Chapter Text
Jay just gets a really bad feeling when he steps into Alex’s old house. He’s been getting a lot of bad feelings recently. He keeps it to himself and follows Tim into the empty mudroom with the camcorder raised in his hand. The black harness of the bodycam cuts across Tim’s shoulders. Tim seems to be in okay spirits. Jay himself feels irritable and strange.
That’s when he sees it—through the bedroom window, standing in the tall green grass of the pasture. He ducks down below the sill in a panic, pulling Tim down to the floor with him where they whisper in fear.
“It’s outside.”
“You sure?”
Tim slowly stands, ignoring Jay’s hiss of warning, to peer out the window. Jay cautiously gets up to look along with him. There’s nothing out there but grass.
“I pointed the camera right at it,” he says. His fear is tipping over into miserable panic. “Here, hold on.”
“Jay, don’t—”
“I’m gonna rewind it.”
Several uncomfortable moments later, huddled together over the tiny screen, they both see that nothing was out there.
“Jay…”
“I know what I saw,” Jay snaps. “I’m not stupid.”
“I never said you were stupid,” Tim says. He’s fighting for patience. “But in case you forgot, I have some experience with this sort of thing.”
“I’m not hallucinating!” Jay insists. Suddenly the empty room feels way too small. “I just haven’t had a good night’s sleep in… in years because of all this!”
“Jay, will you please just trust me on this?” Now they’re both getting angry, and their raised voices echo off the empty walls. “As soon as we get out of here, we need to take you someplace to get help.”
“I don’t need help, I’m fine!”
“Yeah, well this is how it started with me!” Tim barks. “Okay? Is that how you want to end up?”
The image of the black and white mask is now hanging in both of their minds. Jay realizes that this conversation is hurting Tim too. His anger dissipates. He lets the camera point at the floor, sorry, forgetting about it for a second. Maybe Tim is right… Maybe he’s seeing things.
Tim speaks into the silence, exasperated but trying to be gentle, sensing weakness. “Look, let’s just get out of here, alright? There’s nothing here anyway. The sooner we can get you some help, the better.”
Jay doesn’t want to leave yet. They could still be missing something. “What about your medication?” he asks.
“What about it?” Tim asks, becoming wary.
“Well, if I’m having the same symptoms as you… then your meds should work for me too, right?” He talks past the growing incredulity on Tim’s face. “Let me have a dose and then we can keep looking.”
“Jesus, Jay— I’m not a doctor, I don’t think it’s safe to just give you one of these.”
“You wanted me to trust you, right? If you’re right about what’s happening to me, then it makes sense, doesn’t it?” Jay presses on, because he can see Tim relenting, considering. “Tim, come on, I don’t wanna have to come back, I just want to get this over with. Once we’re finished we can go straight to the doctor’s office or whatever you want.”
Tim sighs and shakes one of the pills out of the bottle in his pocket.
“I’m really afraid this is gonna hurt you…” he says as he reluctantly drops the pill into Jay’s open hand. Jay uncomfortably dry-swallows it, but he’s seen the way these help Tim sleep, and he’s curious about the effects.
He has a guilty realization right after he takes it. “That’s one less for you, I guess…”
“Well it’s not gonna kill me if I skip one,” says Tim. “Besides, I’m a little more worried about you right now.”
True to his word, Jay can feel Tim carefully watching him as they move about the rest of the house. They get the flashlights from the trunk of the car and head down into the basement. As they point the flashlights around, Jay tries to decide if he feels any better. Maybe… but there’s still an uncomfortable prickle at the back of his throat.
“Jay…?” Tim’s voice, curiously hollow. “What time is it?”
“What? I don’t know, why?”
They stare out the window together, at the black sky that should be blue, at the white orb of the moon, like a reflection of what Jay suddenly knows is standing right behind them. He should have let Tim talk him into leaving. He doesn’t even get to feel the pleasure of being right.
All is shouting chaos as they flee from the terror that was waiting for them in the basement, out the back door and into the night together. Jay reaches the barbed wire fence, grabs the post, and with a rush of adrenaline he vaults right over one-handed, still holding the camera. He feels the pressure of the presence behind him seeping into his skull and all he can think of is to get away.
“Tim, come on!!” he shouts. He takes off into the tall grass, running for his life. He’s halfway back to the car already when he realizes Tim isn’t with him anymore. God damn it. All of him wants to run— except that he can’t leave Tim behind. Not again. Fighting for a courage that he doesn’t possess, Jay turns his ass back around and sprints back towards the house.
“Tim!!!” he shouts, trying to find him in the dark by nothing but the light from the camera. He sees Tim collapsed in the grass. Jay swears and scrambles back over the barbed wire, gracelessly this time, cutting his hands and snagging his jeans on the spikes, nearly dropping the camera. He falls to his knees beside Tim’s limp body, grabbing his shoulder and trying to turn him over.
Suddenly that peculiar, uncomfortable feeling is spiking inside of his head, like a stab of confusion and pain. Oh fuck, oh god it’s here. Now Jay drops the camera. Beside him, Tim begins to convulse.
The pale head of the Operator looms above them. It presides over both of their trembling bodies. It’s the source of the interference howling through Jay’s brain. But Jay fights and finds that he can still think. He fights his way up from his knees and screams. “What do you want???” It turns its empty face towards Jay and stares. The agony reaches a crescendo inside his head, bending him back down to the ground. Then he blinks, and the pain is gone. The Operator is gone.
Jay raises his head into the stunned silence of the night. Behind him, Tim starts coughing, a pitifully weak and ragged sound. Jay rushes back to him. “Tim, can you hear me??” Jay’s mind frantically stumbles over everything he’s read online about seizures. He rolls Tim onto his side just in time for him to vomit messily into the grass. Once he’s finished, Jay struggles to lift him up to his knees.
“What’s…?” Tim asks muzzily.
“C’mon Tim, we gotta go.”
Jay manages to juggle the camera too as he helps Tim stumble up to his knees. He can barely walk. Jay half-carries him back to the car, struggling under his weight.
“Tim, where are your keys?” He finds them in Tim’s jeans pocket. He clumsily helps Tim into the passenger seat. Tim tries to buckle himself in but he doesn’t have the strength to pull the belt across his body. Jay reaches into the passenger seat to help him. Somewhere in the middle of all this Tim starts hyperventilating.
“Tim,” Jay says frantically, grabbing his shoulder and shaking him. “You’re gonna be fine, I’m gonna take care of you.” He fights back his own panic as he gets into the driver’s seat. Jesus this trip went so fucking wrong.
Tim knocks out completely in the seat beside Jay as he drives them back to the motel room. Jay can feel a terrible headache building, but otherwise he feels okay. He doesn’t want to think about what just happened, but his mind keeps pulling him back to the images. The Operator looking right at him. Tim’s body convulsing in the grass beside him. Tim is disoriented when Jay wakes him up in the motel parking lot. He helps Tim inside and lets him collapse onto the mattress, then yanks Tim’s shoes off one by one. Jay then kicks off his own shoes and falls into the bed beside him, completely exhausted.
He shakes Tim’s shoulder. “Do you want some water?” Tim just groans him away. Should he make him drink? He wants to stay awake and watch for a while in case Tim has another seizure, but they’re both asleep within the next five minutes.