The Third Wheel BxB (Old + new versions)

Chapter 10: The life of an undead man

"You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another" (Ernest Hemingway)

TW: Suicidal thoughts.

Third person POV

After his mother's death, when he was still a teenager, Kyle had thought a lot about ways of escaping his situation.

Leaving the pack had been an option. Taking too many pills and hoping he would never wake up another.

In the end, he had stayed and survived years of abuse under the guardianship of his uncle. He had even become the best warrior of the pack, after Darren. Yet, it didn't feel like he had really accomplished anything.

In order to cope with everything, his unconscious strategy had been to fight his mind constantly. Training hard so he could keep the dark thoughts at bay. Being as little alive as possible without actually being dead.

He hadn't minded the silence, the loneliness and the eat/sleep/train/repeat routine, because the less alive he felt, the less it hurt.

It was not so difficult, becoming robot-like. All you had to do was to function. Do what you were asked to do, without letting any feelings affect your judgment.

However, since Darren and Nate were somehow back in his life, he had found that this good old strategy of his was not working so well anymore.

Around them, he was finally realising how tired he was, and he didn't just mean physically. If he stopped and rested now, maybe he would never have the strenght to function again.

"Kyle?"

"Hm?"

He replied to Darren in a muffled voice, his legs slightly shaking under him.

"Please, sit down."

He fell rather than sat on the ground. Darren and Nate looked worried, but didn't comment on it, and sat next to him.

"Sorry for interrupting your time with your mother" Nate eventually stammered, as Kyle kept gazing in the distance with tired eyes. "We didn't want to eavesdrop. It's just, you mentionned us to her, and then.."

"You got curious. I understand. I would have probably done the same. It's fine." Kyle cut in.

"But-"

"I said it's fine."

As the they went quiet again, Kyle felt himself becoming more and more agitated. He hadn't actually spilled any secrets in his mates' unknown presence, but he had revealed embarrassing things about himself - again.

Whining about his mates not wanting him, babbling about his friendship with a four years old girl... What else?

How humiliating.

"Kyle?"

"Yes?"

"What do you want from us?"

He eventually looked away from the starless sky. Although he was not very good at receiving affection, there was no mistaking in the warmth that danced in Darren's eyes at this very moment.

He had to forced himself not to lean forward, not to try to get closer to this warmth, to bathe his frozen soul in it until it would feel alive again.

"What do you need from us, right now?" Darren clarified in a soft voice. "You can ask us."

An unwanted longing suddenly gripped what was left of his heart. It could have gone so well between them, he thought. If his mother had still been there, if his uncle hadn't forced him to take suppressants, if he had found out about his mates earlier, if he hadn't tried to rape Nate...