Sick with myself, but I've got nobody else. So I give into myself, it's the only thing that helps
-- Hollywood undead
A/N: I know this chapter is short, but I thought it was a good place to stop. I have now laid out the scene in which the boys of ipswich has grown up in, and I hope that helps you, and I, understand each individual character better. I would also like to say -- that this story has formed a lot better than I envisioned it would; it almost feels like a real story. I also apologize that Tyler has absolutely no lines in this chapter. I apologize for cutting Pogue out of this story completely, so he makes a brief appearance, but he too has no lines. It's kind've strictly Reid and Caleb. Please review. I hope you like it, for it is you who I write to. And the more reviews I get the faster I update. The next chapter is going to be graphic, so this serves as warning. It deals with what Chase does to Reid -- and being the third victim, his is the worst, and I intend to make it the worst. I'm not implying that rape isn't terrible...but what Chase plans on doing to Reid isn't exactly a light subject either. It does more than kill you, it tears apart your mind psychologically, and it steals your life slowly; your mind gives way before your body ever does - and without your mind you don't exist. I'm not sure how I'm gonna continue after the next chapter though, so if you have any ideas -- go ahead and tell me. This chapter doesn't have slash, but if that is a thing you would like to see -- tell me if you think reid and tyler ought to be involved. It all depends on the feeling I get while writing though -- so I'm not sure if slash is a thing I'm gonna deal with in this story. But I'm not ruling it out.
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
Caleb dropped a bag beside Reid's chair. Reid was slumped in the chair, his legs propped up on Tyler's bed. He had kicked off his shoes hours ago, and he had shoved his feet underneath Tyler's stiff blanket, so that the blanket puffed outward, engulfing Reid's lower legs. His feet would shake, ever so slightly, brushing against Tyler's leg. It was just something that Reid did to maintain sleep, he rocked himself. Reid's arms were resting gently on his legs, his head tilted back and his eyes closed.It seemed to Caleb that Tyler slept more often than not, and whenever Tyler was sleeping, Reid was sitting right beside him sleeping himself.
It'd been two days and Chase had yet to resurface. Reid, however, hadn't left the hospital either, so Caleb figured that Chase was just lying in wait. It was Caleb who had insisted that Reid stay in the hospital, and at first Reid didn't complain. He could sit there for hours, just watching the sleeping, seemingly peaceful, features that made up Tyler Simms' face. He didn't mind being there to comfort Tyler when he woke up from a nightmare, or talk to him when he wanted to talk. But he hadn't Used in two days, he hadn't drank in two days, he hadn't stretched his legs in two days -- and even Tyler was beginning to see how fidgety Reid was becoming. How edgy he was with Caleb, how spacey he got sometimes; and how often he slept - as though there were things that he preferred his conscious to just not think about. Reid Garwin was addicted.
Caleb kicked the leg of Reid's chair and the boy before him jerked awake. He stared up at Caleb with wild eyes for a second before blinking, recognition flickering behind his eyes. "What?" He groaned, voice husky with sleep.
"Homework," Caleb announced, nodding toward the bag he dropped beside Reid's chair. Reid grunted. Reid Garwin doing homework? As if. "The teachers know about Tyler and Pogue's conditions. But you kind've still have to participate in school." Reid shrugged, glancing away from Caleb. Beneath the blanket Reid pressed his feet against the material of Tyler's hospital gown. Tyler always seemed to be cold but his body sure was warm. "I'm serious," Caleb cut in. "Don't do the homework, and you flunk. Spenser's don't care how much your mother is willing to donate. That's what the provost told me."
"I got it," Reid snapped.
"I think you should take a break," Caleb said slowly. He waited for Reid to bite out a smart reply but it never came. Reid merely stared ahead, seemingly ignoring Caleb's previous statement. "I mean it," Caleb tried again. "Just, take a walk. Go grab coffee. I'll watch Tyler while you --"
"I don't need a break," Reid interrupted him. His voice was soft yet firm, his fingers drumming impatiently on his knee.
"You've been sitting in that same spot for over 42 hours. You need a break." Caleb still held a commanding voice, and he was still issuing an order. Reid, evidently, didn't have a choice. Reid still shrugged, letting his heated gaze settle on Tyler. Tyler wasn't getting any better. He refused to speak of what had happened, and his comments toward Reid were cold and stiff. His dreams were getting worst, and he always woke up with that wild terror in his eyes. He was constantly terrified.
"It doesn't matter what I need," Reid said softly after a moment of silence. "This wasn't supposed to happen. The Power is supposed to stop this -- to help us. We aren't supposed to be victims anymore. Wasn't that the whole point of creating this covenant? To not be victims."
"Everybody's a victim," Caleb told him gently. "We're still human."
"Things like this aren't supposed to happen to people like Tyler," Reid commented, sinking lower in the chair.
"He'll be okay," Caleb said, his voice growing quiet.
"No he won't," Reid countered. "He'll never be Tyler again because that Tyler has been broken. I don't think I can live with the new one, knowing how the old used to be. How am I ever gonna laugh with him, Caleb? Or make fun of him; knowing what Chase did to him? How is our life ever gonna be anything else, anything that doesn't have to do with what happened? How are we gonna get past this? Is that even fucking possible?" Reid shook his head, breaking eye contact with Caleb so that he could glance back at Tyler.
Caleb was quiet for a moment. Reid Garwin had just used a metaphor, and he was asking questions that Caleb wouldn't have an answer to. "Chase is going to die," he told Reid quietly.
Normally that would have appeased the boy, but Reid just shook his head. "That doesn't even matter. He's already hurt Tyler. Killing him isn't going to make this better."
"You been thinking about this alot, huh?" Caleb asked, cocking his head to the side.
"I think I'll go for that walk," Reid announced, dropping his legs from Tyler's bed.He put on his shoes and abruptly left the room, closing the door softly behind him.Caleb glanced down at Tyler and sank into the seat that Reid had just vacated. Reid drifted down the hallway outside of Tyler's room in a sort of daze.He found himself outside of Pogue's room, gazing in through the glass window. Pogue had remained unconscious, after attempting to warn Caleb about the danger that was Chase Collins. Reid figured that Caleb probably spent whatever free time he had with Pogue, and his own mother. Caleb was seventeen, but he had already given his life away, attempting to aid those that couldn't do it themselves. Pogue would heal, hopefully, but Caleb's mother was already dead. Her eyes were always glazed over, her voice always slurred in that sophisticated sort of way. She would never be able to care for herself, let alone Caleb. Caleb had grown up in solitude, clinging to the only essence that he knew as family; the covenant. He was overbearing and protective, but if he weren't then he just wouldn't be Caleb.
Reid had grown up fatherless, much like Caleb, but his father hadn't abandoned him for the Power. He had abandoned Reid for another woman, half his mother's age, and he currently had himself a family that appeared picture perfect. Two kids in highschool on the honor roll, an intelligent ten year old, a big house, picket white fence, obedient dogs who didn't shit all over the carpet. He had all but forgotten that he had left his eldest son alone with a women he knew was suicidal. A woman he knew was controlling and manipulative. Reid spent his junior highschool years trying to coax his mother to eat, to take the antidepressants that the doctos had prescribed. By high school the covenant had already viewed him as a rebel, merely because he had dabbled in his mother's alcohol cabinent when the stress of having her around became too high and too frequent. With alchol came pot, and after pot came the Power -- the greatest high in the world, and he quickly spiraled down into a pit that took three years to climb out of; his mother's screams and threats were silent while he was there. He skipped school and flaked out on friends, he remained on the couch, always floating on some sort of high. Reid knew that he should feel guilty about his mother; he hadn't told her where he was going and hadn't spoken to her in three days. But for all she knew -- he was still at school, living in the dorms merely because he couldn't deal with living with her. Reid didn't take care of his mother, much like she had failed to take care of him. Caleb, for all purposes intended, appeared to be the bigger man. An adult with a conscious; a conscious that Reid refused to instill within himself.
Pogue was lucky. His father hadn't been addicted to the Power, nor was he infidel. He was a loving husband, a loving father, and he taught his child everything that a child needed to know. He instilled within his child the need for peace, for happiness. Pogue needed peace, and right now he was the most peaceful that he was ever bound to be. Asleep, seemingly dreamless, just floating freely in mere existence.
Tyler was a different story all together. Tyler's parents had divorced when he was younger, before he and Reid ever became friends. Before he ever had a friend. His father had custody because his mother had a meth habit that just happened to be more important than her son. And his father didn't approve of the Garwin's, even though Reid wasn't nearly as reckless then as he was now. Under his father's hand, Tyler drew more withdrawn and quiet, trying to please everybody at the same time, gaining a disliking toward shouting and flinching whenever anybody raised their hands too quickly. And then when he was fifteen his mother filed for custody, having gone to rehab three times and finally cleaned up her act. She also married a rich man and lived in a marriage that lacked love. Tyler was allowed a choice and chose his mother because he didn't want to become the abrasive and commanding teenager that his father wanted him to be. His mother, however, wasn't any better. Nor was his new step father or his step father's children. His mother saw what her child could be, much like his father did, and refused to see what he currently was. His step father refused to acknowledge him and his stepsiblings made fun of him every chance they got. But they also refused to acknowledge that under Reid's guidance, Tyler had formed a harder outer shell and easily shrugged off their comments. This is why Tyler opted to live in dorms as well. That -- and that was where Reid lived. It was Tyler who disapproved of Reid's constant pot use, and the drunken haze that he seemed to live in, and it was Tyler who slowly coaxed him away from it. But not even Tyler could coax him away from Using. The call had always been too strong to ignore. It was Reid who would laugh when Tyler flinched away from him. He always tried to laugh off the awkwardness of the situation, but almost immediately he would assure the boy that it wasn't Reid who he should fear. Reid told him he wouldn't ever hit him, and Tyler had believed him. He was safe with Reid.
Reid shook his head and turned away from Pogue's still form. He caught a glimpse of a moving figure and then saw nothing else as he was enveloped in a thick cloud of black smoke. The smoke brushed roughly against him and he stumbled back against the window behind him. The smoke brushed against his face, rapidly entering his mouth, pressing against his eyes, forcing its way up his nose. Reid cried out, as the pressure behind his eyes increased rapidly. He tasted blood and spat it out as a warm liquid slowly coursed over his lips. He coughed, sucking in the air that didn't exist around him anymore, spewing blood before him and crumbling to his knees, grasping his head in his hands and squeezing his eyes shut.
And then, just as suddenly as the smoke had appeared, it vanished, and Reid gasped for air, grimacing as he swallowed more blood than he ever had in his entire life. He blinked repeatedly, wiping away the blood from his nose, and then -- deliberately slow, trying to sponge away the blood that had originated from his eyes. He coughed again, trying to clear the thickness in his throat, spitting blood out onto the ground beneath him. When Reid finally lifted his head, his eyes settling onto Chase, who was standing mere feet in front of him. Reid's face darkened, a deep glare settling across his blood smeered features. "You don't seem very happy," Chase purred, striding forward yet remaining far enough away as to allow Reid enough space to stumble to his feet.
Reid stumbled back a step, rubbing the blood from his hands onto his jeans. Reid didn't feel like bantering; for the first time in his life, words failed him, and anger replaced the loss. The need to Use was eating at his conscious, tearing it apart, and the anger was fueling the need, making it unbarable. A grin deepened Chase's expression. He raised a hand and gestured forward. "Well, have at it then."
Reid narrowed his eyes and blinked, his eyes quickly bleeding black. He drew at the Power that was nestled tightly inside of him, pulling it out quickly and focusing it to a point. He then lunged forward and forced the Power out with what strength he could muster. A mere few feet separated Chase and Reid, but Chase still had time to draw his hands together as a shield. When Reid's ball of heated energy reached Chase it broke apart and evaporated. "Is that it?" He asked, letting his disappointment surface across his features. "A little weak there, aren't we? Been out of practice, a bit, Reid?" Chase strode forward as he spoke, slowly closing the distance between the two merely because Reid refused to back down.
"This is stupid," Reid said, his voice as dark as his eyes. Whatever had been the comedic, slacker Reid had quickly disipated; whatever essence that was Reid was quickly fading. "Why are you doing this?"
"You mean -- why did I do that to Tyler, right?" Chase smirked. Reid could feel his boiling blood heating his skin and felt it cross his cheeks, turning them red beneath the caked blood. He curled his fists until his fingernails cut into his skin. "Poor Tyler," Chase commented casually. "Who didn't hurt anybody or anything. Just another unfortuante casualty of war." Chase smacked his lips, smiling straight into Reid's blazing eyes. "Let me tell you this, though," he said quietly, as if he were sharing a secret. "That boy sure did taste good. Just like chocolate."
"Bastard!" Reid shouted, lunging forward, unable to fight back the anger any longer. He grabbed Chase by the front of his shirt and slammed him violently into a wall. Chase let him. Reid had him pinned and Chase smiled down at him. He moaned softly and quibbed, "I like it when you're rough." Reid's glare darkened and he swiftly punched Chase, his movements a blur. Chase's smile didn't even falter; even when he lifted an arm to block Reid's second attempt, and then another arm to block his third. Chase quickly gripped Reid's upper arms and jerked him bodily to the side, quickly turning them around so that it was Reid who was pressed firmly against the wall. Reid first tried to shake Chase off, but when he realized, with a sickening sinking feeling, that Chase Collins was stronger, physically, than he, he tried something else. He tried to improve his strength with the Power, but his efforts only rustled Chase's hair, as if a soft breeze had blown into the room. Chase's hands slowly snaked up Reid's arms and gripped his neck painfully tight, pulling his head forward, while Chase's own body forced Reid's body to stay in place. They were close enough to kiss.
Reid's eyes momentarily widened, his own hands covering Chase's, desperately trying to pry them off. Slowly the blackness of his eyes faded away in unison with the oxygen in his lungs. Chase's heavy breath pressed against Reid's cheek as Reid squirmed in front of him, pain blossoming anew everytime Chase's hands shifted on his neck. "I predict that you, my rebellious little brother, are going to die from asphyxiation." Chase paused, flexing his hands against Reid's throat, satisfied only when a soft gasp escaped Reid's dried lips. "Do you know what that means? Asphyxiation is what happens when you can't breath properly. Such as coughing, and strangulation." He paused before continuing, smiling brightly as Reid's grip on his hands were beginning to soften. "Now, am I gonna strangle you to death?" Chase laughed sadistically, dipping his head closer to Reid's. "No. I like to think that I am much more creative than that," he boasted, swiftly releasing Reid's neck and stepping back as the boy collapsed to the ground, sucking in air greedily and coughing at the same time. His pale face was colored red, his hands pressed hard against the ground to keep his body off of it. His body shook violently with each painful cough, and a trembling hand clenched tightly at his heaving chest. "I am going to crucify you," Chase announced.