A/N: And Riggins gets his own fanfic! Full of angst, of course. He needs so much love.
Spoilers for the first half of Season 1.
It was Lyla who said it one day, with a slant of a look that just about brought him to his knees. "Riggins, you've got a self-destructive streak as big as the state of Texas."
He doesn't remember what he did next. Something stupid involving alcohol and explosives, probably. He's pretty sure it was the Fourth of July. That memory of her is tinged with colored light.
Fireworks, fascinating and far away.
...
It's a mystery, how he and Jay have stayed friends this long. Sure, he tries more than he does in almost any other part of his life, but still. Jay does a lot of stupid crap, but it never strays outside the lines of his neat and tidy life.
That boy's goin' places, folks say. Tim almost doesn't care anymore that they never say it about him.
When he and Jay have cracked open a six-pack, and they're planning out their future in fantastic terms, he doesn't care at all.
...
If he'd just been faster, more on his game, somewhere close enough to perfect—
If—
But it's over, it's all over, done and final. He's felt this before, this ache. It's a sick feeling, deep inside, and it gets deeper and deeper when Coach tells them that Jay won't be walking again.
It serves him right, failing like this. But it isn't fair to everyone else. He hates himself more than ever after that, and he won't go to the hospital or the Streets or listen to anyone who tells him it'll be alright. It won't be. He's used to that.
Thanks to him, everyone else can get used to it too.
...
Billy doesn't care what he does, not really. He cares if the cops show up, of course, or that time Tim accidentally sort of hooked up with a preacher's daughter.
Cops might as well have come to that little altercation; it was a hell of a time. But anyway.
Point is, Billy isn't overly judgmental. So the fact that even he cares about the whole Lyla thing—
Hell, though. Tim doesn't need his brother's concern to tell him that he's a twisted bastard. Jay would never do this to him. Jay's only fault in all of this is letting scum like Tim into his life in the first place.
He tells himself he's past saving and kisses Lyla again.
...
It's coming. It's coming. But it still cuts him down when Jason lets loose, punching and yelling, betrayal writ strong on every feature.
He drives home in silence, thinking how methodical, how effective he can be at crap like this, practices that would make guidance counselors proud. Screwing up his life, one brutally efficient step at a time.
His eye stings, but the pain is only an afterthought. It's almost a relief.
Self-destructive.
He thinks of fireworks, how they burn so bright you can't see nothing else, how they leave ghost-trails of smoke in the sky.
He's gone and burned out.