burns my ears when they sing

[burntvideocassette]

Who: Jay and you
Where: The Mansion + The Grounds
When: April 8th-10th
Rating: PG-13; the usual Marble Hornets mental health talk, made worse by the event
Summary: Jay's Gradual Relapse: the Rock Opera

Day 2 - Open - The Library - The Lonely Life of the UFO Researcher

He's finally, finally teased a decent laptop out of the closet, one with enough power to render ten minutes of video without taking a day and a half before crashing and requiring a restart. It's an improvement. Hell, it's an improvement over his old machine.

Is that still in his car?

He doesn't think about that. Instead, he sinks into a plush, red couch in one of the reading rooms, laptop open, and focuses on the screen. No entries anymore, so no real use in editing the footage he's taken, but it keeps his mind occupied, and when an event's just crested the horizon and George has seriously just started singing, publicly, on Wonderland's sorry excuse for the internet, a distraction is what he needs. Behind the editing software, he's got a document open for brainstorming, and there's a tall stack of books on the table next to him -- regional American folklore, Germanic folklore, true crime, medical journals, anything that might give him a better understanding of the situation back home. Inside the pocket of his sweatshirt, there's a bottle of pills.

He doesn't notice when he starts humming, and he very nearly doesn't notice when the tune develops lyrics.

Antenna towers and distant hopes
I’ve measured happiness with telescopes
Well, I’ve been face to face with what my future brings
The reels they turn, recording blips and pings
Through the white noise and distortion
There’s a message I can feel
Just give me one sign that you’re real

An orange glow, some blinking lights
Don’t know how most folks spend their Friday nights
Well I’ve seen evidence no one would dare dispute
Witness accounts make up my life’s pursuit
And in those photos, there’s a sadness
And a message I can feel
Just give me one sign that you’re real
Please give me one sign that you’re real

His voice is soft and unpracticed, wavering off-key when it comes to the higher notes, but it's not as bad as he dreaded. And hell, it's not like anyone's listening.

Day 3 - Open - Near the Woods - Lost Like This

It's getting worse--he's getting worse. What was that Tim warned him about? Mood swings? He read the name of the compound, something generic, something he could track down and look up and read about. Psychopharmacology -- modern marvel, right? Throw something at the human brain and see what sticks. Flies then mice then rats then monkeys then human beings, and they throw so many out on the way up, but they don't test long enough, do they? Don't take into account the long-term effects. Sample size is too small, time's too short, and what was that Alex told him? About corruption and big business and copyright and all that?

He's not sure if it makes sense. He's not sure if he's making sense, but he's stopped for now. No dose tonight, no dose tomorrow, and if Tim gets pissed off that's on him, because what works on him won't work for everyone, clearly.

Clearly.

The Gryphon said something (he can wind back the tape if he really wants to remember), and maybe that's it. Maybe that's all this is. Maybe it's fine, maybe the pills Tim shoved down his throat are fine, really, and maybe he shouldn't skip doses because maybe that'll make it worse. Maybe that's why he felt so off so quickly. Maybe this is his fault.

Focus.

Rethink your doubts, it said. Find a place within yourself. And that's what he's doing, right? It's not a place within himself, exactly, it's a place outside, where it's wet and dark and the crickets are buzzing, but that's fine. It's the doubts part he's dealing with first, since the other part's either a metaphor or disturbingly literal. If it's literal, it should be fine. He's been hollowed out enough. Should be room.

Focus.

It's not here, Tim told him, except when there's an event. Hasn't seen the real thing since he showed up, but that doesn't mean anything for sure. It's not the same woods, here, not even remotely. Different biome, different trees, different everything. It's dangerous for different reasons. But there's nowhere else he can really think of to go. He's gotten antsy, looking through books and poring through footage with nothing, no bars of static, no blips of audio distortion, no shadows moving along the walls, no leads. The only way this stops is if he figures out what's going on -- not just now, here, in this event, but everything. Back home, here -- even if it's not all connected, there should be something. There must be something he can do.

Jay Merrick stares into the darkness between the trees, camera clutched in a white-knuckle grip, and freezes.

What the hell is he doing?

Mumbled and near-hysterical, a song winds its way out of him.

I'm standing all alone, out in the pouring rain
And though it really isn't like me to complain
I think I'm getting used to it

I feel happy, and I also feel bad
I've never been here, but somehow I think I have
But I'm getting used to it

He sways, something like a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Nobody's watching. It's fine. It's fine.

I've never been lost like this
I've never been lost like this
But I wouldn't be happy anywhere else
Nobody to tell us what to do, all by ourselves

He's at the treeline now, not quite stepping in, but just close enough to get a better look.

Don't know how I got here
And I don't know why I stay
The poets all around are laughing in their graves
Must be something I said

This place is not like anything I've seen before
The spirits move around; the houses have no doors
But I'm getting used to it

I've never been lost like this
I've never been lost like this
But I wouldn't be happy anywhere else
Nobody to tell us what to do, all by ourselves

They're not looking for him, are they? Shouldn't be. Wouldn't make sense for them to be. Tim worries about him, sure, but he's not watching, not close enough. He won't even look at the footage.

Even his parents stopped calling, after a while.

Still, he leans back and looks back at the mansion, feeling rough bark press against his spine through his shirt. He watches silhouettes move behind yellow-lit windows.

The others wouldn't be too thrilled, if they saw him out here. They wouldn't admit it makes sense. They wouldn't admit it's the right thing to do, because if they did, they'd have to admit they're hiding. As tempting--god, as tempting as it is to hide, everything stalls out when he tries. You don't get information by being a coward.

Isn't this a fine hello?
I wish I hadn't seen you go
It's always been a bitter pill
The broken mirror's broken still
The letters never made the post
A thousand more I never wrote
And here, on the dark, unfriendly streets
I find the comfort that I seek
And I'm happy, and I've been happy

I've never been lost like this
I've never been lost like this
But I wouldn't be happy anywhere else
Nobody to tell us what to do, all by ourselves

Day 4 - CLOSED to Clem and Tim - The Entrance Hall - Woke up afraid of my own shadow -- like, genuinely afraid

He knew it. He fucking knew it. Worse, he's positive they all did, too. Tim, both of them, but not just him. Georgia and Shaun and Clementine and Shepard and Sans and Dan and the Queen and everyone. They kept quiet, just long enough for Jay to get complacent enough for Tim to weave a lie convincing enough that it'd make him think it was okay. He's fine. Everything's fine. This place isn't like back home.

Bullshit.

He never left. He never left, and now he can see this place for what it is. He can see the cracks. Streaks of red-orange-yellow-black-white tug at the edges of his vision, and even if he can't see it, he knows the configuration changes when he looks away. Buffers just fast enough to load when he looks, but he's not fooled. The room's changing. Doesn't work like a real thing should, but it's real. It's there, and maybe if he wasn't so gullible, if he wasn't so stupid, he would've noticed sooner.

Jay rubs at the handle of the knife with his thumb, adjusting his grip. He can feel the dirt caked under his nails, can feel the sting left when the branches clawed scraped against his arms. He's tracking mud across the carpet.

The camera's rolling. He just changed the tape. There's a couple spares in his pocket, still wrapped in plastic, if this runs long.

He's going to find Tim. He's going to find the others.

He's going to find Jessica.

He's going to get his answers, before the static covers his eyes completely.

His chest seizes, and he loses his balance, gripping the railing of the staircase. His head is buzzing, but he's going to get his answers. He's going to get his answers. He's going to get

Comments

[burntvideocassette]

He's right, Tim says. Like he can believe it's sincere. Like either of them'd actually agree to it if they didn't have some ulterior motive.

How can you say that? How can you ask that, when both you knew this whole time that we were trapped?

But the words stick in his throat with an awful hiss of static. He has to say something. He has to say something to make them understand, and the only words he can force through his constricted throat are:

"Give me the tape." It's a low, strangled growl. "What have you been hiding from me?"

More static, like a radio caught between stations.

"--You never told me?"

[postictal]

"We lied to each other," he says - both to Jay and to Clem, though his gaze remains more or less fixed on the shroud of white veiling his expression from view. It's Jay as he only had the misfortune to encounter once in his life, and that was more than enough. It hadn't really been Jay then, he knows now - he knows now, even if he didn't then.

Something that turned him from apologetic to violent. That contorted him into someone who lashed out blindly and brazenly, uncaring as to the consequences to himself.

"Constantly, Jay. I was just trying to get through all of this, the same as you. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. None of us did."

They were stupid.

They were stupid amateurs, and they all paid for it.

[rightcall]

It's like Jay is having his own conversation based on whatever the static has made him believe. Clementine wants to break through, but she doesn't even know- She doesn't know what tape.

Her gaze remains on Jay too- no, her gaze remains on the knife. It's habit. It's instinct bred into muscles to be prepared- to watch for danger.

"When you're trying to survive some shit, lies will happen. They have to happen. It's- It's shitty but they do. Sometimes it's the only way."

She says and then swallows, thinking of the lie she kept in order to protect herself before she ended up here. It's something she vaguely shared with Jay that she hasn't shared with anyone else.

"Jay, we were looking for you."

They care.

[burntvideocassette]

They were looking for him.

Why? What do they want?

There's something wrong with him, with his head, and he can't just talk, he has to--No, no, he's fine. He's fine, and he's not a liar like they are. He's not stupid, like Tim says. It's not the only way.

Rewind, play back. Force the words into place, even when they don't quite fit. They were looking for him, she said, and all he can manage in reply is a vicious, "Don't follow me!"

Knife drawn, he lunges for her first, but maybe for him, for whoever's closest and whoever's slowest, because even cautious, even with their hands up and their distance kept they're still too close, cornering him even while they're spitting out more lies. He knows they can overpower him, because he's weak and fragile and pathetic and static-blind and stupid and--no, it's not him. It's not his fault. They're cornering him. They're dangerous.

He's not sure he wants blood, but he wants something. A reaction. Maybe an ounce of goddamn control for once in his life.

[postictal]

Shit.

He doesn't have to warn her, he knows - or some part of him knows. She's a survivor, and she's had to claw her way through some impossible shit to get to where she is now. Some scrawny guy with a knife won't be enough to put her down. But all it takes is one lucky hit, and it'll be over for both of them.

In more ways than one.

"Woah, woah, hey." He starts backing up, now watching that knife far more intently. "You're not Alex, okay? You're not him. And I'm sorry. I sorry I couldn't - "

His throat works silently for several seconds before he can force the words out.

"I'm sorry I messed up. I'm sorry I keep messing up. I should've done more, I know."

[rightcall]

Clementine backs up to the other side. Her muscles remain tense, and her gaze surveys the area in front of the both of them. She is prepared, and she won't let him get a hit on her. She'll lash out first. She understands now how her words were- They weren't the right ones.

They would make someone who is paranoid more anxious than they are already.

She breathes out. Her jaw locked. Emotion caught in her throat.

"We weren't following you. We were worried. I care about you, Jay."

That is a truth she can give.

[burntvideocassette]

What?

Jay halts, pulls back, knife still held tight as the static hisses and spikes.

What?

Apologies. They don't make sense, they don't register as real the way the knife in his hand and the dirt under his fingernails do, but there's something in the way Tim pauses, the way his throat cuts him off partway that feels

familiar.

It feels like what if this is my fault. It feels like all the stress is probably making you really paranoid BUT WHAT IF I'M RIGHT?

And her, too, the way her words stick in her throat, the way she says she's worried. That she cares. The words don't make sense, not in this context, but there's something behind them.

The way his voice shakes when he says says he should have done more, like there's anything he could have done to fix this. Like telling the truth would've changed anything.

They're scared.

The Lost Soul cocks his head, watching as best it can, squinting through the static.

Why--?

It freezes, locks up, as the realization sets in. It's not like back home, where the terror slips in slowly, filling up the room like fumes from a leaking pipe until you don't realize you've been choking for months. Shame wraps iron bands around his chest and pulls until his ribs crack, until the knife clatters to the ground and the static rushes up around his ears and he's shaking, he thinks he's shaking.

"You're not him," he mimics back, inaudible without any breath behind it.

He's fine. He's fine. He's fine.

His lips are moving.

"I am I am I am I am I am I am I am--"

[postictal]

I am a liar.

"You're Jay," he says, quietly.

Not good enough. He can't just be not Alex. He's barely holding on, already operating on a razor-thin edge by default, and it didn't take him much to tip him off and over it.

"You're - " The words snag in his throat before a thin, pained noise ripcords its way out, almost like a bitter sort of laugh. "God, you're so fucking dense sometimes. And you have no idea how to talk to people. You're a shitty liar, and you're an even worse detective, and it's because you care enough about you barely even knew. Because you just - you dropped everything to go after Alex, without even knowing if he was still alive, and not even because you were really ever friends. Just - just 'cause that's the kind of person you are."

Is any of this getting through? This, this vehement, pointless monologue?

"And it's, it's stupid," he says, the words spiking like a jumping line on a heart monitor, "and unbelievable, but that's you, okay? That's you."

[rightcall]

One would think she's gotten the hang of this after what happened with Tim, but she hasn't. She stumbles on words, because she hasn't ever done this before- not even in a non-dangerous situation. It's always violence. It's always lashing out first before someone lashes back. She's still worried she won't find the right words or good words.

She's hoping to add to Tim's words, because he's saying a lot of important stuff.

"You got us all to watch bad movies together and make it fun. You were there for me after I died.

It feels like such a long time ago to her now, but she remembers- she remembers it. Her throat locks up as she stays to one side of him.

"You're my friend."

[burntvideocassette]

He follows them with the lens as they speak, first him, and then her, and his free hand grab the knife grab the knife it's not safe curls up to wrap across his chest, digging his fingers into the meat of the arm supporting the camera.

"Jay," he mumbles. It sounds strange when he says it, but then again your own name always does.

He's her friend. (He's his friend, too.) He was there for her. He cared. He cares.

He cares so goddamn much.

But he's a shitty liar, and a worse detective, and underneath it all, he's just--

"Stupid," he mutters, and with the way his voice catches, there's almost a laugh behind it. Almost. "Stupid. Things keep...changing, and I can't..."

The static spikes.

"I'm too stupid to figure it out."

His shoulders curl inward.

"So I get left behind."

[postictal]

Left behind. Abandoned. Forgettable. As easily erased as seven months of memories, as the best years of their lives - days spent on the set of a crappy student film, the scent of cigarettes and sun-warmed beers and sweat sticking t-shirts to skin and the rattle of tapes against one another, jostling in the plastic bags laden with the things.

Not like this. Not like someone who rambles about cameras and old movies, who seems almost proud to be included as the script supervisor, who can speak the opening monologue to Plan 9 From Outer Space word for word while the scent of theater popcorn warmed behind them.

"Not this time."

It's a risk. It's a risk he's willing to take. Stepping forward, hands still raised in a universal gesture to prove he's unarmed, he moves slowly, carefully, evenly.

"I know it doesn't feel it. But - Clem, Clem and me and George and Shaun and god knows who else - we have your back. We've had your back. You think you're just some camera guy who's not supposed to get involved, but you are, and there's no - you can't get away from that. You've made friends, Jay.

"'S that really such a bad thing?"

So stay with him, buddy.

C'mon.

[rightcall]

Clementine takes a cue from Tim, stepping forward when he does with her hands raised too. She nods in confirmation of every single word said. It's shitty to get left behind. It's shitty to be alone especially to feel like everyone chose to just walk away- It's not a feeling she would wish on anyone. Let alone Jay who she cares about.

"We won't leave you behind."

It's said with certainty. As long as she has a choice, she'll be here. She'll fight for the people she cares about.

"We won't let you be alone. We're here and so are you, okay?"

[burntvideocassette]

With a distorted, rumbling pop like a speaker being connected at full volume, the static splits into horizontal bars, revealing uneven stripes of Jay's face.

His eyes are red-rimmed. The dark circles beneath them are damp. His cheeks are blotchy and flushed, and the muscles in his jaw strain to keep his mouth shut.

Can't cry on camera.

The static's still hissing in his ears, but it's fainter now. It's getting fainter. Slowly, despite the tension wound up his back and across his shoulders, he unhooks his fingers from their iron grip on his arm. Gradually, he pulls his arm away from his chest.

They're holding their hands up. They're unarmed. They are safe.

He lifts his free hand up to match theirs. He lifts up the camera alongside it.

Then--the motion hesitant, uncertain--Jay reaches out toward them.

[postictal]

Is this what it was, for Clem? Did she have to...painstakingly peel apart these layers that no one wanted to acknowledge, until there's nothing left to hide behind, no shroud left to throw over yourself. The static's splitting up, flaking back, and one hand's outstretched, so he does the only thing left to do.

He grabs it, and holds tight.

"That's it," he says, hoping it comes across as encouraging and not - terrified. "Remember us?"

[rightcall]

Clementine reaches out too though Tim has a hold of Jay's hand so all she can do is hold on to that arm- the one Tim has a hold of. She lifts her gaze up to Jay from up closer now.

There's no fear in her gaze at all, but honestly so little scares her anymore. She wants to help. She still wants to be able to use her caring for someone else as reason enough to be able to save them (no guns or knives or weapons or violence needed).

"Hang on."

Hang on to them, she means. To the two of them.

[burntvideocassette]

Jay holds on, bony fingers wrapped in a crushing grip. They're talking so gently to him, peering through the last few bands of static to meet his eyes, and--

Does he remember? Did he remember, earlier? God, what's wrong with him? Is he sick? Did something happen? Did something do this?

He's frustrated. He's frustrated, and he's angry, but he feels something beneath it all. He knows it. He recognizes it. And for once in his life--because he knows, some part of him knows this is different--he's going to acknowledge it.

He's terrified.

"Hang on," Clementine tells him, and that's--that's her, that's Clem, and that's Tim, which means the one who reminded him who he was, the one who told him he was an idiot but that he cared was Tim goddamn Wright, and the one who called him her friend, who talked about how he helped her and how he showed her bad movies was the kid who saved his life--that was Clementine, and that means that these two, a surly, chain-smoking asshole from home and a little girl he watched bury an icepick into a walking corpse's face, just told him he wouldn't be left behind again. That they cared. They're here, they're holding onto him, and he can see from their faces that they're worried about him, and fuck, he doesn't know what to do.

Hang on.

So he does, crashing forward in a gangly, uncoordinated mess as the last of the static sparks and dissolves. The arm holding the camera wraps around Clem's back, and the other sort of clumsily presses back against Tim, because Jay wants to hook it around him, but he doesn't want to let go, either. He's lopsided, trying and failing to account for the height difference between the two, and his face winds up mashed up against Tim's shoulder. Don't cry. Don't cry--goddamnit. At least flannel's absorbent, sort of, even if it smells like Satan's ashtray. No, he has to pull himself together. He has to pull himself together, because the camera's still rolling, but--

--But this is the safest he's felt in a long time, and he's not...he's not quite ready for that to be over.

[postictal]

It's for the best that Tim is as solid as he is, maybe reassuringly so, because he can take the brunt of Jay's awkward trip-fall into him without relinquishing his hold, and he's got a free hand jam one palm flat against Jay's shoulder for support. The rest of the static burns away like morning fog, like cigarette smoke between parted lips.

"'S okay," he finds himself muttering, over and over again, a litany that ceases having any actual meaning other than serving as some sort of hopefully grounding tone the three of them can attune to. "It's okay, it's okay, we've gotcha."

We.

There's that word again.

It's familiar in the ways that it shouldn't be, because it picks over memories of propping Jay up and guiding him back to a hotel while the other man's speech slurred and his feet tripped over one another and his stare locked vacantly ahead without seeing anything.

A little too much like how he just was.

[rightcall]

Clementine reaches out when Jay moves forward into the both of them. She lets out a relieved breath again, because it happened again. She helped save someone again from that hellish static- from drowning in darkness. No violence needed.

No knives or blades from her. None of it.

She winds an arm around his back to hold on to him too, to- to hug him back because they're practically hugging now ( the three of them, tangled up in the aftermath of static and darkness and pain ). The tension in her shoulders finally leaves at least briefly. Her eyes burn but she nods as she finally finds her voice again.

"It's gone."

The static. It's gone.

[burntvideocassette]

It's okay.

The static's gone.

And hell if that isn't enough to set off another suppressed wave of tears, throttled down into humiliating, jerky breaths and the sting of salt water. "You're--" Jay starts, but the choked sound of his own voice is enough to make him want to shut down that whole plan immediately. He's not even sure where that sentence was going, but it wasn't anywhere good.

You're not gonna leave?

You're the only ones I can remember saying that kind of stuff.

You're my friends, and I guess this is what that means.

This is stupid. It looks stupid, he's sure. They're just putting up with him until he can pull himself together.

And then Clem reaches across his back, giving him something that passes for a side-hug, and Jay just...sighs, letting the tension in his shoulders loosen a notch or two. His breath starts to even out (not fast enough for his liking).

"Thanks," he mutters into Tim's shoulder.

[postictal]

That's what Clem told him - family. And the word's harder for him to work out, like a lump of iron in his throat, because friend had been one hurdle that had been impossible enough to clear, and this is something else entirely, something he can't ever remember being applied to him in any genuine, significant sense.

Until now.

He isn't strong for that. When has he ever been? His life is always about other people, far stronger than himself, stepping in and pulling him out of the fire when they really should just let him burn. It's for the best that the static cling over his features has dispersed, and won't return; it's thoughts like those that would send him spiraling down again, otherwise.

So right now, the most he can manage in this awkward...collapse of a group hug that they're doing here is an equally uncertain question that feels like an especially stupid one:

"You doing okay there, buddy?"

[rightcall]

Clementine stays quiet, but she doesn't go anywhere. Her arm's still slung across Jay's back in an awkward side-hug as they all hold on to each other. If she weren't so good at categorizing her own emotions, it might overwhelm her to come to the realization.

She has people here. Having people, it means risking the possibility of losing them all the time. There's always that risk. She has them, and two of them are right here, and they were just saved from the static and the dark.

She helped with that. She actually helped. It feels like a miracle- it feels like- She doesn't have words for what it feels like to be able to do something good for two people she cares so much about.

She waits to hear Jay's answer, but she's also kind of muttering under her breath, "This Event's really shitty. Knew it wouldn't have stayed just on the singing."

[burntvideocassette]

Jay catches Clem's quiet complaint. It so perfectly understates the terror and pain and bullshit they just dragged him out of that he snorts, the sound muffled by mucus or whatever builds up in your sinuses when you've just spent the past several minutes trying not to break down crying.

...Trying not to break down crying any worse than he already has.

You doing okay there, buddy?

And yeah, it's not like he's never been called buddy before. It's not like Tim hasn't called him that before, even if the memory's patchy. But right here, right now, after all this? It's like an extra reminder. It's like something an old friend would say, or a relative.

In Wonderland, being from the same place does make them a little like family, doesn't it?

Jay doesn't think he was an only child, but he can't remember for sure.

He doesn't think about that. Instead, he thinks about Clem's comment, and about the innate weirdness of asking a guy having a mental breakdown into your flannel lumberjack shirt if he's okay. (He'd do the same, if he's honest. He'd probably do worse.) There's some screwy sort of humor in all this.

Jay finally pulls away, so he can look at Tim. He's still got tear-tracks down his face, he's pretty sure. His face is still flushed and blotchy. He's still got one hand wound around Tim's own, and the other, still carrying the camera, is resting on Clem's shoulder. (Good thing his new camera's a couple pounds lighter.)

"Yeah." He's not quite smiling, but there's some audible sarcasm there. Self-deprecation, even. "I'm fine."

His eyebrows quirk up. Get it?

"You?"

[postictal]

Har har.

It's a stupid fucking in-joke. Eyeroll-worthy at at best, even with the way the words are heavy with irony, that kind of self-referential bullshit they could always allow for. The kind of thing they get away with because it's the closest they get to actually taking care of their damn selves - the awareness that ninety percent of what they do is a bad idea, and there's no getting away from it.

"Yeah," says Tim, a dry huff of air almost approximating a laugh. "Yeah, I'm fine. Clem helped me out."

Which would explain, partially, why she's here.

The other part being that her concern didn't extend solely to him.

[rightcall]

Clementine lifts his eyebrows at both of them and the sarcasm. She tries to look disapproving, but in the end, she ultimately looks pretty amused. Her head quirks to the side with a smirk.

"Well, clearly, I'm doing the shittiest out of all three of us."

Nah, she's actually the most fine- the one who is probably closest to being good even given she was able to save both of them. It still feels like a miracle. She just wanted to join in on the sarcastic joking thing.

"...we should get somewhere else. I don't really think any place is safe, but sticking close to each other and anyone else we care about's probably the best prevention."

[burntvideocassette]

Jay's eyebrows furrow as he peers down at her.

"Watch your mouth." It's not really scolding; Jay couldn't manage 'stern authority' if his life depended on it, and it's more a joke than anything else. He mostly just sounds incredulous. "What are you now, like, twelve?"

One good thing: It means--or he hopes it means--she's she's the most actually fine out of all of them. If she was around to help Tim, and if Tim had to be helped in the first place, that holds up.

Knowing all Tim's been through--part, at least, knowing part of what Tim's been through, Jay doesn't want to think too hard about how that went. Getting dragged that deep into your own...insecurities or whatever, artificially and all at once, isn't something he'd wish on anybody. He could've gotten hurt if these two weren't around to pull him out. Hell, he could've hurt someone else. Would have.

(He squeezes Tim's hand a little tighter, like that'll do any good.)

"Makes sense." Not something he'd want to announce out loud, but the last thing he'd want to do right now is leave these two.

Blinking hard to clear his vision, Jay looks over the top of Clem's head, scanning the entrance hall for any other signs of life. Anyone else we care about.

"You two seen George or Shaun?"