JayTimSpooktober - Cryptids
“I don’t get it.”
“It’s a shadow,” Tim explained patiently.
Jason rolled his eyes. “Yes, I can see that, thank you. Why are you pointing a camera at it?”
“It might move.”
“It hasn’t done shit during the week you set up surveillance, but it will move now that we’re here with an entire crew and your camcorder, staring at it?”
“Maybe it’s into that.”
“Did you just imply that this Shadow… person… is kinky?”
Tim smirked. “You went there, not me.”
In a flash, Jason was up and walking toward the end of the small alley.
“Hey, Shadow Person!” he called out. “I’m getting a bit bored here. Wanna get kinky with your shadow tentacles?”
Tim groaned. “Jason…”
“Not even some shadow theatre?” Jason asked. “Everyone can do a dog and a tree. C’mon. Gimme something, I’m dying of boredom.”
Tim jumped up, something like genuine fear on his face. “Jason! I told you to stop provoking them, what if—“
Jason scoffed. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
“People disappeared, Jason! We don’t know the answer to that, but it’s nothing good.” Coming to a stop next to Jason, Tim shivered. “Whoa. That’s quite the cold spot.”
“The freezer from the restaurant on the other side of the wall, you mean.”
“That would send out heat, not cold,” Tim shot back.
With a sigh, Jason slid off his jacket and draped it around the shorter man’s shoulders. “Sure. It’s totally a cold spot.” A wink at the camera. “Nothing else it could be. That’s why I’m fine with my shirt. Nothing to do with you being a total bean.”
Tim glared at him, but when they went back to their observational posts, he snuggled into the jacket all the same. “What’s got you so riled up about this one?” he asked.
Jason ran a hand through his hair. Shrugged. “Dunno. I just don’t get why this particular alley is any scarier then thousands of others in Gotham.”
“A kid is supposed to have died here.”
“Again—how’s that different from the rest of Gotham?”
“You know as well as I do that violence leaves a mark.”
Okay, Jason couldn’t argue with that, so he tried a different tack. “Even if this—this Shadow person exists—and that’s a huge if—what’s the big deal? I always wonder about that.”
Tim raised an eyebrow. “You wonder what’s the big deal about a Shadow Person that snatches those that walk by?”
“Yeah! That’s just your ordinary vigilante. Or, like, take the Yeti. What’s so cool about a hairy dude in the mountains eating tourists? At worst, that’s a serial killer. Nothing interesting about these dudes.”
“We have no actual evidence they eat people.”
“We have no actual evidence they exist, Tim.”
“We do!” Tim’s cheeks flushed, as always when he got into his area of specialty. “What else do you call the Indian army tweeting about it? And there was that one picture—“
Jason leaned back, the small smile on his face hidden from the camera, as Tim rambled on and on and on, only stopping when the sun finally rose.
After, when the crew had left and it was just the two of them debriefing, Jason said: “That was a nice touch, don’t you think? Nothing to talk about, no monster to speak of, so let’s bring up the Yeti.”
“I know you play it up the cameras, Jay,” Tim told him. “And the viewers love it. But deep down, I think you know I’m onto something here.”
“Keep telling yourself that, Drake.” Jason shifted uncomfortably. Something in Tim’s blue eyes was disconcerting.
“Oh, you can keep denying all you want, but I’ll have you admit it eventually.”
Jason couldn’t help but grin. “You’ll just have to convince me.”
Tim leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his cheek. Then, while Jason gaped at him, stunned, he ran, hastily calling out: “LookingForwardToIt—byeee!”
Jason stared after him. His cheek burned when he lifted a hand to touch it. That was—did that mean—
…it meant he was acting like a schoolgirl in the fourteenth episode of an anime, that’s what it meant. He turned to the shadows. “Not a word.”
The darkness stayed silent. Good for it.
“Now, you seem to be new, so I’m cutting you some slack. This is my city. If you wanna feast on those who harm others, be my guest. I’m not gonna complain if some would-be rapists were to, say, vanish from the corner of Johnson and Third. But if you touch anyone innocent—or anyone that is mine—I will find you, and I will burn out what little is left of your miserable little existence. Understood?”
Jason let his eyes turn green just a little bit, a mere hint of what it was dealing with. It was enough for the shadow to shrink.
Jason nodded, satisfied. “Good night. Let’s not do this again.”
As he walked away, secure in the knowledge that nothing and no-one would block his path, he considered today’s filming. Tim was right—the people loved their banter. Team Sceptic vs. Team Believer and all that. Jason had seen shirts. Today’s subject would be fresh and exciting enough to keep the discussion going.
A Shade. Who knew. You’d think Gotham would be full of them, but this was actually the first one Jason had come across.
That was the thing with cryptids, though. Hard to predict which ones were real and which one only existed in the collective mind of an internet forum. And sometimes, the lines between those blurred. Just ask the Slenderman. Guy was a bit of a dick, though, so Jason didn’t exactly feel sorry for him.
He actually had no idea about the Yeti or the Chupacabra. The only reason Jason knew that Mothman was real was that he’d accidentally ran into him on a road trip once. Like called to like, and all that. The Lizard Man of Swamp Ore was, sadly, either a myth or very shy. Jason had spent enough time with Tim in that miserable tent to know.
Or maybe, the Lizard Man had just been afraid of him. It didn’t matter.
What mattered that Tim—sweet, curious, sharp-tongued Tim, the boy that Jason had met ten feet away from a vampire nest and had offered to start a show with just to stop him from entering—was safe. Would be safe, as long as Jason was by his side. The funny internet discussions were just a bonus.
