Yellow

eight

Tye somehow found himself sat inbetween Kit and Alexis playing a heated game of monopoly. They were only just starting to buy properties and for some unknown reason they had all elected him to be the banker.

"You can't buy every property you land on!" Travis yelled at Riley, who had bought his third property in a row.

"That's the point Travis!" Riley defended himself as Tye silently passed him the property card for the strand.

Tye inwardly sighed, it had been bad enough with the uproar he had caused when he had told them he had never played monopoly before, and now they were yelling at each other.

Noah rolled, landing on Tye's only property, old kent road. He had quickly discovered none of the others seemed to want to brown set of properties, so he had bought the one he had landed on with his very shitty roll of the dice. He figured if he could put houses and hotels on it, he could become a bit of a threat.

"How much do I owe ya Tye?" Noah asked, Tye studied the card in his hand.

"Two pound." He replied, taking the money from the older boy.

"I still don't know why you bought that one Tye." Kit mused. Tye just shrugged and took the dice from Noah, rolling the dice and moving to his allocated square of the angel islington, he passed the dice to Artemis and bought the property, glad that he didn't have to talk when buying his own properties, it took a lot of worry off him.

Although he was slowly warming up to them and had begun to trust them, although he didn't want to admit it to himself, he was still finding it hard to talk to them properly, he couldn't let his walls down, not yet at least.

^^^
"Tye, can I come in?" A knock at his door awoke Tye from where he'd fallen asleep contemplating his position. He got up and stumbled to the door, finding himself face to face with Alexis. "You didn't come down for lunch, are you okay?"

"What?" He frowned, he'd fallen asleep at 11, how was it past 1 pm?

"Did you fall asleep?" Alexis seemed understanding. He just nodded. "Come on, I'll make you a sandwich." He held his hand out and Tye took it, he was trying to push himself to be less scared of touching other people and holding hands seem to be a good place to start. "Did you sleep at all last night?"

Alexis was nice and seemed genuinely concerned, which he liked, but he still wasnt sure why he cared so much, Tye hadn't been particularly likeable during his time living with them so far. "Not really." Tye pushed himself to talk, he wanted to make the effort, he really did, but he'd closed himself off to new people for such a long time it was proving to be difficult to get through his own walls.

"Because of your nightmare the other night?" It was like Alexis had been through a similar thing with night terrors and it felt comforting that he could relate. "They won't happen every night, and you'll make yourself feel like shit if you don't sleep."

Tye shrugged, this wasn't a conversation he particularly wanted to have. In all honestly the way he had screamed and cried the other night embarrassed him, and he wanted to avoid talking about it as much as he could.

They made their way into the kitchen, Tye pulling himself up onto the counter next to where Alexis began making him a sandwich, of which he was still insistent he didn't really want. "You're not vegetarian or vegan are you?" Alexis asked suddenly, turning to him from where he had opened the fridge and pulled out a pack of ham. Tye shook his head. "Good, just checking because none of us have actually asked that yet." He laughed to himself, grabbed a tub of butter and went back to his station.

Tye must have zoned out whilst Alexis finished the sandwich, because he suddenly found himself with half a sandwich in his hand, Alexis on the counter beside him, eating the other half.

He took a bite, it was the best sandwich he'd had in a while, not that he'd particularly had very many, unless he was at his friend's, he rarely got lunch at all.

"Thanks." He muttered, getting a wide smile in return. It was oddly relaxing sitting there with Alexis, who didn't try to push him, and simply sat with him, and he was thankful for that.

"Come on." Alexis said suddenly, a few minutes after they'd finished eating. He held out his hand, allowing Tye to make the choice to hold it or not, he chose to, earning a wide smile.

Alexis led him to Artemis' room, knocking on the door, which was quickly answered by the ridiculously tall man. He smiled softly at them.

"Come on in." He took Tye's other hand, earning a slight surprised gasp from the younger at the sudden and forceful contact, but no attempt to pull away. He sat them both on his bed, sitting across from them, both he and Alexis releasing his hands.

Tye looked from one to the other, there was no doubt in his mind that they had orchestrated the entire thing.

"Tye, we want to try something." Artemis announced, Tye looked at him, he began chewing on his lip nervously. "We want to help you, obviously we know you aren't comfortable with touch, and we want to help you get to the root of the problem." He paused, looking to Alexis as a signal for him to take over.

"Can we try?" He asked. Tye nodded, he trusted them enough to know that they would stop if he asked them to. Artemis flexed his muscles, but the way he moved made it look like his hand was going to make contact with Tye's face, the boy flinching and bringing his arms up to protect his face. Both of them stared at him.

"Tye, none of us would ever, ever hurt you." Artemis said slowly, as Tye brought his arms down. "We will never hurt you."

Tye stared at him, he felt half caught out, half relieved that he had someone who he could trust not to hurt him, providing they proved it to him. "N- never?" He surprised himself with how vulnerable he sounded.

"Of course not." Alexis took his hand, making him look at him. "We all care so much about you Tye, we would never do anything to hurt you."

"Okay." He nodded his head, he had been around them all long enough to gauge whether or not they were a threat to him, and they didn't seem to be.

"So how comfortable are you with contact, do you want to try a hug?" Artemis suggested. "It doesn't have to be long. Try first with Alex and then if you're comfortable I'll hug you."

Tye nodded and took a deep breath, pushing himself to his feet. Alexis grinned and stood in front of him. He was wearing a hoodie that was at a guess Noah's, too small to be Artemis' or Carter's, but he didn't wear hoodies anyway, too big to be Alexis', Travis' or Kits and definitly too big to be Riley's.

Alexis stepped towards him gently and wrapped his arms around him, Tye reciprocating before he even knew what he was doing. It felt nice to be in his arms, Alexis smelt lightly of Vanilla and he seemed warm and safe. They pulled away a few seconds after they'd made contact. Tye's breathing had slightly increased, but he hadn't started to panic.

He hadn't started to panic.

They were safe then, he concluded as he nodded to let Artemis know it was his turn. The taller boy held him tightly, he was exactly a foot taller than Tye and he seemed to know how to put the right amount of pressure into his hug to make it feel safe. Tye couldn't stop himself from hugging Artemis back either. He smelt like pine in a summer's breeze and it was so comforting. Tye found himself not wanting to let go. But he did when Artemis pulled away with a wide grin on his face.

And Tye smiled back, albeit cautiously. He felt safe with someone for the first time in a while and that felt... good. He was happy, truly happy with these people in this truly weird house.

It had been a long time since he'd felt this way.