"It's really fine," Tyler says, trying his hardest to exude calm, twenty-six ounces of gloppy fake blood drying across his face and neck. It itches; he concentrates on that. The banal little inconveniences of his job, and not Camille and India's mostly well meaning and completely irritating attempts to force him to talk about his problems.
"He called him three times in ten minutes," Camille says, like Tyler isn't even there.
"I did not," Tyler says defensively. He can't help it. "It wasn't ten minutes." Maybe it's not the best retort in the world, but it's true. That should count for something. "Don't you two have anything else to talk about?"
"I saw that audition video," Camille says. "How he was looking at you. That boy's got it baaad. Not that I blame him," she adds, reaching over to pinch Tyler's cheek.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tyler thinks of dodging, but he doesn't. He stays still, forces a smile. Watches his face move in the mirror, dried blood flaking where the muscles twitch.
India bats Camille's hand away. "That is a work in progress," she says. "And it doesn't matter how the boy feels. You can't reward bad behavior."
"He's not a boy," Tyler says. His voice sounds a little faraway to his own ears. India and Camille share glances. "And it's not—He's not feeling well."
"For a week?" India says skeptically. "Honey, he's not sick. He's throwing a tantrum."
You get used to it, Tyler thinks. Slipping away while staying rooted in place. He can't actually leave the makeup chair; any excuse would just mean a couple minutes' relief, and then throwing himself back in it again. It's easier to not move at all, not respond, just try to focus on anything else.
"Oh, Tyler," Camille says, in what Tyler supposes are probably tones of genuine sympathy. She's not a bad person; he probably shouldn't resent her. Shouldn't feel so cagey under her wide-eyed gaze. "I so get it, okay, I've dated so many assholes who seemed so sweet at first."
"He's not," Tyler starts, and thinks better of it. A cloud of powdery dried blood showers from his tensed jaw.
"And India's right, you can't reward him," Camille goes on. "Grow a little backbone. Show him you've got other things going on in your life. You're not just holed up with your phone, waiting—"
"I really don't remember asking for the public's opinion on my private life," Tyler says, as sedately as he can manage. Camille and India exchange another look. Tyler breathes in. Breathes out. Doesn't notice.
Tyler's not a heartsick teenager; he's doing just fine. He's not obsessively checking his phone, obsessively thinking about where things went wrong. But he's not taking bad advice, spending another year miserable over stupid misunderstandings. And he's not about to make his life a roundtable discussion.
If Dylan needs time, Tyler can give him time. But if he doesn't, if he wants to talk—or even text, Tyler doesn't care anymore. More than anything, he hates uncertainty, hates feeling like the edge is coming any minute, and he's gonna miss it and drop six stories.
I love you, Tyler wants to text. Just in case Dylan doesn't know, or didn't believe him the first time. All of these—relationship rules, games, it doesn't matter. He's not pretending he doesn't care to soothe his own fragile ego, punching Dylan in the stomach like revenge would make any of it any easier. This isn't a movie. Tyler doesn't have anything to prove.
He reaches in his pocket for his phone—
"Oh no you don't," Camille says, snatching it from his fingers. "I realize you've made a decision. But given that it's a stupid-ass decision, I'm exercising my veto powers." She looks at him, at India. "The Avengers? Nick Fury. Nothing?"
"Give me my phone back," Tyler says tiredly.
"Come and get it," Camille says, shrugging, like Tyler's gonna take her up on it, gonna let her play keep-away with his phone like he's six years old. He doesn't move.
"I'm serious," he says. "I'm—I wasn't going to call him."
"Really," Camille says, disbelieving. "Who were you gonna call."
Tyler gives himself a second to flip through his mental Rolodex, finds himself settling on, "Tyler—Tyler Posey." He adds a casual shrug, half-stifles a smirk, eyebrows rising. "I do have other things going on in my life, believe it or not."
"Not," Camille says. "I am not enabling you. In fact—" She leans down, swings her free arm around Tyler's shoulders, his phone held high out of reach. "We're hanging out tonight. You and me. You like Call of Duty?"
Tyler gives Camille this much: she's determined to get him back to enjoying his life. Not that he hasn't been, not that he's suddenly blind to all the good he has. He's just been busy, distracted, with reshoots for this never-ending movie, with drafting apologies and responses in his head. It's been more than a week; the job's probably lost in any case. It's getting harder and harder to care.
"The only difference between a martyr and a pushover is PR," Camille informs him. "If nothing else, you should get a buttload of positive publicity from this. Emma I-Don't-Know-Who personally wrote you a love letter, and promised you—whatever his name is. Main character guy."
"Micah," Tyler says.
"Sure," Camille says. "And it's like this John Green-ish thing, right? Like, the kind of romcom people like."
"It's not a romcom," Tyler says. "Micah's separated. His son's dying, that's the story. He's looking at his life through all these different lenses, trying to see how he got here. Trying to redirect the stream somehow."
"It's a pun," Camille says, making a face. "Terminal. Dear God, that's awful."
"It's not a pun," Tyler says, bristling a little bit despite himself. "It has different meanings. It's not funny."
"Is anything, to you?" Camille asks, then waves this away. "No, that was low. Do over."
"It's fine," Tyler says.
"Do you know how often you say that?" Camille says. "It's fine. I'm fine. He's fine. We're fine. I do not think that word means what you think it means." She waits a beat. "Princess Bride. Are you sure you like movies?"
"Maybe I'm just trying to politely get you to drop it," Tyler suggests.
"Someone's gotta look out for you," Camille says. "You obviously won't. You're too nice. Like, an actually nice guy, not a Nice Guy. It's a pretty endangered species."
"Was I supposed to understand that?" Tyler asks. Camille laughs.
"Nice Guy," she says. "You know, to a point. Where suddenly the bill comes due, and you owe him."
"Owe him," Tyler says.
"Sex," Camille says. "Or attention, or half your estate. Or your agency to live your life with or without his approval. Or him going on a mass-murdering rampage."
"Ah," Tyler says. Now that he thinks about it, he's pretty sure Holland mentioned something about it once. "So I'm—not that," he clarifies.
"Unless you're really covert about it," Camille says.
"You really know Tyler Posey?" Camille says, out of the blue, two days later. They're on the back of a go-kart, thumbing through suspiciously new sides.
"We lived together," Tyler says.
Camille's eyebrows jump.
"Not like that," Tyler says, ears heating. "Dylan too. When Teen Wolf was in its first season."
"Right," Camille says. "The remake. How many seasons did they get out of that?"
"No idea," Tyler admits. "It's still going on. More than six," he hazards. "Less than ten."
"What happened there?" Camille asks. "Tyler Posey. He was gonna get married, right? Or—" She shakes her head, says, "Sorry, I have, like, zero filter. Totally fine if you don't answer that." Her mouth clicks sympathetically. "And then his mom, and now this friend—"
"What?" Tyler says, some instinctive hackle rising.
"His mom," Camille says. "It's so sad—"
"Not that," Tyler says. "Something about his friend?"
"Oh," Camille says. "Yeah, some friend of his OD'd or something. There's this recording of him freaking out to 911. It's basically all Tumblr can talk about."
"I," Tyler says, and stands. "I have to—I need a minute."
His trailer's the closest thing to privacy Tyler has. Wardrobe can get in, but that's it, and Stacy's good about keeping unexpected visits to a minimum. Roger not so much, but he mostly delegates, so it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.
Yeah, even Tyler's starting to hear it now.
He braces himself against the door, whips his phone out. Taps into Twitter without even really thinking about it.
And there it is.
TMZ aTMZ
Tyler Posey 911 – "He's not f**king breathing" bit. ly/tyler-posey-frantic-911-call
There's a hastily written scrap of article, more an admission of ignorance than anything else. No mention of who was hurt, or what condition he's in now. Not even a standard "asks for privacy at this time." And when did Tyler start getting news about his friends from gossip sites?
Posey picks up on the third ring.
"I was gonna call you." His voice is low, wracked. "I just kind of froze, you know? Like my fingers went numb. I couldn't—"
"What happened," Tyler says. Fine, he's fine. Posey needs a shoulder to lean on, that's all he's saying. It doesn't have to be—
"I thought he was just," Posey says. "Feeling weird. About not being on the show anymore."
"But," Tyler says. Some kind of fire is burning through him, scalding his chest. "But he's—What happened?"
His hands are freezing.
"I got sick of giving him space," Posey says. "And I went over there, and let myself in, and found—Fucking shit," he says, after a couple of sniffs. "I can't fucking talk. He could've died."
Could've. Didn't. Something like relief breaks open in Tyler's chest, has a near-sob rising through him, stopping just under his throat. The relief dissipates in seconds, replaced by pure icy fear, and sick regret. He should've kept calling, he should've explained—
Tyler sits down, hard, and scrubs at his jaw until it unsticks.
"I still don't, I can't..." Posey says. "I thought, for a fucking million-year minute I actually thought..."
Tyler can't even imagine it. Finding Dylan like that, and keeping it together long enough to save his life.
"You saved his life," Tyler realizes. "You were there. If you weren't..."
But he can't go there, can't even consider it. What might've happened, if Posey hadn't run out of patience exactly then.
How close they both came to losing—
He closes his eyes, leans his head against the heel of his hand like he can push all this away with enough concentration.
"I wanna see him," he says. "Is that—alright? Can I—"
"He's in love with you," Posey says. "Isn't he?"
"I made a mistake," Tyler says. His palms are sweating. "A really idiotic, selfish mistake. I, I don't know if he'd wanna see me."
"You cheated?" Posey says, his voice suddenly alive and razor-sharp.
"No," Tyler says, shocked. "No, nothing like—I wouldn't do that. No," he says again, shaken. "Terminal, I read with him. And then I got the offer, and it went to my head. I knew how upset he was," Tyler tries to explain. Posey's silence feels like disbelief. "When he thought he didn't get it the first time. Before he made the video. And then I got it, and all I could think about was—"
"Jesus fuck, shut up," Posey says, unimpressed. "So you're five percent human. Congratulations."
"Wow," Tyler says. His ears should be ringing right now, but he can't bring himself to give a damn. "Was it," he says, hating even considering this, "intentional?"
"It's not drugs," Posey says. "I know that's what everyone's saying. It's all crap."
"So then," Tyler says. "It's just a random—just some freak—" He can't fathom it. Forget everything happening for a reason, forget mysterious ways, all that too-easy platitude crap, there has to be an answer somewhere. Just because he doesn't know it doesn't mean there isn't one.
It's just that he can't imagine an answer that would make any of this even a little bit more bearable.
"Cardiac arrest? I don't know," Posey says. "There was something about, uh, potassium, and electrolytes. Re—Refeeding syndrome? Who knows. They think he has an eating disorder."
"An," Tyler says, and runs out of words. "Based on what?"
"Yeah, that's the part I don't get," Posey says. "I mean, besides all of it. He's never given a shit about how he looks, right? Did I just miss it?"
"He was sick," Tyler realizes, going hollow. "Vomiting. That's why he couldn't talk. And I wouldn't let him—"
"If you make this about you, I'm hanging up," Posey says. "I wasn't there either. I didn't even know he was sick. I think that's worse."
"How's that worse," Tyler says. He's dizzy with guilt, vision fogging. "You didn't know there was something wrong."
"Because he's my best friend, asshole," Posey says. "And he stopped talking to me for a month. Of course there was something wrong."
"Whoa, boy," Camille says, steadying Tyler by the arm as he stumbles out of his trailer. "You okay? Don't say 'fine.'"
"No," Tyler admits. "No, nothing's—I can't talk right now." Parking, where'd he park his car? Where'd he park his fucking, fucking, fucking—
"Stop," Camille says. "Dude, take a breath. You look like you're about to fall over."
"Do I," Tyler says disinterestedly, and attempts to walk past her.
"Okay, wait," Camille says, grabbing his wrist. Tyler goes absolutely still. "Just wait a second. This is about Dylan, isn't it? He's really holding that dumb movie against—"
"He's in the hospital," Tyler says. He's going to burst into flames any second now. "He stopped breathing. He could've died, and I—" He breathes out, hard, and his eyes fill.
"Shit," Camille says, her fingers slipping down around his. "Tyler. I'm so sorry. What do you need?"
"I need to get out of here," Tyler says, choking on nothing. "I need to find my fucking car and get the fuck—"
"You're not driving like this," Camille says. She's still holding his hand; she gives it a reassuring squeeze, pats his side. "No way. I'll drive."
Dylan's stable. That's the first thing Posey says, and then every doctor Tyler can get a hold of, trying to make sense of it.
He's hooked up to a heart monitor, a pulse oximeter, an IV drip. He's been run through half a dozen tests. Tyler's about as familiar with the terminology as an extra on General Hospital.
But Dylan's stable. He's alive. All of this could be a lot worse.
He's not unconscious. That's the second thing. Don't worry, it's not a coma. He's just passed out.
Tyler tries checking the monitor for some kind of reassurance, but just ends up squinting himself into a headache. His vision is foggier than ever. He can barely count his own fingers.
"What's wrong with you?" Posey asks, when Tyler starts fishing around the vicinity of his eyeballs.
"Contacts," Tyler says. "Or sudden blindness. Either one's a possibility."
It feels wrong joking with Dylan like this, with everything suddenly so fragile like this. Tyler takes a sharp breath.
"He's gonna be okay," Posey says. There's a sudden arm around Tyler's shoulders, bracing.
Mom would say, From your lips to God's ears. Tyler can't unclench his jaw.
"He's strong," Posey says, and pats him on the back, and Tyler goes closes his eyes.
"Maybe wash your face," Posey suggests. "'Cause between the two of you? You look worse."
Tyler frowns at him, reaches up and touches—oh. He's still got the silicone scar application and a crumbling layer of fake blood slathered over his skin. Tommy trips over a rotating saw in the opening scene, carves his forehead and cheek open like the Joker. Last scene he finds himself buried alive, suffocating. Skin crawling, there's something crawling on his skin. He reaches up, swipes it away, and the image rushes to extreme zoom, maggots pouring from the wound.
It's a good reveal, the slow-dimming realization that Kara's been fighting this thing all on her own. Instant rewatch value, going back to every scene you thought Tommy was helping her, or talking to her, and realizing she had no idea. It's a good ending. Tyler liked the original ending.
The new sides take it further. Tommy's a malevolent spirit, a poltergeist. He's the thing they're all running from.
It's a cool twist, except for the part where it makes no sense at all.
Camille's in the hall, doing a Sudoku on her phone. She looks up when Tyler approaches, taps to pause the clock.
"How are you doing?" she says.
"He's stable," Tyler says.
"Good," Camille says. "I'm glad. But that's not what I asked."
"I messed up," Tyler says. "I should've been there. I should've—I was there. I should've put it all together. Gotten him help."
"You're not his only friend," Camille says. "No one saw this coming. How could you?"
"He let me in," Tyler says. "He trusted me. Told me things. And I just dismissed all of it."
How do you—I mean, just be happy. Without getting distracted, you know?
Self loathing, mostly. With just like a side of random minutiae-fed anxiety.
Welcome to my head, I guess. Just, on any given day.
This isn't a logical thing. I know that.
I'm not looking at methods.
I'm fine.
Fine, fine, fine.
Tyler can't stomach the word anymore.