Tyed - Chapter 43: Chapter 43

"I forgot to ask you yesterday how you knew I couldn't drive," Tyler says as he fastens his day collar- he's learned that's what the inconspicuous one is called. He wore his personal, proper one until the very last minute, dressing in some clothes he's happened to leave here at some point or another. "Or were you just offering to drive me to be nice?"
"I've seen your learner's permit," Colby answers from the bedroom. He woke up before Tyler, showered and let him sleep in a little bit before they had to go. Now he speaks to him through the bathroom door. "How many hours do you need to take your test?"
Tyler sighs. "Like, a hundred more. My mum still can't drive. I only ever went with my stepdad, and that just... Didn't happen often."
"Then, I suppose it's a good thing I'm-" Colby stops abruptly, and Tyler can't hear why for a long moment. As he adjusts the collar of his shirt, he heads to the door. As he opens it, he finally hears Colby's voice again, and sees his back, standing next to the bedside table. "You're, uh, suddenly getting a lot of texts."
Tyler sighs. "If I'm getting a ton at once, it's probably Nancy. What were you saying?"
Colby slowly reaches down to the bedside table to grab his watch, and when he turns his eyes are miles away. "Sorry, what was I saying?"
"I said my stepdad was the only one who ever took me driving, and I only had about twenty hours." Tyler watches Colby's expression, feeling like something is off, but not knowing what. He seems to snap back in half a second.
"I was going to say, it's actually a good thing in this case that I'm so much older, because I can teach you, if you want."
"Oh. Good idea." Tyler blinks. "You don't fear me crashing your car?"
Colby shrugs. "Not... really, no."
Tyler squints at him, trying to figure the problem out, and Colby seems to be pretending very hard that's whatever is off isn't. Tyler considers asking, but he has a suspicion he'd like to investigate first.
He walks over to his phone and investigates the messages that Colby told him about, the messages he would've been able to see on the lockscreen as they showed up.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH
OH YOURE FUCKED
are you going to tell him??
I can't believe you you absolute disaster gay
fuck this is great
you know I love you and care about you but you are fucking screwed my friend
There are three conclusions Tyler can come to about what Colby interpreted from these messages. One, that reflects Colby's intelligence and keen observational skills: the truth. He understood exactly what these messages meant. He knew what Tyler said to prompt them. That's fucking horrifying.
Then, possibly, something innocuous. Tyler fucked up in some way that Colby doesn't know about and just assumes, is, like, fine.
The only other possible option is that Colby thought Nancy's throwaway comment of loving Tyler meant anything other than her friendship. That feels a lot less likely, but Tyler's got to at least consider it.
What does he do in either case?
Colby's walking out the bedroom door as Tyler walks up to him, stopping him without knowing what's coming next. Colby stares at him, blinking slowly before his eyes seem to focus and a small smile comes over his lips.
"Yes, Tyler?" he says, as Tyler's got him pushed up against the doorframe, still not sure where he's going with this. No, Colby's not mad.
Tyler's being stupid. Colby didn't have enough information to know what those words mean. Whatever he thought, he didn't know, and that's why he said nothing. Because he doesn't come to stupid premature conclusions like Tyler does.
Tyler just kisses him without a word.
The car ride is weird, but not weird in any predictable way that it could've been with anyone else. It's not empty of things to say. It's also, somehow, not entirely comfortable. The words flow; they're weaving between the two of them easily, and each thread is picked up by the other and pulled together so nicely. Tyler's talking to Colby and he never has to think too hard about what to say, never has to try too hard.
This isn't super new. It's been like this for at least the past few days, arguably the whole time they're been together. They can talk and it's easy, it's simple. What they have in common is perspective and intelligence, not experience, and so their different experiences illuminate the topics of conversation, putting spins and new lights on the other's stories.
It's suspicious because it's too good. They fit so well that Tyler can feel it in the air, the tide shifting, the smell of summer on the wind even though the air is cold.
And that's scary, even as Tyler's accepted what it signals.
He tells Colby the way. At the point it occurs to him to ask a question, it's too late to turn back, so he phrases it differently. "I'm still surprised you're not too busy to drive me. You're a CEO and you're spending your day driving a uni student to see his mother."
Colby laughs at that. "Half a CEO's job is making sure everyone else does theirs. If all is going smoothly I have little to do." The quirk of his mouth tells of a hidden secret that he admits openly almost immediately. "And I'd rather be spending the time with you, anyway. Besides. You're a uni student and I don't ever see you doing any work, do I?"
Tyler scoffs. "Uni students don't do work. But no, I mean- I've done... some."
"Do I have to make you do your work as well? I'll make it a kink thing if I have to."
Tyler laughs, but it's not as humourus as he might have hoped. "Well, I was... wondering if I should even bother."
"You're talented," Colby says without missing a beat. "And you've already done a year."
"But only a year," Tyler contends. "And what am I gonna do, you know? Can you imagine me as an engineer, doing... engineering things?"
"There's a lot of jobs in engineering. And what would you do instead? I do get the sense with you that you haven't found your passion in life yet, but I wouldn't leave before having a plan."
"Well, let me ask you a question." Tyler looks out the window to tone down the seriousness, and tries to keep his tone light. "What do you think I should do?"
"Whatever you want." Said without hesitation. "But I understand your issues in figuring that out."
"Do you think," Tyler says, forcing a bit of a laugh to keep his tone light, "there's much merit in planning to be your stay-at-home trophy husband?"
Colby laughs at a joke Tyler didn't make. It seems genuine, though, as though the picture is indeed funny, and Tyler takes a moment to be offended before Colby explains. "You'd go crazy," he says. "You'd lose your mind. There's not a lot to do when it's just two people in one house. I'm imagining you sitting in front of a television slowly rotting and it's not a nice image."
Tyler looks out the window again. "Guess I should give up on that dream, I suppose."
"You sound serious." And now, so does Colby. "Hey, I mean, in some future where you worked part time at home I could see it, or in some future where we had kids. But at the moment? No."
"I guess, if money wasn't a problem, I could volunteer or something. I'd love to work with traumatised kids and help them out, but it wasn't the money I needed. I'm sure there's volunteering I could do, or I could go to school for that, or some shit, I guess."
"Well," Colby says slowly, "money's not a problem. Why do you sound so unsure? Is it not what you really want to do?"
Tyler's quiet. In truth, he still hasn't really accepted the idea that Colby plans to still be with him in future. If he changes courses now, and Colby leaves...
Well, a job was a job, wasn't it? And he had as little money now either way. His heart beats hard at the idea, though, something still holding him back. "What if I fuck them up?" he mutters.
Colby takes his eyes off of the road to study Tyler for a moment. "How could you fuck some kids up?"
"By being fucked up myself? I dunno. I'm a lot better than I was, but you already know I burnt someone's house down-"
"Justifiably."
"-and that I come from Darkfilly Copse, famous child sex abuse cult, outrage machine. How could I not fuck a child up?"
"Tyler," Colby says, and Tyler honestly feels like he's in trouble with that tone. "How old were you when Darkfilly Copse got... busted?"
Tyler squints at him. "Twelve."
"Are you twelve now?"
"I don't get it."
"I takes seven years," Colby says, "for every cell in your body to die and be replaced by a new cell. You are, quite literally, a completely different person from the little boy that left Darkfilly Copse. He was probably pretty scared and confused, probably quite sad and quite angry. And while you've probably still got some of that sadness and anger, you're also a functioning human being who's learned to put that great sadness and anger aside, just like we all have, even if all your pain is much more than most people's."
"I set fire to Sandys' house maybe two or three years ago. I ragequit my job maybe two or three weeks ago. I'm better, but when I'm overwhelmed I very much am that same angry kid." Tyler scratches at his arms.
If every cell in his body has died, this body he's sitting in, the ones he feels under his fingernails, has never been touched by his father. He oh so badly wants to keep it that way.
"I know you went through worse than most people, and keep that in mind as I say this, but most people have been through some kind of shit, and nobody comes out unscarred. If their life was perfect they come out terrible entitled brats. With bad experiences we learn, I guess, and- I'm not saying it was good. And it was more than bad." Tyler's got a bad taste in his mouth that Colby is doing his best to scrub out. "My point is, everyone's got some kind of flaw that comes out at inopportune times because we're all not doing the best at life we could be. But you- I feel like knowing what happened to you would teach you what not to do, so that-"
"What, I know not to molest my kids or beat the shit out of them all? Cool."
"Tyler." He just sounds sad, and Tyler deflates. "You know I didn't mean that."
"Shit, that's what I mean. Controlling myself is so fucking hard. What if I explode at a kid I'm trying to help?"
"Do you think I shouldn't have kids?"
Tyler stares at him. "What? No. You should if that's what you want."
"Well, I actually, measurably allowed my son to die because I was blinded by anger. If you think I should be a dad anyway, you should help kids even if you think you'll theoretically yell at them sometimes. And guess what?"
"What?"
"I can afford to get you therapy."
Tyler sighs. His stomach is doing flips now and he doesn't know why. He can't even address the whole thing Colby said, as he's responding, "I've been to therapy. It only marginally helped."
"One, how long did you go for? Two, I thought you would've never been able to afford it."
"Two sessions," Tyler says sheepishly. "I skipped the third to go have sex and I never went after that."
Colby laughs lowly. "Sounds like you."
"And we had enough for Medicare subsidised ones. We were less poor than you might think, but my mum was just bad with money until she met my stepdad. My mum gets Centrelink for life because of the whole Darkfilly Copse thing. I don't know if you recall, but since it was such a media circus the government wanted to make a show of doing something for the victims."
"You don't get that Centrelink, as a victim?"
Tyler shakes his head. "No, because I was a minor at the time. I can't even fucking get Centrelink now."
Tyler's stomach sinks and doom sets in before he even realises why. "Why's that?"
He remembers that phone call exactly. His student claim continuously got denied for bad identity documents; when he called to ask why his birth certificate wasn't being accepted, they said it wasn't recognised as legitimate because someone can't be registered as not having a mother.
They didn't listen when he told them that the government had decided to list his mother as his sister, and hadn't given him a legal mother. The person he'd spoken to hasn't believed him when he said he was from Darkfilly Copse. They'd only been slightly too polite to laugh in his face.
He'd made plans to go in and get angry, to make them sort something out, but he'd never gotten around to it. He'd been forced to work, something his roommates only did on occasion, and it hadn't gone well.
"Oh, you know," Tyler says, possibly suspiciously dismissively. "Centrelink thought there was issues with my identity documents and I was still trying to sort it out when we met."
"Oh. Well, now that I think about it you wouldn't have received any until you were twelve, so I suppose it makes sense that they had issues with it. But really, they should've kept records of the kids from there as well."
"Yeah," Tyler mutters. "I suppose so."
"So," Colby thankfully changes the conversation back around, "are you going to change courses?"
"I'll have to look at what course to change into. I probably want to take a short course, I guess, because school sucks."
Colby laughs. "I didn't even finish high school, but I can agree with that."
"You didn't?" Tyler raises an eyebrow. He finds it hard to believe someone who seems so smart didn't finish something that Tyler honestly breezed (academically, at least).
"I was kicked out of home, remember? I stopped going then, started working, until my dad died and I just inherited everything."
"You didn't go back and finish?"
"I tried, but saw no point. It just annoyed me and it didn't teach me anything useful. It probably taught plenty of people what they need to know, but not me."
"Wow," Tyler mutters. "It's weird to think I've gotten several steps more education than you."
Colby shrugs. "I think it's good. It gives you something to do. Honestly, like I said, my only issue with you staying at home is that you're going to be bored out of your mind. My mum did that and she drank herself to death out of pure boredom, and she still had her shitty socialite friends to keep her company with convoluted, stupid events, and kids she was meant to be looking after. I love her, I always did and I do, but she was a mess."
"You talk about something that sounds so awful so casually. It doesn't hurt to talk about her?"
"Not when the scar is twenty-five years old." Colby sighs. "Even then, it does hurt a little. You get your wounds and they heal over time but there's always a scar, you know."
"I know." Tyler shrugs. "I think that's why I don't want to see my dad. Reopening that wound, you know? It started healing seven years ago and I don't know what reopening it now will do. Even being in Gem Varily-" Tyler gestures at the streets around him- "sucks. My family stresses me out."
"I suppose this is the point where I have to confirm whether or not I'm meeting them?"
He asks the question of Tyler, which Tyler doesn't know if he appreciates or not; leaving the decision up to him feels dangerous, because Tyler knows he wants things to move fast and generally, moving fast- especially with someone older than your mother- is a horrible idea. "It's up to you," he says instead.
"I specifically asked because I wanted you to decide. It's your family, and we haven't been together super long, plus this is a controversial relationship. However, I don't feel like it's too early, for what it matters, and I won't judge you for wanting me there. Nor will I judge your family."
Tyler sighs. "I can see why it's a bad idea, but honestly, it would make seeing my family slightly less hellish and perhaps take the focus off of my father. At the same time, though... my family sucks. And if you and I are going to be serious or last it's going to happen by ignoring my family as much as possible."
Colby laughs. "How about we treat this not like some big step where I'm meeting the family- because it's not. This is me doing my best to save you from some horrible situation you don't want to be in by dragging the attention to myself."
"Alright." Tyler takes a deep breath. "Turn left here. How about this- I'll go in and try to make it short. It's inevitably going to be some kind of fight, but maybe after a certain amount of time you can come in and pretend it's because you heard us fighting and you're worried for me?"
"Do you not want to introduce me straight away because you're afraid of what I'll think, or afraid of what they'll think?"
"Very much both. My mum hates the very idea of you, but my family, as I have established, sucks, and you're going to hate them."
"Not necessarily," Colby mutters. "Disagree with them, perhaps."
"At least let me try to soften the situation as a whole first. There's all this drama going on with whether we should see my dad or not, and you being there is going to distract from that. Which is what I want, but then I'm probably going to be dragged into that conversation again later and I'm thinking if I can establish what I think immediately maybe they won't? Take the second right here."
"Hmm. Do you want me to pretend I've had some kind of emergency I need you for, and we can leave super early?"
"Can you come up with an emergency they'd believe?"
"My family? Something at work?"
"But you wouldn't need me for those."
"Damnit." Colby sounds genuinely focussed on coming up with a solution. "You're right. Medical emergency, maybe? I need you to drive- fuck. Actually, maybe-"
"Okay, number 22."
"...maybe that could work. I've hurt my foot and I need you to drive me to the hospital but I can still instruct."
"We'd risk my stepdad offering to drive you, I think. But that's probably our best bet yet." Tyler watches the sidewalk he used to walk down, run down, skateboard down once when Kevin brought his over, watches as it travels by him, closer and closer to a destination he knows intimately. He bites his lip; there's a car in the driveway, or else Colby would've pulled in there. He parks only marginally less obviously on the curb in front of the house.
"Well, we're at the point of no return now," Tyler mutters, turning to look at Colby. "Here's your chance to leave. I kind of wish we'd had an agreed upon plan before we left, to be honest. I guess I just assumed you wouldn't want to actually meet my family."
"I want to help you out the best I can in this situation," Colby says, reaching over and putting a hand on Tyler's knee. "It's not even really some big relationship step. It's more like, you're entering into a tricky situation that I want to help you out with."
Tyler leans forward; that's enough justification for him. "Thank you," he says softly, resisting the urge to blurt out words one should never say two weeks into a relationship.
He kisses him instead. Soft, warm, strong, everything Tyler needs that he hasn't gotten anywhere else in a long time, and certainly not at home.
Tyler, honestly, get too into it. Leans over, comes this close to clambering over the gearbox and sitting in Colby's lap; he's only stopped by the sudden sound of knocking on glass. He freezes on instinct, afraid, and realises quickly that it's worse than his instinct even suspected.
He turns slowly, sheepishly, to meet his mother's face outside the glass of the window, hands on her hips.
"Fuck." Tyler mutters. "Too late."