Chapter Text
Tim doesn’t fully know what to expect after Jay steals the tape from him.
Jay will almost certainly watch it. And it won’t surprise Tim if Jay ends up posting it to the channel as well. But after that? Who’s to say?
When Jay returns, Tim suspects he’ll knock on his door under false pretenses, play innocent in “just wanting to talk” and then turn the tables on Tim somehow. Physical attack not out of the question, given the methods by which Jay managed to obtain the tape in the first place.
Tim expects such a “welcome” visit within the next few days.
He does not expect a knock on his door that very same night.
A glance through the peephole confirms it’s Jay, but that still doesn’t help Tim much…though if Jay’s playing innocent, he’s certainly been working on his poker face; it’s not so obvious he’s putting on a front. Head ducked as he shifts his weight from one foot to the other, hands fidgeting with the handles of the small plastic bag in his hands. Shoulders raising and lowering with too heavy a sigh to be feigned.
Surprisingly, no camera. …maybe Jay’s demeanor is quite sincere.
Tim opens the door slowly, just a crack. Jay raises his head, unable to mask his true expression in time. Not anger or betrayal…rather, a sort of discomfort. Tim could almost say regret.
As Tim begins to step aside to let Jay in, Jay holds up a hand.
“I’m not gonna stay long, just drop this off and go,” he says as he lifts the bag, to further bring a halt to Tim’s gesture of forced politeness. “I watched the tape.”
“Figured you would,” Tim says, nails digging slightly into the wood of the door jamb, defaulting to sardonicism to mask his irritation. “So, when can the viewers expect a good show?”
A long enough pause for Tim’s grip to tighten further, and he clenches his teeth.
“I’m not gonna post it.”
Tim’s hand slackens before dropping completely.
“Not yet, anyway, I mean…probably down the road, depending on how all this turns out, but…” Finally, Jay manages to make eye contact with Tim. “I think I get it. Why you wanted to keep it hidden…why—”
Tim nods, a nonverbal cutoff of whatever Jay was going to say next. He doesn’t need to. They both know. And honestly, they probably both have the same fear that speaking about it out loud any more than the preceding vaguery will just put a certain supposedly missing someone in danger. At least, Tim assumes they’re on that same page.
“…I trust you on this,” Jay says, all but confirming Tim’s thoughts. “I have to trust you and…and I’ve been really bad at showing you that I do trust you, but I know I need to be better about it because I can’t do any of this without you and…”
Abruptly, almost jerkily, Jay holds the bag out to Tim. Tim takes it slowly, eyes not leaving Jay right away (not missing a quick flash of desperation of wanting to snatch the bag back, to keep Tim from looking at the contents).
The plastic crinkles as Tim pulls the bag open. Several tapes softly clack around inside. He looks back up at Jay.
“You said ‘no more secrets,’” Jay explains. “…you’re not the only one who’s been hiding things, and…well, these were never gonna be posted on the channel, but it didn’t feel right to get rid of them. …at the same time, though, it also didn’t feel right to keep these from you any longer. Not anymore, anyway.”
Tim’s eyebrows shoot up. …what could be on these tapes that Jay felt couldn’t be shared with the denizens of YouTube, much less him? Had to be something horrible…something akin to Alex dropping a rock on a man’s skull four times.
“I’m heading out to that address tomorrow—the one on the back of Amy’s picture?—I’m gonna go try and find Alex,” Jay says, interrupting Tim’s train of thought. “I’ll call before I head out, but if I don’t see you there…” Jay’s eyes dart at the bag of tapes. “…I mean, I won’t blame you.”
Tim’s stomach roils as he takes in Jay’s grim, slightly defeated words, made worse by the slightly sickened expression his features take on.
“There’s not…” Tim pauses, trying to figure out the best way to ask. Maybe best to soften it with another question first. “Did you remember anything on these tapes happening before you first watched them?”
“No,” Jay says, shaking his head. “I definitely would have remembered you—” Jay stops himself real fast. “…no, no, I didn’t.”
Well…that wasn’t at least a little bit suspicious.
“Did I kill anyone and I don’t remember?” Tim asks the question he’d wanted to ask from the start. “Or did you?”
“What?” Jay blinks, before his eyes widen. “No—no! No, nothing like that, no…no, neither of us have…no.”
“Then what’s on the tapes that’s so—”
“You’ll see. It’s not…” Tim waits silently for Jay to find the correct words. “There’s not really time to talk about it, it’ll be easier to talk about it after…” After they sort all this out with Alex. If they both even survive that. “It’s not bad, I don’t think.”
“You don’t think it’s bad?” Tim asks.
“I mean…I don’t think it’s bad, but I can’t speak for what you’ll think,” Jay clarifies. “Regardless, it just…it never seemed right to post them publicly, but…I think you need to know, at least.”
Tim allows silence to hang between them for a spell as he parses out an answer.
He doesn’t believe for a second that the tapes don’t contain something he really doesn’t want to see. …but Jay fessed up to having them—to keeping them hidden not only from Tim, but the viewers. Jay trusts Tim when it comes to the contents of the tape he himself hid from Jay, so…it would be hypocritical not to at least return some of that trust, or at least open himself up to it.
“…good to know you have some standards for what to keep private,” Tim finally says, only slightly joking. Jay huffs a little laugh that neither of them believe in the slightest. “I’ll watch these tonight.”
“Okay,” Jay says, with a nod and a grimace he can’t quite force into a smile. “…for what it’s worth, I’m sorry. For…”
For hiding these tapes? For what’s on the tapes? For not trusting Tim? For dragging Tim back into this to begin with?
Tim nods but says nothing. Doesn’t really matter what Jay is apologizing for, does it? Could be any of those things, could be all of them.
“Thanks,” he finally says. “For…for trusting me, I guess.” Jay nods again, more certain, eyes a little brighter, the hint of a smile playing on his lips for just a second. “I’ll see you tomorrow.” Jay hums noncommittally. He lingers for a moment, as though wanting to say something else. Tim waits. But after a few moments of seeming to stop and start, Jay’s shoulders fall, and he turns with a quiet “Good night” to walk back to his car.
Tim stands in the doorway, watching the entire time as Jay reaches his car, unlocks it, disappears inside, turns it on. He does not close the door to the house until Jay’s car has taken off down the street, turned the corner, tail lights completely fading away.
Once he locks the door (and double-checks all the other doors and windows), he settles in his bedroom and tips the plastic bag over, tapes hitting the mattress softly. He picks one up and turns it around in his hand, not seeing anything on the label or case to give any clue as to its contents. No signs of melting or burning, like with Alex’s tapes. No calling cards from ToTheArk.
Just…a series of tapes already in Jay’s possession. Labeled with numbers that indicate a watching order. That brings only the slightest bit of relief.
He really, really does not want to watch them. He wants to go to bed, meet Jay tomorrow, lie about watching them, and hopefully put an end to all this with Alex and the man in the hoody and that…that thing, and then get as much distance between this town and himself as possible.
…but Jay trusts him. In spite of everything that’s happened between them. And beyond all logic, beyond a wealth of evidence that points to Tim having little to no reason to ever trust another word that comes out of Jay’s mouth…Tim trusts him, at least a little.
So he sets up the first tape and braces himself…