jaytaylors

[jaytaylors]

Because it just so happens, I’ve got my big brother with me.

[jaytaylors]

“Christ. Who asked?” Jay bit back, already on edge and therefore unable to keep it in to keep the peace—but he did step away from the button panel to let Max take over. It didn’t settle the panic rising in his chest to know that somebody on the other end of the call button knew they were trapped. Maybe some lazy maintenance worker wanted to take his lunch before heading over to deal with the issue, not caring about the people on the other end who were waiting for assistance. It wouldn’t be the first time Jay was left trapped for an extended period of time even when somebody knew the situation and could have helped…

Or maybe the elevator technician was on their way already, but coming in from an office an hour away, and it would take another hour to fix the problem and get them out. That was too long to be stuck anywhere, but especially with Max as his only companion. At least when he and Ernie had been caged…Jay closed his eyes, trying to ignore the four walls and imagine he was anywhere else, preferably outside. “Gee, Hollywood, sorry for panicking, ever consider there might be a reason I’m not a fan of small spaces? Not to blame present company,” he blamed, blamingly. He didn’t know if fighting with Max was helping his anxiety or distracting from the issue at hand, but it was frankly a little relieving to get some of this off his chest after years of holding it in. “I didn’t know calling for help was something you were capable of.”

There were few people who Max genuinely held a disliking for, but Jay Taylor was one of them. Truly, they'd simply gotten off on the wrong foot, almost literally. Stealing Max's new back-to-school shoes he'd gotten when his family had moved was the first offense, followed by continuous teasing of the Dennison siblings on their Halloween to remember. Since then, Max had literally taken every precaution to avoid the guy, including not letting him and his friend in on getting out of the cages the Sandersons had locked them in. He'd had better things to do, including saving the lives of all the children in New Salem, thank you very much.

Whenever they saw each other in public, Max simply looked the other way, and this was no exception. At least, he'd hoped it wouldn't be, until the elevator decided to quit working and leave them stranded between floors. Though he stood in the corner oof the space with his arms folded over his chest, Jay seemingly started to panic--pressing the buttons like that would actually solve anything. "Oh, my god, that's not gonna help," he finally snapped, unable to stand the noise of the clicking. Max stepped forward, all but slamming the emergency button. "Hey--hi? Hello? We're stuck in here, between floors, can we get some help?" He looked to the blonde, eyes wide with annoyance. "See? Maybe someone can actually do something now instead of giving us both a headache."

[jaytaylors]

@ohdeare

The day was going so well until everything went to shit. Unexpectedly faced with a life-altering revelation about his daughter’s true parentage—which wasn’t even something easy to digest, like that he wasn’t the father, but rather that her mother was someone he detested and feared above anything else—Jay had wasted no time in making a scene trying to get the witch to leave. It really killed the whole birthday party atmosphere, not that he entirely cared because there were deeper concerns in his mind now, but the idea that all the parents of Katie’s classmates and daycare friends now probably thought he was crazy wasn’t really a good thing either. He hoped this wouldn’t affect Katie’s preschool social life.

As everyone collected their goody bags and got out with haste, Jay noticed one guest lingering behind looking very much like he was waiting to console him for the way things had turned out, even without knowing the full story. Jay took a deep breath, held it for a moment and then let it out slowly, heading over to the couch with an unspoken expectation for Jim Jr. to follow. He hadn’t let Katie go this whole time, but she’d already gone from confused to sleepy after the party died out, and she was snuggling in for a nap. “Well…” Jay looked at the other man, lost for words. “I don’t think I can talk about it without making you think I’m insane.”

[jaytaylors]

@blondiesanderson

From being happy that Katie’s mom had actually showed up to one of her birthdays, to horrified when he was told who she truly was, the day (and the rest of Jay’s damn life) had taken a sharp turn. It was more than humiliating…it was traumatizing to realize that his daughter’s mother was none other than one of the witches who had tormented him on the worst night of his life—who would have killed him if the Dennisons and Allison and Binx hadn’t gotten to them first—and he had never once recognized her. There were some details of that Halloween night that were burned into his memory: the cramped iron cage and the cauldron bubbling below, the witches giggling and bickering, the blonde one spinning him around until he almost puked, and Ernie’s scared face across from him behind his own set of bars.

The faces of the witches themselves were blurrier. Maybe his brain had blocked them out so successfully, he was forced to reinvent them each time they crossed his mind, so they grew more and more hideous with each reimagining over the years, until almost a decade later he had gone ahead and hooked up with one of them without a single clue. He couldn’t understand how this Sarah was the same as the Sanderson sister, besides that she had always been kind of weird and quirky. Maybe there was a lesson in there to be learned about one night stands, because it was impossible to tell if you were sticking it in crazy, but Jay had never regretted it, because it brought Katie into his life. Katie. He wasted no time in rushing over to where she was playing with…their daughter…and scooped the little girl up, backing away from Sarah with an undisguised mixture of fear, disgust and loathing. “You need to leave,” he said, trying to sound firm despite shaking. “And never come back.”

[jaytaylors]

@liildenniison

“Glad you could make it,” Jay said, crowning Dani with a pink tiara since he’d missed her arrival in the past five or ten minutes. There was a lot going on for the host of a child’s birthday, as it turned out. But Sarah had also just gotten there, and despite her general lack of consistent parenting, she was at least trustworthy enough to look after and entertain Katie for a while, so Jay was free to converse with other adults for a few minutes at least. Not that he necessarily considered Dani a real adult yet—even at her big age of twenty-two, she might as well still have been the teenager he taught in high school. Mature enough, though, to babysit his daughter here and there when he couldn’t make other arrangements with the daycare or his parents, which was why he decided to point out Katie’s mother to her, as she was one who knew about his single parent lifestyle. “I’m surprised that Katie’s mom showed up,” he muttered as an aside to Dani, nodding towards where the blonde woman was dancing around with their daughter.

[jaytaylors]

@nctahousecat

Most of the guests at Katie’s birthday party were her peers from pre-school and daycare and their parents, but Jay needed some friends of his own around to survive the day of screaming three and four year olds. Binx was a breath of fresh air when he got a chance to talk to him. “I’ve never been so glad I didn’t go into early childhood education,” he mused, sipping on a juice box with a distant look in his eyes like he was pretending it was something stronger. “It’s one thing when it’s your own kid, you know?” He glanced over and corrected, “Guess you don’t know…Still not looking to settle down?” Jay assumed nothing had changed on that front (and he would have to understand why, knowing Binx’s curse) so he almost didn’t bother asking—but he was always curious whether anyone would ever come along to change the old cat’s mind or make him act up. After all, happy little accidents could come from any one-off hook-up, as Jay well knew.

[jaytaylors]

@candykeep

“Welcome, princess,” Jay greeted with a formal bow, offering a plastic tiara to Allison as she stepped into the house. His daughter had been very clear with her instructions as to how everyone was to be treated at her party. Everyone was a princess today, including Jay himself with the pigtails Katie had made him put his hair into. “Everyone’s out back,” he informed Allison, leading the way through the house decked out in sparkly streamers and balloons and into the backyard. Luckily, the weather was still just nice enough mid-autumn to get away with a half-outdoors party. He joked, “There is a bouncy castle, but it’s only for the kids, so don’t get any ideas.”

[jaytaylors]

@ccndlehced

A princess party was only fitting for Jay’s little girl, as spoiled as she was; she had him wrapped around her tiny finger and she knew it. Aside from the decorations, activities, cake and party favors, the most important part of the day was tying the whole theme together with a real life princess. Jay counted himself lucky that he’d been able to hire one at such a decent rate considering it was her first gig—but she showed up in a dress so she must have either invested heavily into this to make it a successful business venture, or else she was already rich and doing this as a hobby. Whatever the case may be, Jay was happy to see her arrive on time and in costume. “Katie is gonna love you,” he told Candice with a grin. “Do you have a special princess name or anything for when I introduce you?”

[jaytaylors]

@goblinboyluke

“Hey. You’re the bus driver, right?” Jay had noticed the other man skating when he entered the park and was almost certain he recognized him at a distance, but it wasn’t until they got closer that he knew for sure. Even then, he’d spent the next half hour strapping his daughter’s safety gear on and teaching her how to roller-skate before she wanted a snack break and they sat to watch the skateboarders, one of which being the red-haired driver. The man had only started doing their route about a month ago, and Jay knew they’d introduced themselves the first time he dropped Katie off, but he wasn’t really great at remembering names and Katie only shrugged when he asked her. “I always wondered where bus drivers hung out after work. I had my money on bingo halls.”

[jaytaylors]

@maxximillions

For two people who had lived in the same area for over ten years and had multiple mutual acquaintances to boot, Jay Taylor and Max Dennison had done a remarkable job of ignoring each other’s existence throughout that time. It was probably easier for both of them that way, and accomplished like this: whenever they were unfortunate enough to cross paths they gave no more than a slight nod of acknowledgment (because with their history, even one of those awkward white person smiles would have been too friendly.) They could have gotten away with it this time, too, even after accidentally stepping into the same elevator…if the elevator didn’t break down between floors. So much for getting an early start on Christmas shopping. He should have taken the damn stairs.

Jay couldn’t help feeling like the younger Dennison sibling would get a kick out of this situation. Dani had made her thoughts known on more than one occasion how stupid it was that the men still refused to speak to one another so long after everything—for that matter, Binx and Allison also agreed with the sentiment and were seemingly willing to mediate a clearing of the air that they had never been taken up on. Jay pressed the first floor button again, then the door open button once, twice, ten times. Nothing happened, besides an increasing sense of dread flooding his veins. He hated the feeling of being confined in a small space—even if there was enough room to stand and move around in the elevator, the fact that he had no idea how long they’d be stuck here had a funny way of making it feel like the walls were closing in on him.

[jaytaylors]

Yo. Witch. Get your face off my shoe!

[jaytaylors]

( x )

Name: Jay Taylor Nicknames: N/A Age: 27 Height: 6′1” Sexuality: Bisexual Occupation: Teacher

• Jay hasn’t always had a cushy—or morally upstanding—life. His parents’ sole source of income was a gig running the grounds-keeping service for the historical lighthouse on Winter Island on the eastern shore of Echo Isle. It could be tough to make ends meet, but Jay had a way of filling the gaps for himself (petty theft.)

• It’s hard to say exactly when or even whether he fell into the “bad crowd” friend-wise, or if his kindergarten buddies all naturally developed into teenage delinquents with him, but by high school they were notorious trouble-makers, engaging in vandalism, theft and bullying as their favorite pastimes.

• Jay had secretly always felt a little like he was putting on an exaggerated performance trying to impress his friends, especially Ernie, but he didn’t actually feel all that bad about the crimes (besides the stealing from small business owners) until something majorly changed his perspective.

• While he used to spend Halloween with his friends smashing pumpkins, toilet-papering houses and literally stealing candy from babies, that routine was disrupted one fateful year—the Halloween night that changed the course of his life. It was the year Max Dennison moved to town.

• After school that day, Jay and Ernie had run into Max in the cemetery and tried to shake him down for smokes or cash, but getting none of those from him they settled on his brand new Nikes. Later, they stopped him and his little sister for the candy toll while he was taking her trick-or-treating. Typical so far. Until about 3A.M. when a witch followed the scent of Dennison’s sneakers straight to Ernie’s feet.

• The boys had no way of knowing at the time that those witches weren’t just women in Sanderson costumes, but the three sisters themselves returned from the grave thanks to a virgin lighting the black flame candle. If they had known what would come of it, there’s no way Jay would have antagonized them, but he opened his big mouth and landed himself and his best friend in cages dangling from the witches’ cabin ceiling.

• They were tormented for hours by the promise of being cooked into a stew or chopped up for potion ingredients as the witches brewed something in a massive cauldron. At some point the witches left and came back with Dennison’s little sister, who they planned to suck the life force out of after feeding her their evil potion; Max came through to rescue her, but left Jay and Ernie hanging. Left them for dead, after he’d been the one to bring those witches back to life in the first place.

• That much would actually almost be forgivable in retrospect—he needed to make a quick getaway, seeing as Winnie seemed to have a personal vendetta against the little girl for calling her ugly. The witches soon took off in pursuit of the Dennisons rather than feasting on any of the other children they had within grasp, including Jay and Ernie in their cages.

• Except that Max had never come back after apparently dealing with the three witches, nor bothered to tell anybody that they were locked up there. It was only because they took turns screaming for help for hours, and by the grace of God that the Sanderson cabin wasn’t too far from town, that they were rescued the next day.

• Jay and Ernie changed their act right up after all of that. If almost being eaten by three evil witches on Halloween night wasn’t a “come to Jesus” moment, then nothing else would have scared them straight. It was impossible not to acknowledge and reflect on their own actions that had led to them being endangered that night, even if Jay privately still holds a grudge against Max Dennison for leaving them to rot. If they hadn’t been such jerks in the first place, they probably could have avoided that.

• He had vowed to himself that he’d be a better person if he managed to make it out of that cage alive, and he followed through. Jay stopped stealing, stopped breaking things that didn’t belong to him, and started paying attention in class.

• Most of his old friends didn’t understand why, because nobody believed his and Ernie’s tale of the Sanderson sisters coming back to life—everyone just assumed the boys were embarrassed to admit that they had locked themselves in those cages thinking it would be funny and lost the key, or else that they’d been tripping (even though the hardest drug they’d done was weed.) Jay quickly learned to keep that truth to himself.

• Ernie was the only person in the world he could talk to who knew and understood what they’d been through that night, sharing the trauma, but he moved away at some point to pursue a park ranger job all the way across the continent in Oregon. He didn’t want anyone to be lost and scared the way they were that night…Jay understood the motivation, but it hurt like hell all the same. He figured there were similar job openings closer to home, but Ernie wanted to get as far away from this place as possible, even if it meant leaving Jay behind.

• Jay was probably more than halfway in love with his best friend in the way all latent bisexuals experience during their coming of age, but in retrospect it seemed so obvious and natural as to not even need unpacking. Crazier things have happened, carry on.

• He became the first in his family to attend college, pursuing a degree in education as he wanted to make a difference in other kids’ lives, setting a good example as a reformed teen delinquent himself. He currently teaches civics and U.S. government classes in high school, but has higher aspirations of going into administration and even working up to becoming a principal.

• One of his first years teaching, Dani Dennison was actually in one of his classes. She had of course forgiven him for the candy-stealing incident in years past (he never made up with Max, however) and he found her acidic wit to be one of the most entertaining parts of that class period.

• When he was twenty-five his daughter Katie was born and she instantly became the light of his life. She’s only two now, but treated like a little princess, getting anything she wants from her dad even though being a single parent means his time is split between childcare and earning a living. He also took over care of the lighthouse from his own aging parents, taking Katie up to Winter Island on weekends for swimming, fishing and boating.

• The only thing he doesn’t indulge in is celebrating Halloween, but she’s still too young to know what that is or question why daddy locks all the doors and draws all the blinds one day a year. She’ll notice his paranoia eventually, but Jay doesn’t plan on telling Katie exactly where it comes from.