So he watches Chase as he drinks his soup and picks at his sandwich, makes himself feeds Lucas, none of them very hungry. Finally, Tyler huffs and stands, gathering their plates and bowls, cleaning up. Chase creeps around the table and curls against Lucas, unmoving but somehow warmly inviting. Between one breath and the next, he's asleep.
~*~
He dreams—of heat and stars spinning overhead, of running, running that is strange and alive and alien. He dreams of howling and a warm pressure against his side, guiding him to something. He runs, mouth open and panting, and he can taste the world, the fresh rich earth and decaying underbrush, the paths of rabbits and mice.
A sharp yip drags his attention back to the path, to the run.
His companion steers him deeper into the forest, moving faster and faster, with a desperation that makes him whine and shake, and then they spill out into a star-spangled clearing where there’s a scorched spot of earth that smells like death and decay. It makes him whine again, fear clawing at his throat.
There is heat suddenly under his paws and a sense of wrong that claws at his gut, and he hears a howl, broken and sad.
His companion is gone and he shivers in the dark wood, anxious.
The smell comes to him then. It's familiar, warm and soothing and faintly medicinal. He takes a hesitant step forward and hears, “Hello, Chase.”
~*~
When Tyler shakes him awake, the sun is shining and coffee is on the table. He yawns widely, pressing hard into Lucas's side before he pats his arm affectionately. “You make a good pillow, Lucas.”
Tyler snorts and pushes the coffee to one side as he puts a plate of eggs down. Chase eyes the mug speculatively and Tyler firmly moves it out of Chase’s reach, ignoring his pout as he points at the orange juice he set in front of Chase.
“You have to go home,” he says and Chase wilts. “He’s worried about you, you know.”
“That’ll be a first,” Chase grumbles.
“Do you remember the accident that killed the Reid family?” Tyler asks abruptly.
Chase twitches. He does, vaguely. It happened before his mom got sick, when everything was still innocent and good and he didn’t believe the world could be bad—when he was a stupid kid.
“A little,” Chase says, and Tyler settles deeper into his seat. He won’t look at Chase, his gaze downcast and shifty. It slides into place then, like a key into a lock, and something in Chase breaks.
“Tyler,” he breathes, and then he stops, because there’s nothing to say. Nothing that actually does any good. He learned that with his mother and how fucking much it hurt to hear empty platitudes that did nothing but rub an open wound.
“Tell me?” he asks.
Lucas shivers next to him and Chase burrows into his side while Tyler watches.
“My parents and youngest sister were killed on impact. The car rolled. The brakes had failed and we lost control going down the mountain. Lucas and I—and my sister, Chelsea—we’re the only ones who survived. And Lucas... You can see how well that went.”
“Where is she?”
Tyler’s face goes chillingly blank and Chase bites his lip. “She—she wanted to leave Harrisburg. Start over. I felt—for a little while, I felt like I had to be with her, because I couldn’t help Lucas. But she never wanted to come home, so eventually I just came without her.”
He says it almost flatly, his voice empty, and maybe someone else would believe it doesn’t mean anything—but Chase isn’t someone else. He makes a noise, soft and wounded, that draws Tyler’s gaze to him. For a moment, he doesn’t look like Tyler, imposing and grumpy and authoritative. For a moment, he looks young and lost and so sad it makes Chase want to cry.
Then he blinks and it’s gone.
“Family is important,” he says.
Chase stiffens.
“This isn’t the same thing.”
“Don’t do something like this—you don’t want to push him away.”
“What about him pushing me away?” Chase shouts.
“Chase, he’s your father. You’re family, and that’s important. I know you’re angry—you have a right to be—but you have to go home. You have to talk to him.”
It’s on the tip of his tongue to protest, to say you and Lucas are family.
Tyler lost his family, and maybe he tolerates Chase. Maybe he’s even fond of Chase, but there is no way Chase—fumbling, clumsy, never shuts the fuck up, Chase—could ever hope to be family.
“He won’t let me come back here,” he says instead.
Tyler raps his knuckles on the table. “Hey,” he says sharply, and Chase’ eyes jerk up to his. “I think all three of us have lost enough. I’m not going to let him take you away. But I’m not going to be the reason you lose him, either.”
~*~
Chase is angry.
Tyler knows he is. He doesn’t even blame the boy—he’s angry too. But he’s also quietly implacable, refusing to back down as Chase dithers and dwaddles. He stands nearby, arms crossed, eyebrows lowered, glaring until Chase finally huffs. He ruffles Lucas’s hair and Tyler smirks.
“Bye, Lucas,” the boy calls and shrugs his bag onto his back, glaring at Tyler’s outstretched hand, pushing past him with a muttered, “Let’s go.”
Tyler holds in his sigh and follows quietly, knowing damn well Chase needs to work through his initial anger before he’ll be even close to reasonable.
The truth is, he doesn’t know how he ended up with Chase. He thinks about it sometimes, when he’s going home after dropping the kid off, or when the RV is quiet in the wake of his departure, and he just doesn’t know. There was that first afternoon when Chase, gaze so full of fear and grief that felt so familiar he couldn’t help but recognize it, had snapped at him, protected his brother of all people, and Tyler—Tyler had been so bewildered he couldn’t protest when the boy came back.
And then Chase helped him.
Maybe it
