He could feel it bubbling up beneath the surface. Anger. It was enough to drive him insane. He tried to stop it, to just not be mad. To cut it off before it got too much. But he couldn't. His eyes melted black of their own accord. "Reid. Ouch. Reid, let go." In the back of his mind, Reid knew Tyler was struggling against him. He knew he had the boy pinned against the wall, he knew that was a grimace of pain flickering across his face. But as much as he knew, he couldn't gage his anger, he knew he couldn't stop. He couldn't not hurt Tyler. It was inevitable. Destiny.
His hands tightened around Tyler's biceps and he slammed the boy back into the wall again. "Quit being such a bitch, Ty," he growled. His voice was distorted, destroyed by the accumulating rage. And for a minute, just a minute, Tyler heard his own father. He recoiled, as if he'd been hit. But Reid didn't see the reaction, his eyes were blackened. The darkness was creeping in on the corners of his vision, and he couldn't see.
Reid shoved his knee in between Tyler's legs, until it touched the wall. And something else that was more important to Tyler than the wall. A touch that made Tyler squirm and tremble with the urge to beg Reid to let up. Even though he knew Reid wouldn't. "Get off," Tyler ground out. "I'm not playing, Reid, I'll --"
"You'll what?" Reid demanded. But Tyler remained silent. He remained silent and he waited. Because surely the anger would pass. Reid would grow tired, weary, and move away. He'd collapse onto his bed and pass out. He wouldn't fall asleep - he'd pass out, too weak to stay away. He'd wake up several times during the night, shuddering and groaning - the pain too great to sleep through. And even as he slept, the moans would continue on. He'd clench his teeth, lock his jaws and curl possessively over his stomach, like it were just a set of cracked ribs or a stomach flu. Like this kind of sickness had an actual location - an actual starting point. An infected area.
But Reid was addicted. And the addiction didn't have an infected area. Everything was infected. It wasn't a bruise, or a cracked egg in a carton of a dozen. It was a dozen cracked eggs. Reid was that cracked egg. And he was shattering - so completely that the bits and pieces left of him were already too small to repair. Too broken to be fixed. Reid was dying, and Tyler couldn't stop him. Instead, all he could do was lean back against this wall and wait for Reid to stop hurting him.
"I'll let go," Tyler said softly, his words nearly silent, cracking beneath the lack of will to say what he need to say. He didn't want to talk and that lack of want made it hurt. Another pain with no infected area. "I'll let you go, Reid. I swear to God," he said, lifting big blue eyes to stare appealingly up at Reid. He shoved at Reid's chest but the blonde still wasn't giving so Tyler stopped trying. "I've been holding on to you so tightly I can feel my fingers starting to bleed," he went on. "I can feel the nail and skin tear away as I struggle for a grip. As I feel you pull away further, harder, faster." The blue eyes glimmered with the forever reluctant tears. He would shed them this time, he knew.
"You're dying, Reid," Tyler mumbled. He sounded ashamed, shy, unwilling, yet he never looked away and Reid remained motionlessly bewitched by his speech. "And you pull away from me - far enough to make me feel alone, all the time. But never far enough to save me from your death. From my death. You're dying, and you're fucking wielding it like a weapon. And you don't care. You see me bleeding, and crying, and dying right beside you. And you don't care anymore."
Tyler shoved at Reid's chest again, his movement jerky with emotion and Reid relented, moving back and letting Tyler stand on his own. "I'll be back for my stuff," Tyler mumbled before darting around Reid and out of the door. Such a simple solution had hid from him for so long. He hadn't wanted to leave Reid. He'd been content with dying, but it was the watching Reid die that got to him. As Reid laid immobile to lift a finger. It was watching the chunks chip away from Reid - watching his best friend decay right in front of him. Reid was gone - he'd been gone for a long time, Tyler just kept staring after him. Staring so fervently that sometimes it was like he hadn't ever left.
But Reid was gone. He had to be. Reid Garwin would've never hurt Tyler. Never laugh at him, or eagerly watch him squirm. Or lash out at him every time he got angry. The real Reid would've protected Tyler. The real Reid would've remained sober - he would've stopped when Tyler asked him to - especially upon realizing that he put all those bruises on Tyler's face. The real Reid wouldn't have died - not if it killed Tyler too. He would've lived for Tyler, but it was too late now.
Things had changed, and Tyler was too busy willing them to remain the same to notice that sudden yet inevitable change. Someone had died. And the other was left wanting in the motivation to remain living without his other half.