Chapter Text
Stress.
That’s the only word for it, but it feels like a massive understatement. What Alex is experiencing is far more than a quickly approaching deadline or rush hour behind the counter of a fast food restaurant; not just stress, but damn near mortal peril, and it’s wearing on him, grinding him down to dust bit by bit. Anyone in this situation would be…tetchy, to say the least, but Alex’s strain often manifests itself as pure, unbridled rage, simmering at the surface of his mind and burning red hot.
As one could imagine, this doesn’t exactly bode well for his cautious alliance with Jay.
They’re both under tremendous pressure. They’re both struggling, they both need each other’s help…
…but God, he pisses Alex off.
Sitting there with that empty, placid look on his face like he’s a million miles away, but still stone cold sober. Always fiddling with his camera and always asking once, twice, thrice to have what was just told to him explained again. The way he looks up at Alex with those big doe eyes that don’t know anything, that oblivious expression that reminds Alex of those days in high school where they’d sit behind the bleachers and gaze silently at each other, both of them too afraid to lean in and just—
Stop, stop, stop. Just stop it.
Alex huffs in annoyance, shaking his head as if shaking the thoughts out of his mind. He flops back onto his twin mattress, staring up at the plain white ceiling of his bedroom. This old house has been his only solace these past few weeks, his only place of safety; it’s almost odd being alone in it now, seeing as Jay’s been practically living with Alex as of late for his own safety and peace of mind. He’d shown up at Alex’s door in the dead of night, panting, terrified, and begging to spend the night.
How could he say no?
He, perhaps too eagerly, invited Jay in, assuring him that he could stay as long as he needed. It was a bad idea, he realizes now, to allow Jay of all people into his domicile. Despite his constant self affirmations that everything from high school was in the past, where it belonged, suddenly being so close with Jay ignited an old flame deep inside of him. It burned just hot enough to make his insides uncomfortably warm, bringing beads of sweat to his forehead whenever he stood next to Jay for too long. The heat made him irritable—sometimes it turned him into a downright nasty jerk, and today his barely contained rage had really bitten him in the ass.
He hardly remembers what even started the fight. The massive amount of stress both he and Jay are under certainly helped it along, yes, but the inciting incident completely escapes him. All he remembers is yelling—no, screaming at Jay, hurling insults at him for being stupid and useless, dragging his feet while Alex was trying his damndest to just not die. Why can’t he just get off his ass and do something?!
The outburst of anger was short lived, but intense. It was as if the years’ worth of animosity that had been slowly piling up, like grains of sand pooling in the bottom of an hourglass one by one, had come crashing down. Old wounds were torn open without warning, gushing crimson and shooting a furious agony through him. Suddenly, he was 17 years old again, wrestling with his feelings and failing to find the impossible balance between Jay and himself and calculus homework and inevitable realizations.
Suddenly, he was that angry teenage boy again.
He hates that boy. He’s always hated him. He hated himself then, and he hates the person he used to be now.
Alex groans in frustration at his own juvenile fury. He rubs his eyes as he huffs a heavy sigh, realizing how truly tired he is now that the anger isn’t pumping through his veins. The moment of him storming out of Jay’s house with one last glare over his shoulder replays over and over again in his mind, poking and prodding at his addled brain with spindly little needles of regret.
He lets his hands fall limp once again. He lies there, lying flat on his back and looking up at nothing, for at least a few minutes. He’s not really sure why; perhaps something in his subconscious is trying to gain his attention, but is only strong enough to paralyze him with apathy. He doesn’t have the energy to wonder about that sort of thing right now, or address the slowly rising revelation that he is a giant asshole.
He turns his head to the side, and lays there a few minutes more to debate his next course of action.
“…I should call Jay.”
The words are painful in his throat. He barely manages to push them out, but it takes just a sliver of the guilty weight off his chest. Not nearly enough, though.
He rolls his heavy body over to the opposite side, now facing towards his bedside table. He sucks in a deep breath, and it evacuates his chest lazily. The herculean task of reaching out and picking up his phone taunts him.
Then, as if by some divine miracle, the moment his fingers twitch to life, his phone pings.
He sits bolt upright, practically scrambling to grab the device off the bedside table.
Jay must be texting him to talk about what happened; maybe he’ll just apologize and they can brush past it, after all it’s not like this is the first time Alex has had an outburst like that, and really, weren’t both of them at fault for—?
…An unknown number?
Alex blinks a few times, staring down at the notification in confusion. It doesn’t even look like a real phone number, just a random jumble of digits trying its best to imitate one.
“What the hell…?”
The message is accompanied by no text. All he can see on his lock screen is the completely black thumbnail of a video.
An uncomfortable shiver snakes down his spine, sending a trembling through his hands as the light of the phone reflects on his glasses. He has to force himself to lift his thumb, to swipe up and then enter his password, although he can’t feel the tapping on the pad of his finger. He swallows hard, debating whether or not he really wants to open that message and bear witness to whatever the stranger who sent it wants him to see.
It isn’t the first time he’s received something like this. He’s had to completely abandon three of his social media accounts to stop the constant harassment, to get away from the endless indecipherable codes and messages that were keeping him up at night, urging him to do something, but not telling him what. The constant looming threat of unknown doom was driving him crazy. He thought it was over when there was finally radio silence over the past three days, but now he just feels stupid for thinking it would end that easily.
He swallows hard, his mouth suddenly dry.
With a great deal of effort he brings his trembling thumb down onto the screen, holding it against the bubble icon for a moment before pulling back again. Everything is happening agonizingly slow, and yet he’s not sure if he really wants to see what’s waiting for him on the other side of the message. The icon expands, and for a moment he’s staring back at himself in a black screen as the app boots up, his reflection looking back at him with a sullen terror.
The world goes silent as he clicks on the contact, the message list swiping to the side to reveal the object of his horrified ire in full:
The thumbnail of a video, completely black, save for the silhouette of the play button on top.
Does he really want to watch this?
On one hand, no. No he doesn’t. Not at all, actually. He’d rather delete the message and forget about it completely.
On the other hand, he feels like he has to. If he doesn’t, if he erases it forever, it’ll eat him alive. What if this is the missing piece? What if this is the last clue that finally makes him get it? What if this is the final step into making all of this stop?
He can’t risk it. He’ll never forgive himself. It’s worth having to brave the horror of whatever lies beyond the play button if it means there’s even a small chance that he could end all of this.
His thumb twitches. Then it comes down, and before he can fully realize what’s happening the video is playing.
This is it.
He sits back in his bed, gnawing the inside of his cheek with furrowed brows as he waits for something to happen.
What’ll it be this time, hm? A slow, panning shot of his house? The inside of his room, even? Or maybe an inspection of some stolen trinket that went missing from his bedside table days ago?
He can’t hear anything for a few seconds. He forces himself to turn the volume up, and as the slider slowly rises the muffled noise of…something becomes clear. The screen stays black, but he can hear the distinct sound of the camera being pushed around against fabric. He tilts his head in confusion, eyes scanning the screen with heavy scrutiny for any hint of what’s going on, but all he can see is black.
The sound starts to get louder, more clear, like whatever was muffling the microphone has finally been moved. He can make some sense of the noise, finally.
It sounds like someone…whining, sort of, maybe crying, but the voice is hard to make out.
It’s a man, or at least someone masculine. Is something covering his mouth?
What’s that noise?
Why is it…wet?
The floor is creaking…no, wait, not a floor. It’s…
…Wait.
Oh.
Oh god.
Oh my fucking god.
No.
No.
No, no, no—
Alex’s brain nearly explodes into bloody chunks inside his skull. His entire body stiffens as though bracing for pain, eyes widening in reaction to an impact that never comes, but he feels like it should, like the moment the vagabond in the train tunnel hears the horn and realizes it’s too late.
The unmistakable sound of sex.
He can nearly feel his mortal soul desperately evacuating his trembling body when the camera moves, and suddenly the screen lights up as it’s lifted from what Alex can now see is the messy sheets of a bed. The audio is clear now, and the filthy sounds of wet thrusting echo in his brain and make his head spin.
The stranger behind the camera is breathing heavily right next to the microphone. Alex can hear him lick his lips, and the sound makes him cringe. The stranger focuses in for a moment on the torso of the man below him, his shirt pushed up above his midriff to show his pale stomach. Fortunately, Alex is spared the sight of anything lower than that for now.
The true horror is the slow chill of the realization working its way up Alex’s body as the camera pans upward to the man’s face.
Holy shit…is that—
“Jay?!”