A/N: My muse is a dick. This is a bit like a drabble. I was listening to Blue October and…wrote, I guess. No action. But this is in Tyler's POV. And Awayforlunch -- this does give a greater look on how Tyler sees Reid. And Caleb. Please review. I so desperately need it, it's not even funny…
I found Reid and Caleb sleeping together again. I don't mean sex. No, I've never walked in on Reid with another guy. In the middle of the act. There's always a morning after I'm unaware of, and stumble right into this huge moment I know nothing about. Like walking on fragile, shattered glass. I crush the glass into the ground, but it cuts up my feet all the same. Seeing them like that's just as bad as sex. But they don't know it. They hide sex, but they never hide the morning after.
There's something about seeing Reid sleeping like that. Peaceful, with that stupid, dopey smile on his face. A smile I never see when he's awake. How so very happy he looks in this moment of unconscious euphoria. He finally possesses a happiness we all know cannot exist, not really. Not for us - in this reality. Only in dreams are the men who break you equal to the white knights.
Our fearless leader looks different unconscious too. He doesn't know it. I wonder if he can feel his mask slipping, even while he sleeps. Does he subconsciously jerk, like you do when you feel like you're falling? Only to wake up and find yourself in the middle of your bed, where you left yourself… His mask dissolves in his sleep. I wonder if he has to take the time in the morning to reconstruct it from scratch. Does it get harder every day? Or easier, as all things should - with time. Does he remember each piece he pastes together? Does he end up just going through the motions in the end, always producing the same out-dated but immortal mask? Forgetting how wretched it's become, because he's not looking anymore…
He's curled into Reid's embrace like a child. Not just the normal, needy child, either. Reid, who acts too much like the beaten dog Caleb treats him like, manages to warm this cold, shivering - dying child. But what of the warmth Reid loses? Does Caleb care? Does he realize that this warmth - this too often taken for granted warmth could be all Reid possesses? And without it, Reid is likely to freeze to death. And Reid knows it, but he still gives. And he stands there, like a loss child, and watches Caleb abuse that warmth - that gift - and then discard it, only to ask for more.
Caleb can't see all that. He can't know that when he goes around breaking what he wants to, he leaves those behind to pick up all these broken - shattered - pieces and figure out how to glue them all back together. He can't know that we loose so many pieces in our struggles. If he did, then why would he keep doing this? Is he so selfish that he'd deny Reid, but make it impossible for Reid to find - to have - anyone else?
Reid moves in his sleep. Even while unconscious, he's restless. He moves in his sleep, burrowing further against Caleb. I'm sure they had a moment last night. That moment, like all time, has been lost, and yet he's clinging to it. They both are, with bloody, peeling fingernails.
I cross the room, just as I'd intended to do. On a post-it note, I write 'Went to Matt's. Be back at five.' Bad idea? Probably. Reid doesn't trust Matthew. I don't think I do either. Surely there's other people we could ask for help. But Matthew is the only one who'll understand why. Who will understand our need for this. To stop these murders. It isn't guilt, or sorrow. We didn't know these people. But there are murders, and they need to be stopped. Black and white conclusion.
I lean over the side of the bed, and gently press the post-it note to Caleb's forehead. I'm sure it's the first thing Reid will see. The first thing he'll bother to look at. Will Caleb see the…love, I guess, in his eyes? Or will that mask Caleb clings to block it all out. Is it like looking through a pair of goggles, or sunglasses? Is everything dimmer for Caleb? Is that why he treats Reid like that, because he can't really see anything?
Does it matter? - his reasons. His excuses. The glass, the bits and pieces of Reid's shattered being, are still on the floor. Caleb still stomps over each piece relentlessly. The bruises, and scars, cuts too deep for us to heal - they still color Reid's body, in their attempt to mirror how he feels inside. How battered his soul has become. How scarred. When they fade, Caleb is quick to remind him., as if he could ever forget. So that every time Reid looks in the mirror, he sees himself for exactly who he thinks he is - who Caleb reminds him to be. It's too pristine to be accidental.
And what do I do? Nothing. I cannot exist when all he sees is Caleb. I fade into the background, and do nothing.