I Will, Hold On

You will lead me, to the--

Jay is drifting.

He's submerged in a thick pool of inky darkness; he opens his mouth to breathe, and it seeps into his throat. But it doesn't hurt--it doesn't feel much like anything, actually. He seals his lips shut and sighs through his nose, bubbles fleeing to the surface.

The bubbles make contact with the surface and explode, and then Jay hears things he can't comprehend.

Blood pressure is...

Pop.

...stable, but make sure he's...

Pop.

Let me see him. Please, let me see him, I need to...

Pop.

"Rouse."

Jay's hears a voice right next to his ear, and his eyes fly open. He can't see anything; his arms feel like lead, his legs feel as though they're chained against the earth. He opens his mouth to speak, but more liquid pours in. It occurs to him that he can't really breathe, and suddenly everything hurts.

"What's happening to me?" Jay tries to croak out, but all that comes out is feeble gurgling.

"Depart," the voice speaks, and Jay wants nothing else but to obey its command, but he can't move. Something presses against his back, and he tries to jerk away, but nothing responds to his will. His heart is pounding; what is that, don't touch him--

Jay is shoved upwards, and his head shoots above the surface. This time, when Jay opens his eyes, he's met with a dark room.

Not much of an improvement from wherever I previously was, he bitterly thinks. He blinks several times, clearing sleep from his eyelids. He inhales slowly; his lips are dry and chapped, like he'd been outside in winter weather for far too long. And his head--did someone slam it into a brick wall several hundred times? When Jay moves to take in his surroundings, his vision blurs and sways. If that makes him want to puke, the fact that he doesn't know where he was is makes him want to projectile vomit even more.

A thought briefly passes through his mind: what if he'd blacked out? What if he was miles from home? Where even WAS home, now that...

Now that he was hotel hopping with Tim. Now that they were both on the run from Alex, now that Alex had...

"The gun," Jay whispers, and he hauls himself into a sitting position with a monumental effort. The room smells sterile, as if someone had dumped buckets of bleach on the tile and scrubbed it raw.

Tile?

Jay glances down and confirms with bleary awareness that yes, that is tile, and hey, when did he get a bed this tall? When did he get tubes jammed into his arm?

"Hospital?" he mumbles, trying to get his bearings. He's in a hospital, and no wonder; from the way his side is throbbing, he must have survived the gunshot. The memories flood back to him now, coming in waves, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. He looks up, searching for something, where's his camera, but then--

There's something in the corner of the room, enshrouded in shadow.

There's someone watching him.

Instincts kick in that Jay wasn't even aware that he had, and he scrambles to pull off the sheets restricting his legs. Despite the tubes restricting his movements, he manages to crouch in an upright position, much to the dismay of his injured body. He feels painfully vulnerable, exposed to the world around him, his hands clammy from sweat and stress, his heart drumming against his chest like a jackhammer.

"Who's there?" Jay calls out, tongue feeling thick and uncooperative, and he licks his lips. The shape of a person stands up, and his ears start ringing loudly. Words can't describe the panic that flows through him, and he's acutely aware of how much he's trembling. A monitor somewhere nearby beeps rapidly. It sounds like morse code to his puzzle-trained ears.

Jay is trapped.

Oh god--

"Jay?" a voice speaks from the person walking towards him, and he recognizes it.

...oh.

"Woah there, buddy. You're poised like you're ready to leap out of your skin," Tim says, stopping in his tracks. Jay lets out the breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, falling back against the hospital bed.

"Christ, Tim, you can't just stand in the corner like a dejected kid ominously. You looked like something out of the goddamn Ring when you walked towards me."

"Sorry about that. You started giving off a lot of distressed signals, and I thought something was wrong." Tim says, amusement lacing his voice, but then he pauses. "Are you okay? You've been out of it for a while."

"Out of it? How long?"

"About a day," Tim says. He strides over to Jay's bedside and flicks on a lamp. That... would have been convenient, had he known it was there before.

"A whole day? Better than I expected," Jay mutters, combing a hand through his hair. "I thought I'd blacked out again."

"Oh. No, you were probably just disoriented from waking up in a different place, that's all. I know how that feels." Another pause. "You sure freaked me the hell out, too, when you passed out in the car." Tim taps his foot against the floor, pointedly avoiding Jay's gaze. "Thought you'd died," he mumbles.

Silence stretches between them. Jay doesn't know how to respond to that at all, so he replies with silence. Okay, maybe he does roll a bunch ofthank you's and grateful emotions towards Tim with his mind, which he knows Tim can sense.

Eventually, Tim coughs awkwardly. He clears his throat, then stands up.

"Do you, uh... need anything?"

"What?"

"Are you hungry or something?" Tim asks. "I could get you something to eat from the cafeteria here, if you want."

"Tim, it's like 3 in the morning," Jay whispers, judging by the fact that Tim had previously been sleeping in the creepy-corner. "There isn't going to be food down there."

"... Right. Water?"

"Sure, my lips are as dry as your sense of humor."

"Your lips are drenched, then," Tim retorts, and Jay snorts. When his friend leaves the room, Jay is suddenly thrust back into his mind; he'd been distracted momentarily by his near-heart-attack, but now that there was nothing else to focus on, he finds himself worrying. Who was the one speaking to him in his head, when he was asleep? What happened to Alex? Were they even safe here, despite being in a public space?

Tim returns, quicker than Jay thought, and the bad thoughts in his head are shoved away; distantly, he realizes that they might literally be getting pushed away by Tim, but he can't muster up the energy to care. He graciously accepts the cup from Tim and downs it in several gulps.

The mysteries can come later. For now, he just needs to collect himself.