Ding!
Jay groaned and opened his eyes halfway at the sound of the text alert on his cellphone. Unlocking the screen, he glanced at the time. Who would be texting me at three in the morning… He answered his own thoughts by checking the text. It was from Alex. Only two words were on the screen beneath his contact name: HELP ME.
That woke him up instantly. "Help me," he repeated after reading the text over a few times. Jay reached over to turn on the lamp that sat on the bedside table, squinting for a moment at the initial flash of amber light before turning his attention back to his phone. 'Where are you?' he quickly typed out, sending the text and moving to sit on the edge of his bed, tapping his foot impatiently as he waited to see if Alex would even respond. After somewhere around fifteen minutes with no reply, he sent the text again and waited another ten minutes before standing up.
What if waiting this long to find him was too long? What if he's—Jay cut his thoughts off by shaking his head and rubbing his eyes to rid them of the bleary sleepiness. He looked down at himself and for once was glad that he had fallen asleep in his clothes from the day before. As quickly as he could manage, he threw on his jacket and located his keys. He honestly had no idea where Alex could be, but he figured searching around Rosswood would be his best bet.
On his way out the door he grabbed his camcorder and tested to be sure that it was working. At that point it was mostly force of habit to carry it with him, so grabbing the familiar object was practically second nature to him. Once he got into his car he reached over onto the dash to retrieve his hat, positioning it on his head before setting his camera up on the dash and starting the car to drive off toward the all-too-familiar park.
Meanwhile, Alex, signature blue striped sweatshirt torn and bloodstained and halfway on, was slumped against a tree trunk in a part of the woods that he honestly couldn't say that he knew. He did not expect Jay to be up, or to even want to come find him since he had made it clear that he wanted nothing to do with Jay finding him before. He wasn't even quite sure what injuries he had sustained, but he did know that he had lost his glasses at some point due to the fact that his vision was blurred. That could possibly have been assisted by the blood in his eyes that he had no interest in actually wiping off regardless of the stinging it caused.
His eyes scanned his surroundings, but he didn't bother moving his head, and honestly was not thinking about the fact that he couldn't see anyway so trying to see where he was happened to be pointless. Sighing, he returned his attention to his phone, which he had dropped on the ground next to him. He wondered if he should try texting Jay again, or see if he replied at all, but his arms didn't want to move so picking the phone up was also pointless to try.
A twig snapped somewhere behind him and he tried to turn his head toward the noise but a sharp pain in the back of his skull stopped him. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse of a bit of light in the pitch black of the forest. Either the cloud cover had allowed the moonlight through in a strange pattern, or that was a flashlight beam. Jay? Before he could attempt to call out for help, Alex looked around and noticed that he was now in an enclosed space, somewhere completely different than the treed area he had been in before. Shit.
"Alex! Where are you!?" Camera in one hand and flashlight in the other, Jay fought his way through bushes and fallen tree limbs. As he approached the tree that the other had previously been leaning against, a cellphone in the dirt chimed to signal that the battery was low. He crouched and set his flashlight down to sift around in the leaves until he found the phone. A moment of inspection told him that it was Alex's phone, so he had to have been there at some point.
Rising to his feet again and pocketing the phone, he almost forgot to pick up his flashlight again. Upon looking around and realizing that it was too dark to see, he remembered the item and leaned down to scoop it up into his hand again. Better keep looking…
A finger tapped on the concrete floor as Alex waited to see if the other would be able to find him again. He had last time but that wasn't good enough, apparently, since now he was in a completely different place. A chill tore through him and he winced and closed his eyes against the throbbing in his head. The chill definitely hadn't helped at all. In fact the motion had made his head hurt worse and he was then fully aware of how cold he was. Well, there was the sound of footsteps again. Maybe this time he would stay in place instead of being whisked away in the blink of an eye to a completely different location. Fitting, though, that this building was where he had ended up.
A beam of light was pointed directly into his face and he flinched at the added stinging to his eyes. Keeping his eyes closed hardly helped with filtering out the light, but suddenly he was aware of someone next to him and the light was gone. Alex made a soft noise of protest when a hand prodded at his shoulder gently and he forced his eyes open. It was Jay after all. A relieved sigh escaped him, but regardless of the intent it sounded more pathetic than anything and he scowled at the noise he had made.
Jay set his camera down and switched his flashlight over to his left hand, the right gently reaching toward him to move Alex's hair out of his face. Alex flinched again at the contact, and he wanted to push Jay's hand away because being touched hurt, but he couldn't find the strength to lift his arm anyway so the most he did was huff in an unimpressed manner.
When he saw the gash across the other's forehead, Jay gasped and shook his head slightly. "What happened to you?" he breathed out worriedly, scanning the other's body with the flashlight and taking note of the bloodstains on his clothes. He knew that Alex was prone to injuries that he didn't remember getting but he honestly hoped that he knew this time. He had to know how much time he had.
The light passing across his face again made the injured man flinch yet again and he managed the slightest, nearly unnoticeable shrug. "You tell me," he replied with a half-hearted scoff. Did Jay really expect him to know everything? It would make sense for him to know how he got hurt though, so he had to give credit where credit was due. "I don't know."
Sighing, the cameraman shined his flashlight on the gash on Alex's head again, much to the other's displeasure. He hissed and closed his eyes yet again, but Jay hardly noticed the negative reaction. He set his flashlight down for long enough to shrug off his jacket and felt around for the seams. He really didn't want to have to pull apart his sweatshirt, but he also did not possess any sort of medical supplies, so it was the best he could do. It took him longer than he would have liked to tear a strip of fabric off of the jacket. A thought crossed his mind about why it can't be as easy as it is in movies to tear apart clothing to use as bandages.
Once he actually managed to separate a strip of the fabric, he angled the flashlight so he could see what he was doing without having to hold it. As gently as he could, he used one hand to move Alex's head away from the wall slightly. The other was about to protest to that but the intense pain it caused in his head cut off anything he was about to say, replacing it with a helpless whimper that he hated. Jay wrapped the strip of fabric around his head, the widest part pressed firmly to the gash on Alex's forehead while he tied it off behind his head. The pain was unbearable, but all he could do was grit his teeth and try to ignore what Jay was doing.
Once the makeshift bandage was in place, he gently let go and allowed the other's head to rest against the wall again.
"Why couldn't you just… ignore the. The text and leave me to die?" Alex snapped, but all the edge was taken off of his words by the fact that he could hardly manage to form them in the first place, and his tone was a lot softer than he would have liked.
Jay shook his head at him, leaving his camera and flashlight where they were and sitting next to Alex against the wall. "Why would I do that? Are there more injuries?"
"Jay, come on. Why bother? I'm gonna die anyway." It was getting more difficult to keep his eyes open. After a moment's consideration, he leaned over to rest his aching head against Jay's shoulder. "You're stupid."
The soft whine behind the insult made Jay chuckle softly, and the dying man pouted pathetically. "Don' laugh at me."
"I'm not laughing at you," he argued, only just realizing that Alex had leaned on him. He supposed that was only because he was weak, so he didn't really think much of it aside from the initial surprise. "Are there any other injuries?" he repeated, speaking softly in case Alex had a headache.
"Yeah." The single word was spoken softly, and no further explanation was given.
He reached out to grab what remained of his jacket, carefully placing it around Alex to try to make him more comfortable. It was really cold out, after all, and couldn't be later than maybe five in the morning. There was a faint glow over on the horizon, but of course they couldn't see that from the building they were in. Jay didn't care what time it was though. The only thing on his mind was the fact that Alex was most likely dying and there was nothing he could do to prevent that in time.
"Jay?"
The strained whisper caught his attention instantly, since it was so much different than the way he had been talking just a minute ago. "I'm here, Alex. What is it?"
"Don't you dare leave." Alex was looking up at him, eyes open wide and a strange brightness in them that made no sense to the current situation.
The expression threw him off, almost sending a shiver up his spine from how strange it was. Jay nodded and shifted to face Alex, but not jostling his head around too much. One hand held the torn jacket in place as he carefully wrapped his arms around Alex and pulled him into a hopefully calming embrace. "I'm not going anywhere."
Closing his eyes once more, Alex whispered a nearly inaudible "thank you" and allowed himself to relax against the other.
He situated himself so that he could lean against the wall again, Alex held protectively against his chest. "You'll be okay."
"Liar." There was no strength behind the response, and it was hardly loud enough for Jay's ears to pick up. Still, the warmth was welcome and the other being close had its desired affect of comforting him.
He really had no response to that, since it was clear that Alex would not be okay, so the accusation was true. He shifted his hold on him so he was a bit closer and maybe the warmth would be enough to keep him calm.
Alex's breathing was reduced to shallow breaths that obviously did not hold enough oxygen to sustain life for long. Both of them were silent, Jay keeping Alex held against him in an effort to keep him calm while the inevitable outcome took its course. It was only a few more minutes before the slight movement that told Jay that the other was breathing ceased. He didn't dare check for a pulse; it was too soon for that type of closure. He stayed like that while the clouds cleared and the sun rose in the West, birds singing as they did every day and the morning bright and cheerful, as if the world was oblivious to the tragedy that had taken place. Jay couldn't leave. He promised Alex that he would stay, and stay is what he planned to do.