

Breathe out.

Tim asked him a question.

"I was gonna try and give you...'s much as I could without...y'know. So you could know what to watch out for." He's mumbling. Speak up. "And I guess, just..."

Speak up.

"...Make sure you're still in one piece. Didn't see you after I got out of the woods, so..."

Tim's an adult. He doesn't need someone checking in.

"Don't," he ratchets it out a little too harshly, turning aside without so much as a glance in Jay's direction. "Don't give me anything."

Even the tiniest shred can be dangerous, after all. By dribbling what little he did, he's probably fucked it up already. Didn't take much to start ruining everyone's lives, now, did it? Simply knowing Tim as a person was enough to ruin it.

Why else would Brian have held onto it, for all those years - that tape that signified the precise moment that nightmare entered their lives?

"I'm fine, so I guess you can stop worrying." He lends the final word just enough of a sardonic twist to mimic the grumpily disdainful man who stood in a hotel room, quizzing Tim on the whereabouts of a camera, snapping that he didn't need Tim to share his medication with someone like him.

'Cause heaven forbid they color themselves with the same brush.

That doeesn't sound like Tim, the frustrated insistence that there's nothing to worry about. He's fine. If anything, it sounds more like--

Oh.

Oh.

Right. Tim does it, too. Jay's seen it, playing out an entire phone call. This whole conversation's gone weird, Jay thinks. Wasn't just himself and Tim arguing--well, it was, but who was who kept getting mixed up in the middle. It's like they're not even people anymore; just rhetorical positions.

God, he's sounding like Alex. Dial it back.

"I guess," Jay mutters, trying to regain his own voice. It's himself doubting himself doubting himself, and yeah, he really needs to stop thinking about this right now. Tim's fine. He got out of the woods. He's got the closet, so he's got his meds. He doesn't want any more information, but he's fine. He'll be fine. Jay didn't tell him anything that'd mess him up (he thinks), so if he starts losing time again, it'll be his own fault. He's fine.

The longer this goes on, the harder it gets for Jay to say the same.

"And..." Jay shrugs. "Guess I'll live."

“I guess, yeah.”

The weight of what goes unsaid stretches between them, but he’s got no clue how to start, considering the way things kicked off. The intention of telling Jay something or another, making a choice to cross that line, that died in the wake of a spontaneous shouting match he doesn’t have any hope of salvaging.

Or any inclination.

“You should maybe wash that shit off,” he says, nodding at Jay’s arms wearily. “Probably best if you forget too, huh?”

Jay shakes his head gently, eyes fixed on the carpet. He doesn’t want to see Tim’s reaction. “Gotta mark the drive first. Then...” Then he’ll let himself forget. It feels like giving up, but he knows he can’t keep this up. He attempts a shrug.

In the heavy silence following, Jay leans toward the door. He’s got things to do now. Mark the drive, then forget.

Still, he’s got questions. Tim doesn’t look like he’s in a talkative mood anymore (not that shouting about Alex Kralie in the heat of an argument was much of an improvement), but maybe he’s wrong. Maybe they can talk, if Jay’s careful.

“You, uh...” He tries to keep his tone even. “...hear anything from Brian?”

Nope. Never mind, then. They’re doing this anyway. Doesn’t know when to quit, Jay, so maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. In fact, it’s a testament to the fact that he isn’t surprised that Tim simply glances away with a huff and a tightening jaw without missing a beat.

“I don’t talk to him,” he says quietly.

That’s one answer that’s sure to raise more questions.

He’s too tired to care.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

cw: suicide ideation

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject