is this love?↠tythan↞

•ch. 7 holding on•

Ethan woke up with a gasp one night, his breathing was rugged and his heart beat could be felt in his ears. Sitting up Ethan rubbed at his eyes trying to forget the horrid nightmare he just had. This wasn't a new thing, even before he left Danny, he occasionally woke in the middle of the night from a horrible memory that managed to worm its way into his dreams. But now more so than ever, Danny seems to be haunting his dreams.

Taking a deep breath Ethan forced himself to sit up and try to calm down before his anxiety took completely over. He wiped a hand over his face and noticed for the first time the tears that collected in his eyes have made their way down his cheeks.

The blue haired boy didn't even realize the door to his room opened until he heard a soft gravelly voice, "Ethan are you okay?" Tyler's voice was thick with sleep causing Ethan to curse at himself for waking the poor guy.

"I'm fine." He said unsurely. Tyler slipped into the room and sat next to him, "Sorry if I woke you, It was just a bad dream."

Tyler looked at him sadly, "Don't be I was awake and heard you crying from my room, love." The curly haired man studied to smaller male next to him and noticed the dark circles under his eyes that has came from countless nights of no sleep. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Thinking for a moment Ethan shrugged his small shoulders unsurely. "I don't know, cause the dreams are usually just memories." Ethan frowned when he accidentally made himself remember the dream. "And I don't want to bother you with them."

Tyler thought for a moment, thinking of the best way to approach the situation, "Okay well do you want to talk about some of the memories?" he suggested gingerly his face softening when he saw fear flash through Ethan's mostly emotionless eyes. "It's okay, you can tell me as much as you want and I won't push it. I just want you to know that you are safe to share anything, I won't ever judge or you belittle you."

Ethan looked at Tyler hesitantly, "You promise?" His voice held the least bit of confidence that broke Tyler's heart. It was becoming blatantly clear that Ethan has devolved trust issues even with his closest friends.

"I promise I won't ever, no matter what, judge you." Tyler stated reassuringly confident, he then rose his hand and held up three fingers, "Scouts honor." Ethan chuckled lightly at the seemingly silly action but in all honesty he was deeply thankful because he knows no matter what Tyler would never break a scout's promise.

"Okay," the blue haired boy took a deep breath and let it out steadily, "Okay, I don't know an exact thing to start with." Ethan bit his lip as he tried to think.

"How about starting with the argument that happened at the office?" Tyler suggested carefully, really wanting to know what was the final push that unraveled the truth.

Ethan nodded his head, "Okay yeah." His hands started to fidget with the hem of his soft pajama shirt, "So uh when we walked into the office I put down the flowers and I could already tell he was upset about something." He took another deep breath and continued, "So he came up behind me and whispered into my ear that he wanted to "talk in private" so I brought him to another room and," a slight tremble started in Ethan's hands, "and he immediately started to accuse me of cheating on him with you."

"Sorry to interject, but why would he think that?" Tyler asked trying to understand more.

"He uh doesn't like when I'm um alone with people," Ethan started to explain, "One of the rules were I wasn't allowed to spend extended time alone with people, and so he got extremely angry when we went out to eat."

"Hold up, sorry again, but did you just say one of his rules?" Tyler asked getting a slight nod of Ethan's head, "So you mean there are rules, like more than one?" Getting another nod, Tyler stared in disbelief.

"Yeah sorry I didn't explain that at the office." Ethan said sheepishly while his teeth nibbled on his bottom lip, "There were a lot of rules."

"Okay you can talk about that next or another time," Tyler spoke still in his state of disbelief, "But what else happened at the office."

Ethan sighed as his fidgeting hands played with the hem of his shirt, "Well the rest went pretty fast, he started to yell louder about me being unfaithful and I raised my voice slightly, pleading with him to quiet down before someone heard," Tear whelmed in Ethan's eyes but before they could fall he wiped them away. "He got even more mad that I dared to raise my voice at him. He grabbed the first thing next to him which was a vase and threw it in my direction. It landed on the floor in front of me." Ethan paused for a minute to calm himself down before he had a panic attack from the flashbacks.

"It's okay you don't have to continue." Tyler spoke softly and carefully placed a comforting hand on Ethan's thigh. To his surprise Ethan did not flinch or jump, he just looked down at the hand and then but to Tyler's eyes.

"No, I gotta finish this one." Ethan responded and continued when Tyler gave him another reassuring nod, "Danny got louder and told me that it was my fault that he broke the vase. I tried to defend myself but he got angrier and I don't know why but grabbed the glass table and smashed it front of him." For a moment the only thing Ethan heard was the repeated sound of the glass colliding with the floor, "His anger went down and he just stared at me while saying, 'Look what you caused.' He held his strong gaze with me while passing me. But before he left he snapped at me to clean the mess I made." Ethan ran his hand through his hair finishing the story in a quick breath, "He left and then you found me."

Tyler swallowed his on growing anger towards the terrible excuse of a human, and spoke as softly as he could, "I'm sorry Ethan. I'm sorry you had to go through all this" If anything Tyler's respect and admiration for Ethan skyrocketed because even though Ethan has been treated like genuine shit he still managed to be kind and compassionate to everyone around him.

"Don't be." Ethan responded wearily, "I kinda don't want to talk anymore about him right now." The tremble in his hand went away but most of his nerves will still jittering.

"Yeah of course," Tyler said turning to look at the clock, "You want to go back to sleep? It's 2 in the morning." Ethan nodded in response but instantly missed the contact once
Tyler removed his hand from his thigh.

Tyler reluctantly stood up and was about to leave the room but quickly stopped in his place when he heard a small voice behind him, "Tyler, can you uh s-stay?" Ethan's voice was full of uncertainty and was laced with embarrassment, "I-I don't wanna be a-alone tonight. I'm sorry, you don't have to if you don't want to.

The curly haired man turned around and flashed a warm smile in the boy who was still on the bed, "I was hoping you would ask." Tyler immediately kicked himself in the ass for being so bold but was soon relieved when Ethan flashed in a small smile.

Ethan laid down on the bed and scooted over so Tyler could slip in. The bed wasn't the biggest for the two of them but they couldn't care less. As soon as Tyler was settled he wrapped his strong arms around the small boy and pulled him close onto his chest. Ethan was a bit stiff at first but he quickly melted into the latter's chest as he let out a contented sigh. His breathing soon evened out as he was lulled to sleep by the rhythmic beating of Tyler's heart. As sleep slowly blurred the rough edges of Ethan's mind, the blue haired boy could have sworn he heard a muffled voice whisper 'I love you' in the softest way possible but in Ethan's sleep daze he brushed it off as his mind playing games. Not even within 5 minutes of laying down Ethan was soon dead to the world around him as he was plunged into a peaceful rest for the first time in forever.

Hey thanks so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Feed back is much appreciated ^-^ And I'll see you in the next chapter, buh bye!