A/N: This chapter isn't up to my regular standard. I'm sorry. And it seems a little disconnected in my head. But please review -- and tell me what you think. Ugh I feel like such a slacker because I have a depressingly one track mind. So when I get into a story I do it for a few chapters before I can get into a different story. It didn't used to be like that -- I used to update all my stories at the same time. Right now, it's this story, don't care and Malleus malificarum. I apologize. And! I am currently working hard on a work in progress that I am revising to death because I want to publish a book. Big dreams, I know. It's the best writing I've ever done. And that's just the first chapter. And there's no violence or sex in that chapter. Like wow…but anyways, read on -- I give to you yet another facet of Reid's surprisingly complicated personality.

Because I like my boys complex….

And emo at heart.

PS - I actually typed up half a draft of this chapter, except instead of Tyler, it had Pogue (and obviously a different conversation). Because I'm a bitch and he hasn't been in this story yet. I decided that it had to go back to the beginning for reconciliation, and that's why I went with Tyler. I'm beating their homoerotic friendship to death, I know. But as a challenge to me, the next chapter will have Pogue doing some Pogue-ish ^_^ You can request Pogue-ish things if you want, it'll help me a lot. Because I can't get inside of his fictional little head and it annoys me…

---

I know I shouldn't love you

But I want to

His fingers danced across the guitar strings, graceful if only for a moment. It'd been months since he'd even thought about playing, but his fingers glided through the tired routine he'd perfected years ago. A simpler time when all that mattered was music and good music, not that cheesy heavy metal gone commercial music. And Certainly not power. Before he'd had that first taste, before all of his energy was redirected. When he was content with being second rate. Before Caleb had ever…

He leaned back against the wall, letting his eye slip closed. He was tired but it didn't matter. He didn't have to look down anymore. He could see it all in his head. The notes, the words that he failed to sing. Silence. But it was enough.

He tongued the cut that split his bottom lip in half. It was deep but it'd already started the scabbing process. His head hurt, his stomach hurt, his legs hurt. He hadn't bothered showering or changing. The blood caked his clothes but he'd already learned to ignore it. He ignored it all. And with his eyes closed, concentrating harder on breathing normal than the notes, he managed to ignore the pain that echoed across his forehead and forced a grimace from him.

He licked his lips again. His tooth hurt and he wondered if it was because of how many times Caleb had punched him in the jaw. A jaw that was now swollen and purple. The pain encompassed his jaw and seared up his cheek. The pain was separate from his headache, from the choking pain closing around his heart that made his chest hurt every time he struggled for a new breath of air. His fingers stuttered, if only briefly, against the guitar strings. The song broke but Reid ignored it. Everything was broken now. He could feel it. It felt different. Dirty and dark. It hurt and he swallowed hard. Everything was so fucking broken and the blood was on Caleb's hands. But Reid knew it stained his own skin too.

The song resumed.

"Hey." The voice was quiet, restrained. Reid's head snapped up but the song didn't falter. "You sound good." The compliment was half hearted. Tyler turned away and gently closed the door. He crossed the dorm in silence and eased himself down onto his own bed. He took in Reid's battered appearance in silence. "You don't usually sound so dark."

Reid blinked. Right. He was talking about the song. When did the song stray from the notes in his head? "Keep mixing colors together and the only thing you're left with is black." He sounded dead, even Reid noticed that. His fingers were numb but the dull ache didn't even compare to the other taunting pains viciously stabbing at his body.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Tyler pressed, leaning forward. His elbows, suddenly bony, dug into his knees. His eyes narrowed as he took in his best friend's appearance again. His eyes were dark, pale, glazed. He didn't answer. "Reid?"

"I don't know," Reid drawled, dragging his fingers across the taunt strings. The notes were merging together into something he didn't recognize. He didn't care anymore. "I'm tired, Tyler."

Tyler had no idea where his best friend was going with this. It was starting to scare him. "What happened, Reid?" He rose slowly to his feet. "Who was it this time?"

Reid shrugged tiredly. "It doesn't matter anymore."

"What happened, Reid?" Tyler repeated, kneeling in front of the blonde. He reached forward, covered Reid's hand with his own, and abruptly threw the room into silence once more. "Tell me what happened."

Reid frowned, staring down at the guitar clenched in his hands. "Is he a freaky stalker?"

Tyler's frown matched the one carved into the blonde's face across from him. Matt. Is Matthew suspicious. "No," he murmured. "He's lonely. The perfect outsider's story. Smart yet completely unappealing because nobody cares about what's inside of your body anymore.. And he wouldn't be suspicious if…"

"If what?" Reid mumbled, forcing his dark eyes away from the guitar. He forced himself to look into Tyler's anxious gaze. Only he would have been able to catch the conflict caught awkwardly within those eyes. Only he would be able to recognize and identify it. Tyler liked Matthew. That alone broke Reid's heart.

"He keeps watching me," Tyler mumbled, abruptly breaking Reid's intense gaze. "I kept catching him staring at me. Not just staring, really….more like watching."

"Fucking creeper," Reid snickered. Tyler flashed him a grin too. And just like that, the ice melted. "You'd tell me if he…did anything fucked up to you right?"

"Yes, mother," Tyler groaned. "I'll tell you, alright?"

Reid smiled. It wasn't a smirk, but Tyler didn't seem to notice. "I think Caleb might be onto us." Understatement of the century. If Reid was submerged in something, anything, Caleb knew that Tyler would be knee deep in Reid Garwin's shit too.

"What do you mean?" Tyler asked. He rose to his feet and collapsed onto the bed beside Reid, who busied himself briefly with setting his guitar aside and pulling his knees up to his chest, a surprisingly childish move for the blonde. "Caleb doesn't ---"

Reid reached for the newspaper that he'd tossed onto the bed after Caleb had left. Tyler noticed the bloody finger prints but he didn't say anything. "He thinks I did something. He thinks I exposed us. And this is what happened."

Tyler's eyes quickly scanned the paper and he frowned. "Matthew wouldn't've done this," he decided. He wasn't sure, and that's what bothered him. He'd spent one day with the boy. He didn't know shit. But he did know one thing. Matthew was thorough. He was clean. He was complex and if he were to kill a witch, Tyler knew he would burn her at the stake. Because it was symbolic. Beautifully symbolic. But the crime scene looked too dirty, too grim. Matthew was too clean. And Tyler wanted to believe that.

"I know," Reid sighed. He didn't sound nearly as unsure as Tyler felt. He sounded confident. Tyler didn't know that Reid had already made up his mind, that he'd already defended the geek more than once with Caleb. The belief he wasn't sure he even supported was already seared into his brain. "That's why I didn't tell Caleb anything." Tyler released a mouthful of air he didn't know he'd been holding. And why had he? This wasn't his mess. He hadn't exposed them. He hadn't been exposed at all. Why was the danger suffocating him just as much as it was killing Reid? "But that doesn't simplify anything, Ty. That means that you've got a fucking creeper watching you, which means you can't Use and I can't Use around you. And the others can't Use around you."

"It also means there's somebody else out there killing people they believe to be witches," Tyler mumbled in conclusion. It was a silent understanding. They both knew how much of a trial it would be for Reid to simply not Use in front of Tyler. He hadn't treated his Power like a secret…ever… "But Matthew ----"

Reid shook his head quickly. "I'll talk to him." Talk wasn't exactly the word he had in mind. Interrogate was more like it. He still had that other part of his deal to hold up. The 'quit being such an ass' side. This boy sure was asking the world of him and Reid didn't want to find out if he could really give it up just like that.

Tyler nodded. That didn't help him breathe any easier. "He's too smart, Reid. He wouldn't kill somebody just because they dress different and insult the bible. Especially not after he saw what you can do. You're not different." Tyler caught himself and his eyes widened slightly. "I mean, I'm not calling you a conformist, or bland. I didn't mean to imply that you were like everybody --"

"Baby boy," Reid interrupted. He sounded amused and Tyler frowned. He hated how Reid always smiled and let him finish making a fool of himself before ever saying anything. "I'm a man. You can't hurt my feelings." To prove his point further, he flashed Tyler a grin and elbowed him hard in the arm. They both grimaced in pain. "Forget about me. What you need to worry about is the murderer. If it wasn't him then who could it be?"

"Maybe you can ask Matthew," Tyler offered. The look Reid gave him was enough to force an uncomfortable laugh from him. "You don't think he did it, Reid. And neither do I. But he's at the top of our class. Smarter than Caleb. If you ask him, he'll know your motives. He'll think you were insulted, or afraid -- you'd want the killer to be caught. If he really wants to be friends, he'll do this for us."

"I don't want to work with him, Tyler." That one comment conveyed too many emotions for Tyler to decode. It wasn't like Reid to reveal so much in one sentence.

"Okay," he mumbled, looking away. "You don't have to. We can do this on our own then."

"I'm sorry." The words sounded weird in Reid's voice. Tyler didn't know how often those words had passed his lips but he was sure it was extremely rare. Because Reid never apologized for anything, except for that one time he's accidentally shoved Tyler down the stairs, during a confrontation with Aaron Abbot, and broke a few of his ribs. He couldn't heal the younger boy, and although his eyes were squeezed shut in pain as he remained hunched over on the ground at the bottom of the stairs, Tyler wouldn't ever forget that look Reid had given him, as he repeated that one word ten thousand times more than necessary, in a surprisingly shaky voice. Tyler didn't know how often Caleb had torn those words from the blonde and left his throat raw. Caleb was the reason he never apologized. "You won't tell Caleb?"

The question forced Tyler's sharp gaze back to Reid's paler eyes. "No," he muttered. Of course he wouldn't tell. He had learned to stop going to Caleb when Reid fucked up. That first time that he had walked in on Caleb punishing Reid…the look Reid had give him when the pair noticed their audience…that look alone had managed to haunt Tyler for years. If that was how Caleb punished Reid…well he just didn't have that right. He was their leader, but he wasn't their father. He didn't have the right to control them.

"You're not a fuck up, Reid," Tyler told him, his voice harsher than he meant it to be. He didn't know how, but he was sure that Reid's current physical and mental state was Caleb's fault. "You're not immature, Reid. You aren't….you aren't any of those things that Caleb keeps calling you. He doesn't know you. He doesn't know shit."

Reid shrugged off Tyler's sentiments. The younger son knew how uncomfortable he was making the blonde. "We've known each other for --"

"Doesn't matter," Tyler interrupted. "You can know a person for years without ever seeing them. And I don't want that, Reid. I've never wanted what Caleb has. And I don't want what Pogue has. I don't want what they have together, that friendship, their relationship. It's a pile of lies. I like what we have." He paused, slightly appalled at that particular statement. He sounded like a faggot. "I know you. And Caleb won't ever have that knowledge. He won't ever know you." He won't ever know that classical music helps you concentrate, or that you can play piano and violin. He won't ever know that you know more about science than I do and that I don't have to talk stupid to you because you're not stupid. He won't know that you hum Metallica when you get nervous, or that you can't stand Grape jelly. He won't ever see that shine in the back of your eyes when you turn serious, not angry, but serious…

"But Caleb --"

"Knows how to hurt you," Tyler interrupted again. Reid frowned at the intrusion. Tyler didn't admit that he too knew how to hurt the blonde. "He doesn't know how to fix you." Like I do. "All he can do with his knowledge is wreck destruction wherever he goes. He won't help shit. So quit being so fucking emo." Tyler flashed Reid a smile that somehow managed to be both challenging and soft at the same time. "Did he break anything?"

Reid shook his head, his hair unusually still. It was caked together in thick clumps with blood and sweat. "I don't know. I felt something in my back pop and I kept landing on my knee…." And he bit my neck really hard…like a fucking zombie.

The growl left Tyler before he could contain it. He pressed a hand against Reid's chest and the blonde hissed out a painful gasp. Neither boy failed to notice how he leaned into the touch, despite the evident pain. Tyler's eyes slipped closed. He preferred it this way. He hated seeing the faces Reid made when Tyler healed him. "Broken ribs. Bruised lung. Fractured collar bone." His hand shifted, moving closer to Reid's neck, the pads of his fingers pressed gently against the skin of Reid's neck.. "Concussion." He sighed loudly, his eyes turning black beneath heavy lids. If he could, he would have blocked out the quiet gasps and pained grunts that slipped from between Reid's clenched teeth.

A second hand found his knee and Tyler silently surveyed the rest of his body. The bruising was bad, the worst it'd ever been. He lost the power before he could heal the bruises completely. Bones took the most energy and that's what he always focused on first. Because that's what mattered the most. Reid stopped him before he finished healing the bruises and cuts. A bony hand closed around his wrist and roughly shoved him away.

Glazed eyes met Reid's glare. The pale face wasn't bruised and the cut above his eye had faded considerably. "I told you all I need is --"

"The bones reset, I know," Tyler sighed. "But with all the bruising, you wouldn't have been able to sleep. Or walk without limping. Your knee was swollen and --"

"You're risking addiction," Reid interrupted sharply.

"I am not," Tyler argued half heartedly. He blinked but the exhaustion made it harder for him to open his eyes again. "I have it all under control, mother." He yawned sleepily and leaned back against the wall beside Reid. "Which reminds me, my mother thinks you're neglecting her."

Even through the exhaustion clouding his mind, Tyler knew he didn't like the smirk that distorted Reid's face. Or the way Reid licked his lips and stared off into space. "Guess I'll just have to pay her a visit…."

"Whatever," Tyler grunted, shoving himself up from Reid's bed. "Just keep that shit to yourself. Fucking pervert." He fell silent, concentrating on pulling his t-shirt off over his head and kicking off his shoes and jeans without falling over. He slipped beneath the covers and promptly fell asleep, but Reid remained awake. He knew what Tyler assumed what he did with his mother. He wished Tyler was wrong. He wished he hadn't had a relationship with his best friend's mother and he wished his friend would never walk in on that relationship. He really liked how Tyler's mother treated him, though. How she held him against her chest; her bare chest pressed against his bare back. He liked waking up beside her, their limbs entangled together, her long, curly hair, soft against his face. He liked waking up with her smell still heavy in the air. And he hated that. He hated that he needed this so badly. That he needed a thirty five year old to make him feel loved. But he refused to let her go. He refused to deny her just because she made him feel dirty at the same time. Even more, he hated how Tyler resembled his mother, the stupid quirky smiles he gave, the stupid concerned looks. He hated that sometimes, he didn't mind the resemblance between mother and son, Sometimes his nonchalance about his growing attraction didn't scare the shit out of him and that's what tore at him the most.

He needed to feel loved. What he had with Caleb wasn't love, and Reid acknowledged that. But it was affection. And sometimes affection was all he could ask for. What he had with Tyler was perfect, too perfect to touch. He didn't want to fuck it up. But his relationship with Caleb was already fucked to begin with, he could fondle it all he wanted to. He could bleed it dry. Until Caleb bled him dry. And then he'd still crawl back to him. Because at night, when he woke up in Caleb's bed, when he leaned closer to him, sometimes Caleb wrapped his arms around the blonde and just help him there -- against his chest. Sometimes, at night, Caleb could be pretty perfect too.