I'm sorry it's been so long. Since going back to school, I've been struggling with a whole range of issues, and basically let everything slip... I hope you all understand why I was gone for so long, and I'll again offer my sincerest apologies.

This also took a while because I was really torn with what the content of this chapter should be, too. I think I finally settled on something good enough, and now I can't wait to write up Chapter 7 - I've known all along what's going to be in that one, which is why 6 was so difficult!

Without further ado... The hardest chapter of Antiques I've written so far.

"An auction house?"

"Yes," Lorna says impatiently, "that was what I said, wasn't it? Dumbass. Do you wanna come or not?"

"Is this all okay with Dot?" Tim asks hesitantly. Although he thinks it would be kind of cool to go to the big ol' posh place where they sell ancient pieces of furniture and quirky brass thingies, he doesn't want to cause any trouble. Mostly because he needs the job. (Partly because he doesn't want to upset an old lady by letting her down.)

"She was the one who told me I should bring you two."

"Jay's coming as well?"

Lorna pinches the bridge of her nose, annoyance flashing behind her eyes, and Tim gets the hint. "Yeah," he says quickly, "I'm up for it. When is it?"

When they pull up to the place, Lorna and Tim sharply inhale.

"Christ," she mutters.

'Christ' is about right, Tim thinks - it's a mansion. There's no other way to explain it. The place has turrets, for crying out loud. They've spent five minutes traversing the driveway, and ahead of them lay row upon row of cars. Hopeful buyers were queued up, waiting to enter a room at the side of the house, but even the ten foot high ornate door can only let so many people through at once. Lotley House is absolutely enormous.

And the three of them are stuck in a queue to park.

How big was this auction exactly? Should they have dressed up a bit more? Tim looks down at his checkered shirt dubiously, and suddenly feels very untidy.

"You look fine, dumbass, stop worrying," Lorna said automatically. "Some of those other people are even worse, look."

"Well, hell. Thanks, Lorna, I feel so much better about my life."

"Don't be so dramatic..."

Tim turns to Jay, who hasn't said a word yet, to find him staring out of the backseat window with a look of awe. For a few seconds, Jay doesn't notice him staring, but Tim catches his attention moments later.

He looks up sheepishly. "Sorry," he mumbles. "Just looking."

Tim makes a dismissive noise that sounds sort of like 'pfft'. "Don't worry about it," he says. "I'm looking too. It's, uh..."

"Big," Jay supplies helpfully.

"...Yeah, that'll do."

After parking up the car (and wading through mud, churned up by the traffic on the grass), Lorna drags both of them inside. "C'mon," she says, "I've gotta observe all of this. Dot is gonna kill me if I don't learn something useful."

The hall that opens up after gigantic ornate door is just as colossal as Tim was expecting; a thousand footsteps mingle in the air with the excited chatter. There's a stage, if you could call it a stage - it's more of an extra, walless room, elevated by just a couple of inches. A podium stands, smart and alert, in the centre of the stage.

They take three seats towards the back of the hall. None of them are going to bid on anything, so it's not too important for them to be near to the front - Jay fiddles nervously with a plastic case for a few seconds, and then, taking out an object wrapped in a white cloth, he carefully disentangles it and slides a pair of glasses onto the bridge of his nose.

Tim tries very hard not to stare, because he didn't know Jay even wore glasses, and... Wow. Instead, he allows himself to throw glances towards him every couple of minutes.

The hall piles up as the auction begins; a cutlery collection, a faded dinner service, a piece of memorabilia from the 60s that Tim considers far too overpriced for what is essentially a painted plate. Lorna is beside him, scribbling tiny letters and numbers into a spiral-ring notebook. Jay is on her other side, peering over the frames of those goddamn glasses, and the auctioneer is speaking too fast, far too loudly, and the back of his neck has gone all prickly, and his surroundings feel too hot, even though it's just about sweater weather now.

Tim stands up unsteadily, and heads straight for the door leading to the restrooms.

It's methodical in a way he rarely gets to be - he doesn't get like this at home a whole lot, but when he does, it's step-by-step in nature. Take a pill. Splash your face. Lean against the wall until you no longer feel as though you're made of TV snow.

So that's what he does. With twitching hands, Tim manages to pry the cap off his bottle of pills. He swallows two capsules, narrowly avoiding throwing the entire bottle over the floor, and holds his burning hands underneath the cold tap until he can't feel them anymore. His fingers are still jerking slightly, but he holds them to either side of his neck, resting over lines that track over his pulse. The restrooms are cool and quiet, where his own body and mind are not.

Tim closes his eyes, willing the sensations to go away, and splashes his face clumsily.

Water is still dripping from his face when Jay enters; from his position of leaning over the basin of the sink, Tim peers up through blurry eyelashes. Jay timidly murmurs 'hey', at the same time as Tim spits 'what?!', which prompts Jay's raised hand of greeting to drop as he says 'oh', and as Tim says 'sorry'.

Tim stays silent and stares down at the bottom of the sink.

"You need any help?" Jay whispers.

Tim is really thankful for a lot of things right now: that Jay is being so quiet, because the sensitivity of his hearing is suddenly through the roof; that Jay didn't ask if he was okay, because it would have been a stupid question; that Jay is keeping his distance, because he knows that in this state he might suddenly twitch violently, which usually ends in him catching Brian in the eye with a stray elbow.

Brian isn't here right now. Jay is.

"I think I just have to wait it out," Tim mutters back. It's mostly because saying 'I'm fine' would be more obviously false than usual.

Jay breathes out a word that sounds suspiciously like 'okay'. Despite their presently untidy conversation, there's no denying the message that Jay sends when he leans against the edge of the restroom counter and plays with the sleeve of his jacket: Jay is going to wait it out with him.

"You don't have to stay."

"I want to," Jay says. It sounds honest enough.

"What about Lorna...?"

A shrug. "She didn't even notice you'd left... She's, um, she's really invested in all of that old stuff."

"And you?"

"Huh?"

"Don't you want to go back?" Tim asks him.

Jay smiles, looking down at his sleeve. It's beginning to fray from constant picking. "There aren't any books," he whispers, still smiling. It's a really crappy attempt at a joke, but Tim is cheered up enough by it that he wipes his face on his shirt and leans back against the counter, too.

"I don't get it," he says, before he realises that he's saying it out loud. Jay doesn't question the statement, so he continues: "I don't get how I don't hate you. It's easier, y'know, when people hate you back, so I just hate them first and they don't bother... But you don't, and I don't, and I don't know why. Argh," he finishes, running his stupid agitated hands through damp hair, "sorry. I'm not making sense."

Jay shrugs again, like it doesn't matter. "If you want to explain it, you can. I'll listen. But don't feel like you have to if it's something you wanna keep to yourself."

He sounds so tired - weary, almost, like he's seen too much. But then Jay stares at a spot just above the cubicle doors, and he smiles, and Tim is reminded that Jay's only a couple of years younger than him.

He doesn't know what else to say. It's probably just as well. His mouth doesn't work so well during these episodes.