#the operator

not sure where the ref is from but its cool looking ;p

He was shook awake and he knew he was outside. He knew the feel of grass by now. He blinked slowly and looked up and there was a nurse, blonde and melting with a concerned expression, fire still raging behind them. But he blinked and it was Jay. Jay Merrick. Just Jay, looking at him with enough concern to make him melt. “I-” He shallows the dryness that sticks to his words, coughing into his fist some before retrying. “I'm fine, Jay. Sorry if I woke you.”

Jay shook his head. “It's ok.” He whispers as if there was anyone to wake other than them, laying carefully beside Tim. “why are you out here?”

Tim looked near their feet where the tent was, taking a moment before he looked at Jay, bonfire dying behind him. “uh- I don't know. Think I just…Fell asleep.” He mumbled. He'd been sat by the fire and just…got lost in a distant memory. Or was it a dream? Now he was trying to remember it there was a struggle, his best response static that was hard to focus on and the beginning of a headache.

Jay gave a soft hum. “Well, you should come inside the tent. It's probably better for you and it's definitely more comfortable.”

Tim watched the fire behind Jay for a moment. Jay gave him the time. Soon Tim gave a sort of grunt of agreeance and let Jay get up and help him up to, the soft hands in his own leading him to the tent the comfort he needed.

He missed them when he pulled away to finish off the fire but he knew they'd soon be back, clung onto his shirt like he was their saviour.

Maybe he was.

He could feel the disappointment from the trees at the end of the embers. He walked to the tent and found he didn't care. He wasn't that things monster anymore. Maybe he never was.

So why was it still grinning?

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This had been going, happening- on and off and he thinks it's been days. He's not sure. He keeps coming- in and out, in and out- sometimes in the mask, often not if there is a softness below him and he is in a room he is to believe is supposed to be his now. Or maybe the hands?

He doesn't like that. He needs the mask.

The hands that grip and feed and soothe don't understand this. He doesn't think so. Because they try to take it from him all the same. Even as they apologize for it-even as they try to explain. Even as they say they'll give it back or try reference a being he knows he belongs to but doesn't see. He can't quite focus on their face. It's all covered anyway.

He doesn't think it's their choice that it is.

There is this static whenever he awakens. Whenever he starts to fight once more. (He never stops. He has never stopped.) The longer he fights it gets stronger until it gets too much and the darkness is surrounding him once again. As if the source stops finding his yells amusing and gets tired of them- forcing him into silence until the source is in a state for the yells to be amusing once more.

He is on the floor. He knows that. For the first time-or maybe the second or third (he cannot remember anything and the more he thinks, he thinks he's much more an it than a he at all. He only knows otherwise because he swears he's heard the hands holding him down use he for him at some point, talking to the source, always just out of eyesight.)- he is starting to be able to think. Properly think. And the hands seem to know this. Seem to notice how the fighting doesn't become any less animalistic but becomes more confused.

“I know. I know.”

Has a voice been there this whole time?

The hands voice.

He knows it well.

But doesn't know why he knows it.

The hands do not know as they claim to. He knows. He knows he is on the floor. There are stairs (that's where the source stands. Watching. Waiting. Spectating.), not far off and for the first time, he’s realizing that he knows there is something under his head, stopping it from hitting the ground with the full force he was throwing it back at.

A headache was still already present.

People are staring- he can feel them. Even after he hears the hands bark something at the people. He doesn't know what. Does it matter?

He is tired. And slowly stopping his fight. He is losing.

But it's not the statics tired. It’s his own. And it doesn't feel as much like defeat as it should.

His head falls back on the hoodie- he thinks that what it is-but not the hands. So who's? And his breathing is heavy and quick, staring up at the ceiling with eyes that betray and do not really see.

The hands are still speaking.

“I know, I know.”

They say more. He doesn't know what and quite frankly doesn't care what. He has fought, he has done his purpose. But even as he has given up all of him is tense and he knows the hands know it, all of him is ready. Because he has not won. He is not safe.

He will never be safe.

But how does he know that? Who is he? Behind this white plastic that sits too low so he has to tilt his head some to see out of it. Behind eyes that wander and never see, Behind body large but failing him in his only true function. Who is he?

And why does he so often give into the hands when he becomes more lucid?

They hold him, so tight, knowingly, but they're so soft and the voice that accompanies them softens him to, even when he cannot understand it. But one of them has moved and he doesn't notice until it's on the edge of his mask. He hisses and jerks, enough to twist his upper body to the side, to face the front door up on his elbow, but not enough to escape the body sat on his legs, keeping him there.

He was stronger than the body, he knew. But he did not fighting it. And maybe…maybe he wasn't right now. Or maybe he just didn't want to fight this body despite its lies and betrayals.

“Hot…Tim…breathe..off”

Really, he knew the sentence.

‘It's hot and you're crying, Tim, you need to breathe, let me take it off.’

Something close enough to that and he knew but he still doesn't hear. He blinked, slow and tired, still panting like a dog in a desperate attempt for air he knows will never fill him quite enough. Maybe he was one.

Tim.

He knew that name, knew it belonged to him but it still wasn't him. Who was he?

Tim. But only if the hands said so.

His white face was wet and warm, feeling stifled, hot breath coming right back up at him and drifting into his eyes, making his blinking quicken a bit.

But it was safe.

When had he started crying?

The hands tried again. Softer. Slower.

He pushed and it worked in getting the body off his and he scrambled backwards, up on all fours and scrambling around the sofa to get to the corner of the room, where he could see hands, the body.

He knew it. That body, those hands, that mask, that voice.

Everlasting. Ever trying.

He could just feel something to the side of the body. Watching. Amused. Always so amused by his…antics. By his theatrics.

But Tim's focus wasn't on it. It could watch. (He could not stop it. He knew. He knew a lot.)

When the hands were here…his focus was always on them.

The body pushed off the floor where he had shoved it and the body, the hands, must've been laughed at because as it looked up at the amused being beside it, Tim swore he could see a glare even with the red frown hiding the body's true form.

The body came closer, slow and experimental, joined the room he was in.

“Tim.”

Brian.

He knew that was the body's name.

He didn't know when he was told it.

But he knew it.

He did not speak.

Brian didn't seem sure if he could.

He let him wonder. He didn't fully know himself. But he didn't try. The animalistic noises got his meaning across well enough, the bites attempted even through plastic that protected but stopped him. And Brian seemed to understand anyway.

He hated that.

He didn't reply fast enough it seemed, eyes digging into Brian. Finally unmoving.

“Tim.” A bit louder. A step closer.

A hiss.

Brian stopped.

There was a pain in Tim's chest. It wasn't real pain. He knew that. Not the body aching. Well, the body always seemed to ache but he knew the difference.

It was a pain he could not fix. A pain at seeing Brian stop. A pain at seeing Brian. A mourning.

Not even just for Brian. But he couldn't remember whatever or whoever else his body had decided to mourn…he didn't even fully know it was mourning. Not yet.

It burned and hurt and made everything seem so pointless but his fight persisted, always persisted.

“I know.”

Tim blinked. What was he saying it about now?

Then he realized he was howling.

Tears streamed down his face and his voice was betraying him, making a mixture of howls and whimpers instead of sobs and he pawed at the floor, crouched, but the pressure did nothing to stop the pain. Or the tears that made his face far too warm, that made his protection of cheap plastic that never seemed to break a regret.

He fell to his fours again and sobbed, howls coming out weak and pathetic and this was how it always ended- eventually. His body heaved as if he would be sick- like a dog trying to cough something up. But nothing came up. Just more howls that broke the hands that fed.

The static grew for a moment and it only made him howl louder but they were alone now, bar the creature watching. So he had no reason to quieten and wouldn't of anyway.

Everyone else had gone a bit after Tim had entered his corner. But it stayed. Watching. It didn't seem as amused by his howls.

Brian came closer, he thinks, because he's louder when he speaks again. “Tim. Tim, please. Darling.”

The name hurts more and he chokes, starting to cough.

“Tim please.”

He must know Tim has accepted, that he will not fight. Not anymore. Tim had never been able to deny Brian when it mattered. Or often times when it didn't.

The mask is off Tim after that beg and Tim is coughing, harsh but the pain still isn't any worse than the pain deep in him. He wishes it was. Wishes the coughs would consume and end him, put him down finally.

He coughs and coughs and blood is coming out, on the floor, on his hands, down his chin, dripping.

There's a hand on his back, rubbing and patting and there and he coughs.

He coughs until he falls, body giving out, on his side while breathing in harsh rasps in between coughs. His eyes are half lidded, body unable to cope with it all(failing him once again, always failing.) and he can see it’s legs. Long and there and watching. Unamused but joyful. Sick.

His breath is ragged as the coughing stops, long and slow like he's on his death bed.

The animal is still in him. He is still him. But it's too tired. Too tired to even bark. Knowing- knowing it's lost.

Not that it won't try again. Later. When he wakes up in the softness again.

The hand stays. On his back. Another to his hair. He doesn't know where his face- his comfort has gone. He doesn't bother to find out. He stares forward.

There is the voice again. Soft. Assuring. Promising. It must be so tired. He is.

It is humming softly, whispering comfort inbetween it. And Tim knows the song it is humming when not lying to him that things will be OK, that he will be there. But he is barely Tim. And utterly too much Tim.

He is a mutt.

He knows.

The legs that have now disappeared haven't even called it him yet. But he knew his place long before today.

Even if he cannot remember knowing.

He knows the hands know to.

He is a mutt.

He let's them think he is their mutt. (Even as they prefer other terms to mutt, even as they lie once again in futile hope to comfort.)

He let's them think their touch soothes his mind as much as it seems to soothe his body.

He barks for them instead of at them when they ask. He eats when their hands dare to get close to his mouth. He leans against them to sleep, soft yips coming out him as his dreams twist so they know to pet and soothe him again.

Maybe one day he will be their mutt. He knows he thought he was before. He knows a lot.

Maybe one day the pain in his chest will actually believe that they are back- that he is theirs once more.

Even if the other it stings for is still gone.

As he lays, eyes failing him once more, darkness consuming him-

He doesn't get his hopes up.

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