Tyed - Chapter 19: Chapter 19

Tyler spends some amount of time lying on Colby's stomach after that, drawing circles on the skin of his stomach. He doesn't have a lot going on in his brain right now, and it takes some time before mental processes start ticking again. Images of fire in a forest are in his mind, but he couldn't really say why. He was just enjoying being brainless for a while, focusing on sucking dick and literally nothing else. He can sense that Colby probably wants to move, but he's tolerating Tyler's silent relaxation for now. When that processes properly, Tyler sits up, looking into Colby's yellow eyes and being unable to read a damn thing.
"Sorry," Tyler says softly, and that's when Colby smiles, leaning to kiss Tyler gently. Tyler melts into the kiss and almost loses his brain in it again.
"Don't be sorry at all," Colby says quietly. "How do you feel?"
"Fine. Good. My brain's not doing it right now but I'm emotionally okay." Tyler looks down, unable to meet Colby's eyes properly all of a sudden. "I'm sorry I'm a mess."
"Don't get into that again. You've got nothing to be sorry for." Are they cuddling? Tyler doesn't know. He sits up, wondering where the hell he's supposed to go from here. "What do you feel up to doing?"
"You wanted to go out for dinner, right? I think I can do that. Just don't make me talk to anyone or whatever, I think." Tyler rises to his feet, surprised by how clear he's talking. "I mean, if you want, but-"
"I wasn't going to." Colby sits up too on the other side of the bed. He comes around to Tyler's side and gently takes Tyler's face in his hands, and Tyler's about to lose himself again. "You're a little too worried, doll."
And Tyler does lose himself just a little bit, melting into Colby's touch. But not too much. He can't lose himself too much.
This whole relationship is so weird, Tyler thinks. He's been in love before, or so he'd say at least- it's difficult for him to know what love is- and he's not sure that he's necessarily falling in love, not this fast. But he has a need for Colby that he can't express and can't explain, a need dug deep into him that's so strange to see and yet so easy to follow.
How simple it is, to be deceived without knowing it. Tyler didn't think about it much, but if you asked him where he wanted to be he never would've said here, sitting up at staring into the eyes of a man he had been calling Master, who was his mother's age, who'd changed his life in a matter of days. A week ago Tyler had no idea who he was, and that's scary to think.
They get dressed again and this time, when they're on their way to the restaurant Tyler's feeling more than a bit better. "Thank you," he says, somewhat still in the mindset of submissive; it's much more comfortable being here, although it's almost like a drug and he wouldn't want to be here all the time. "Thank you for being considerate of me."
"Of course, doll." Every time he says that, though, it reinforces Tyler's feelings. "Why wouldn't I?"
"Dunno. People are shitty. I mean usually I don't even tell people when I feel like that," so Colby is special and Tyler still low-key hates how vulnerable that makes him, "and sometimes they don't get it or its at least annoying them and I just, I don't know."
"I mean, of course I don't get it. It's never happened to me. But I care about you, so..."
It's weird. Tyler's not sure how many people who've said those words to him were lying, and at least half of them were; but he feels those words differently, and he's not sure if it's because he desperately wants to believe Colby means them or because of something else. He doesn't think about it too much.
"I don't know. To be honest, I..." Tyler doesn't want to finish that sentence. As soon as he starts it it's a bad idea, and he goes to cut it short but it's too late.
"What, Tyler?" Colby asks, gently, and Tyler closes his eyes. He's scared he's being too open. What happens when he loses this?
He's lost a lot, and he doesn't want to lose anything more. "I was going to say something, but it's stupid."
"Well, I want to hear it."
The silence presses Tyler to talk. He's lost a lot, but he was always fine when he came out the other side. "I was going to say that it seems pretty unfair, doesn't it? You're giving me much more than I'm giving you."
"Many people would disagree with that," Colby says after a moment of careful thought. "I think I would. I mean, I'm definitely the sleazy one here."
That makes Tyler laugh. "Alright, except no. I like you." He likes this, he really likes this. "Nothing about any of this is sleazy."
And Colby shrugs. "Does it matter what's real or does it matter what everyone thinks?"
Tyler wants to say that what's real is what matters more, but then again, he's been crafting a fake narrative around himself for years and it's vitally important that everyone keeps believing it for as long as possible. Colby's ripped some of it down, mostly by chance, but Tyler clings tightly to the most important lies; mainly because Colby seeing the truth could ruin everything, could tear everything apart. The whole truth would ruin Tyler in Colby's eyes.
It would only take one of his many secrets to destroy everything they've built. Tyler's surprised Darkfilly Copse didn't do it, but if that didn't something else would.
"All that matters to me about you is what's true," is how Tyler eventually answers. He wants to say Colby's a good person, but he hasn't even known him a week, and people have lied about themselves before.
Tyler wishes he was brainless again. It was so much easier not thinking about his failures and how he was going to end up alone because nobody could love him if they knew who he truly was.
They eventually arrive at a different place than before. Tyler, usually at least a little opinionated, finds he doesn't give half a shit where they're going. He trusts Colby to make a decision that he's at least happy with, and again he wonders how he died and got replaced with someone else without him noticing.
He leans into the loss of control, taking a deep breath. He just doesn't ask where they're going, and it feels stupid to count that as a loss of control, leaning into submission, but it feels like one. Little things like that can add up, though, and with this collar around his neck and asking no questions of Colby, he feels it. He feels how this is different, and he does nothing to change it.
He comes up to Colby's side and laces his arm through it. Colby briefly smiles at him before leading him towards a door in amongst the buildings shoved together in this street. "I hope this is okay," Colby says with a brief look towards Tyler, testing the waters; Tyler smiles up at him.
"Anything is fine," Tyler says, and he means it true enough.
They walk in and Colby leads Tyler up a flight of stairs immediately. The stairs are a dark, polished wood, thin enough that Tyler has to let go of Colby's arm and walk behind him. It's the kind of old building that's been kept refurbished over the years, kept new. The path takes them up into an area upstairs with a sharp turn, into a relatively small, largely candlelit room overlooking the street, with a few tables and chairs in the room itself, mostly empty. Tyler doesn't get too long to look at it before someone comes up to them, a waitress in an all-black suit. "Table for two?"
She spares a glance towards Tyler, but directly addresses Colby when she talks. Again, something Tyler's not used to- usually he's seen as the dominant partner, even with men- but it's not like he expected it to be any different.
They're lead to a table on the balcony, and as the sun is setting it lights up the place with pink and gold light; there's ivy on the side of the building that glints a dark green, and it grows over the pale yellow stone like Tyler always imagined in Romeo and Juliet, and if Tyler was one for romantic bullshit he'd think this was beautiful. Is he one for romantic bullshit? The most romantic thing he's ever done is set fire to a horrible father's shed. He wouldn't really know.
Regardless, he takes a seat across from Colby and smiles gently at the waitress as she gives them menus and leaves. He pours himself and Colby both a glass of water and leans on his elbows, looking at Colby.
"Is anything still wrong? It's difficult to tell for me if this is normal for you or not," Colby says, and Tyler twists his lip, cursing how straightforward Colby is sometimes.
"I feel perfectly fine," Tyler admits, not sure himself what's changed. "I mean... I'm still getting used to this. I just spent quite a long time being... I don't know, calling you Master and all that shit."
"Submissive," Colby fills in the blank of the word, which Tyler knew but didn't really want to say. "Is it so strange?"
"No, and that's what's so weird," Tyler admits, sinking down into his hands. "I don't know. I've never felt anything like this and I've dated a lot of people."
"Aww, you're saying I'm special?" Colby's teasing but he's also right and it's annoying. "Did you fall in love with me so fast?"
"Shut up, no," Tyler mutters, knowing it's all said in good fun, but Tyler can only say he's been in love once before and he doesn't want to compare Colby to that person because of so many reasons. One is that he's scared he'll find similarities, but more than that, he doesn't want to continue comparing the two of them. Tyler's never going to get his first love back, and he's considering himself moved on, but he's scared he'll un-move himself on if he starts to fall for someone who happens to share some similarities.
And okay, the similarities might be there. Tyler's the one who's been lead both times, and superficially both are redheads, but that's not a whole lot to go off of, not yet. But Tyler hates himself for seeing it even for a second.
Colby takes a moment, blinking at Tyler in the soft light. "I'm sorry," he says after a moment, and Tyler furrows his brow at him, unsure why he's apologising until he explains. "That wasn't a great thing to say. We've known each other less than a week."
"It's not that," Tyler mutters, unsure of when he should bring this up. It was a few years ago, so it really shouldn't be a big deal, but it had a huge effect on Tyler- probably not as much as his father did, and it's something that doesn't make him look as bad as the whole mess with Sandys and the other bad shit he did, but it's still more high-maintenance sadness that Colby probably doesn't want to deal with. Tyler laughs at the thought of dumping that on him now. "No, I've been dramatic enough tonight."
Colby's eyes narrow slightly, and something or other clicks in his mind. "Alright. Then tell me something about yourself I don't already know." He may've figured out that Tyler was avoiding telling him about his past again, or he may've gotten lucky. It was difficult to tell.
"I'm very good at math." Tyler's past is all tangled up in bad news after bad news for potential partners; that's why he doesn't do this kind of stuff, at least not for very long. "I've never had any pets, but I want them. I don't know if I want kids, but if I have them they'll sure as hell be adopted."
Tyler cringes at himself for that last bit, for several reasons. He said it only because it felt like a logical continuation of a thought about pets, but he didn't think about the fact that, for one, he's saying this to a guy he's been dating for less than a week. He also didn't think about the fact that Colby had a son. Had.
But Colby doesn't seem to react too much to that. His expression is carefully guarded and curated, keeping his thoughts to himself for now. "I suppose that makes sense," Colby says, and while he doesn't know the biggest secret Tyler's keeping from him, the real reason why, having had an abusive father might be enough to justify it. It was true that Tyler didn't want to pass on his father's genetics. "I'm not home enough for pets, and kids, well."
"I didn't think about that until after I said it-"
"Don't worry about apologising for it. May as well get the depressing hard parts out early, you know?" Tyler didn't know. It was all depressing hard parts. "It's at least refreshing to not be running through the acceptable bits and pieces over and over again. I swear I don't have any real friends because nobody wants to talk about anything beyond stock or what new classes they and their spouse are taking and it drives me insane."
"I feel like I almost have the opposite problem," Tyler says, playing with the fork beside his plate. "I feel like I have so few close friends because my shit always gets dragged up no matter what, whoever I try to get close to, because it's just everywhere and I can't avoid it. So I can't have a normal conversation and just relate to people, because somehow my past won't let me just relate. So either I don't get close or I spill my guts way too soon, which is definitely what I'm doing now."
"But I want that. I'm sick of people who have nothing interesting to talk about beyond what's normal and relatable." Colby leans back, rubbing at his face. He's more than honest, and the emotion in his words is real. "There's so much bullshit socialising to be done, and it gets so boring. Different is good."
"But all my 'different' is depressing." The thing Colby doesn't seem to realise is that those different, interesting conversations are also horrible, and the topics of discussion are the horrors one can go through or do. What's polite is polite for a reason. "I don't think that's what you want."
"I do. Believe me," Colby leans across the table, "I do. I don't know exactly what you've been through but it can only be so bad, Tyler."
"It can be worse."
"You don't have to tell me all of your secrets right now." Or ever, Tyler thinks to himself. "But please stop shutting yourself up for fear of depressing me or pushing me away. You won't."
"You'd be surprised how many people say that and then leave."
"One day, I walked into my bedroom after an argument with my then wife, and I found her sleeping next to the corpse of my infant son. Try me."
The waitress was standing some few metres away, having been prepared to come over and take their order, but evidently she heard that, as she backed away and went to another part of the restaurant. Tyler found himself fighting off a smile, and it was so weird because of what Colby had just said. It wasn't that Tyler was smiling because of the content of his words, never. It was that Colby was equalling him in how dramatic he could be.
"Well, you mentioned love before," Tyler says after a second of thought. "I just thought about the only time I can say I've been in love before. We were together for..." it was hard to say how long, wasn't it? When did relationships really start, when they were as messy as that one was? "a long time. Then he... was gone." Tyler didn't really want to say it, even knowing that Colby would be okay with it. He remembers the day so, so well, and even though he's been reassured multiple times that it would be okay, he doesn't want to get too far into memories that will make him break down. Thinking about it doesn't hurt as much as talking about it does.
Colby bit his lip. "If talking about it hurts, you don't have to. But I'd be curious to know about him."
Tyler smiles wryly. "It was so strange, you know, because we got together when we were young. I couldn't tell you when, really, but there were so many times when it was just the two of us against the rest of the world. I-" oh, there's a lot to say, isn't there? "I miss him sometimes. He got me through a lot of things in Darkfilly Copse. So did my brother, and my best friend."
"Who was your best friend?"
"Her name was Kali." Her, Tyler misses as well. "I don't know where she went when Darkfilly Copse got split up. She had a pretty hard time of it in Darkfilly Copse itself, but I mean... we all did. She was shy and quiet, but she was super imaginative, and her stories always got me through a lot."
"So you were all seperated when Darkfilly Copse was-" Colby has to pause when the waitress comes back, after having given them a chance. Tyler hadn't even taken a moment to read the menu since they got here, so he just asked Colby to pick for him. There was something easy about leaning back and crossing his arms and letting a decision be made for him, so long as it was a small decision that another could be trusted with. There was something nice about the little smile Colby gave and thoughtful moment he took to decide. And there was something Tyler liked about the surprise he'd get, knowing whatever it was would be fine. Little things.
"So you were all seperated when Darkfilly Copse was- I guess, busted?"
"Well, not on purpose, but they had to find places for us to go. Social services had to help all the adults they could save get jobs and move on, and they settled them in different places- my mum in Gem Varily, my boyfriend's mum in the northern suburbs. But Kali was one of several kids whose parents both went to prison, and so she ended up in the foster system, and I have no idea where she is. She'd be eighteen now, but she was eleven last time I saw her. I don't know if I'd even recognise her."
"Do you know her last name? Because I'm sure we could find her."
"I've tried to find her on social media, but I can't. I'm sure she's not using the same surname she used in Darkfilly Copse. Her parents anglicised it, but I never knew the unanglicised version, and I doubt that's what she's using anyway."
"Well, Kali isn't the most common name I've ever heard, and if you know her age and vague appearance, that might help."
"Maybe someday." Tyler doesn't want to go on some long search for her, mainly because he's afraid of being disappointed. He knows where most people he cared about in Darkfilly Copse are now- Trey, his mother, Kevin- and he'd be disappointed to find Kali anywhere except thriving, and considering where she came from, he doubts he would. He doesn't want to find her dead. "But she'd be a different person now, anyway. I'm sure I am."
"I'd be nice to know if she's doing alright." And it'd be hard to find she's not.
"That's optimistic." Tyler takes a long drink of his water, and it gives him a moment to think. "I'm sorry, I feel shitty for ranting about my own stuff for so long."
"I asked you to," Colby reminds him again, and then Tyler feels shittier because he keeps doing that and if his past doesn't drive Colby away then him constantly apologising just might. "How else am I going to know you?"
Tyler smiles, only a little. "I want to get to know you, too, though, I-"
Tyler's phone ringing catches him by surprise. He takes it out just to look at the caller ID, and a sick feeling passes over him as he presses deny call. Any other time, he'd probably answer it, because he's not completely shutting her out and she probably has something important to say if she's calling him and actually chasing him down. She has her hands full with her eldest son most of the time. Tyler's the easy kid.
"Who was that?" Colby asks, because of course he does.
"My mum wants something," Tyler tells him. "God knows what. She never calls me."
"You could've answered it. I don't mind."
"I don't really want to know what she wants, to be honest, and I'm enjoying myself more not knowing."
"Does she only ever call you for bad reasons?"
"I mean..." Tyler tries to remember the last time she called him. "She usually texts me, but she pretty much just ignores me. I don't think she's... ever called me, not since I moved out."
As Tyler's saying that, the phone begins to ring again. It's his mother's name again. Carol Kristenssen, flashing bright on his screen, just like her angry voice calling his name through the door. Impossible to ignore for too long.
"Answer it," Colby gently urges him, and that's enough.
Tyler presses the green button, as little as he wants to, and puts the phone to his ear. "Hi, mum."
He hasn't said those words in a very, very long time. He hasn't heard her voice in over a year, but it sounds the same as it always has. "Hi, Tyler. I'm glad to hear you... calling me that."
That's when Tyler stands, doing the best he can to take this conversation away from Colby and over to the balcony. He doesn't want to get into this. "It's not your fault you're my mum, is it?"
She sighs. "Look, I... had somethin' you needed to hear. I don't wanna talk about it any more than you do, but it's gotta be done."
"Is this about Trey? Or the trip? 'Cause I'm going, I promised Trey I would. And I'm seeing Trey on Saturday, so I'll see you then if you're coming."
"I am, but this ain't about Trey. I wanted to tell you before then 'cause I don't wanna cause a big whole thing. It's gonna be bad enough with Trey."
"What?" Tyler's heart starts racing out of anxiety. He looks down at the street below, watching the cars and people heading about their night, a gentle touch comes to his shoulder. He knows it's Colby without looking; it helps just that little bit. "Is someone dying?"
"Well, that ain't the problem." Tyler has a rising fear, and it can't be true. His mother wouldn't call him if it wasn't pressing, and if someone dying is not the problem, then... "look, there's no good way to say it."
"Just spit it out." Tyler knows it before she says it. He knows, he knows, he knows.
"He's getting out of prison."