blue canary in the outlet by the light switch

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Who: (Blue) Jay Merrick + You
Where: Media club + the woods behind the gym
When: August 3rd to 6th
Rating: PG (May change)
Summary: This half-plucked blue jay may not be the greatest student, but he's got interests beyond the classroom.
The Story:

Media Club:

Wherever he ends up getting into college, Jay's going to major in film. That's basically a given, though it's not because because he's a brilliant filmmaker. He likes movies, sure, and he likes learning the minutiae that go into making them. It's not exactly a passion, but it's something, and it's adjacent to his other interests.

There isn't a major in paranormal research, though--he checked--so his best chance at college prep is within the school's media club.

They're showing off their personal projects this week. Jay's got a sharpie-marked DVD under his wing. Anybody like amateur documentaries?

The Woods:

The game's already over, and the lights on the athletic field have been turned off. Nobody in their right mind would still be here this late on a school night, no matter how many questions they had for their AP physics teacher.

Jay's heard rumors, though, stories about people in the classrooms adjacent the woods seeing a too-tall silhouette between the trees. Some people say it's just a malformed tree trunk. Others say it's a human. Still others say it looks more like a water-bird, like some kind of crane, though it's taller than any crane they've ever met. Paler, too, with bleach-white feathers standing out against the leaves.

Whatever it is, Jay intends to get it on film.

Comments

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He jolts at the contact. Don't look back. Instead, he looks at Tim, tries not to focus on the way the his silhouette blurs into the space between the trees.

The headache subsides, just slightly.

Don't look back.

"Okay," he mumbles, following after. He keeps his eyes trained on the worn dirt trail, on the grooves cut into the soil by Tim's claws. He's lost track of how much ground they've covered, but it can't be too much longer.

(There's a pressure against the back of his head.)

Don't look back.

(His lungs ache, and his breath stutters in his throat.)

Don't look back.

(The hum and hiss of the air behind them spikes in volume, spikes in pitch, screams, and Tim has to hear this, he has to, but he doesn't respond. Doesn't move, doesn't twitch, but he has to hear it too, because the alternative's--)

Don't look back.

There's a light between the trees.

[postictal]

Pray to god (God isn't listening, Timothy - why would He listen to a thing like you?) that it's headlights from a cab or something, a car idling out in the woods waiting for a pair of idiots to come flapping into view. Pray to god that it's the real world, cracking its way through the haze of this woodland-stink nightmare. Pray to whoever the fuck is listening that there's a way out.

As long as they don't look back. As long as Eurydice isn't aching to catch at their ankles and drag them back into the mindscape of unspooling limbs and a dark stain on the texture of their souls.

His soul.

"Hey," Tim says, a gravelly raven's rasp. Then, louder, calling out to the light: "we're over here!"

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"Hey--hey!" Jay joins in, adding a high, blue-jay screech to the cacophony.

(Tim can hear that, right?)

Don't fucking--don't look back. Just keep moving toward the light.

Jay sets his jaw, tenses his neck, so he won't get tempted again. So he won't hear something that makes him jolt to attention, so he won't lock up. Maybe next time, Tim won't be able to yank him out of it. Maybe he won't want to.

The light starts to coalesce into two small points--headlights, thank god.

"We're--we're right here!" His run falters, balance thrown off-kilter by the way he spreads his wings, waving them in an attempt to catch the driver's attention.

The driver. The driver he called, and whom he intends to pay for out of his own pocket so he doesn't have to call his parents. Like they're not gonna notice.

God, fuck, his parents are gonna kill him. He thinks he can cover a cab, he thinks, but can he really? Is he just gonna call another one to get himself and Tim back home, or are their parents gonna have to pick them up at the hospital? Is that three cabs? Can he afford three cabs? Is there even a fraction of a chance they're going to pull this off?

A laugh catches in his chest.

Really? Is he really thinking about this?

Whatever his parents have in mind, grounding him or locking up the Playstation or monitoring his computer use or slashing his allowance, it can't be worse than what's behind him. It's a hell of a lot better than nothing, a hysterical part of him suggests, and he has to fight even harder to suppress the urge to laugh.

[postictal]

They're almost out. The noise that breaks the back of Tim's throat is achingly close to a sob, a relieved spurt of sound that nearly crumbles him down on the spot. It's okay. It's okay. They're back to the real world. They won't get stuck here. They can make it.

They'll be out of here, and he'll never have to think about this - this night where his nightmares caught up with him and nearly ensnarled someone else in the blank spaces in the back of his head - ever fucking again.

It feels like it's receding. Is that just him?

Doesn't matter.

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Is Tim crying?

The sound, brief as it is, tugs at him. He's not sure what he's supposed to do about it, except blink back the moisture gathering at the rims of his own eyes. Keep it together. It's just the end of the trail, just a slight easing in the pressure against his temples. Nothing worth crying over.

(They almost died, and it's nothing worth crying over. Granted, nothing's supposed to be worth crying over, except maybe somebody actually dying. Like, family, or a wife, or something, not just anybody. You don't just cry because you feel like it; if that were the case, it wouldn't be so weird to hear Tim.)

(Besides, if this footage goes up online, nobody's gonna want to hear that. That would be the first thing they'd comment on. He'd never live it down.)

Still, he picks up the pace, coming up alongside Tim. He's not sure how to respond, but he feels like he's supposed to be at least there.

They break the treeline.

Jay blinks. It's all fading: the throbbing at the back of his skull and the pressure across his chest, the tension pulling his shoulders tight and his wings off-balance, the film across his eyes. He's still got a vicious headache, though, and he winces in the piercing glare of the headlights.

The cab's pulled into a parking space at the edge of the lot, a few yards from the woods, and there's an older man, a barred owl, leaning against the driver's side door. His face is drawn, barely illuminated by the glow of his phone.

"Christ, there you are." He looks up from the phone, and the glow fades, leaving him an indistinct silhouette backlit by the dim streetlights lining the lot. "Hospital?"

[postictal]

Tim can only nod mutely, breathless with relief. Yes, god yes. Please. He doesn't even care where they end up going, or that he'll never be able to afford the care it'll take to properly mend his wing - he doesn't care as long as it's not here.

It hasn't occurred to him that Jay is still filming this, with the intention to post it somewhere.

He wouldn't assume that anyone would be that fucking stupid.

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The driver nods, wings pulled tight to his sides. Sparing them one last, long look, he tosses the back door open and shuffles into the front seat.

They did it. They got out--they're out, right now. He can make out the shape of the English building through the haze, can point to the window of his own classroom, can see the place where he tripped on the sidewalk and skinned his knee back when he was a dumb freshman trying to make it to class before the bell. They're here, and Tim's got a broken wing and no voice and Jay's got a numb, twisted leg, and they're both still breathing.

Jay looks down at the light at his chest, glowing feebly through a layer of caked-on dirt.

He switches the camera off.