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Tyler stays quiet during their walk to the pond. He stares at the ground ahead, watching his feet crunch in the snow. Josh gives his hand a reassuring squeeze, but it does little to stop Tyler’s fingers from trembling along with the rest of his body. Josh isn’t sure whether it’s from anxiety, drugs, or simply being cold, so he decides it’s probably all three.
“Ty, stop for a minute,” he says gently. Tyler huffs.
“Can we just get this over with? I know you’re not taking me ice skating” Tyler snaps.
“I never said I was taking you ice skating. You and I both know it’s not cold enough for that yet,” Josh says softly. “Just let me fix your coat, your buttons are done all wrong.”
Tyler continues to stare at the ground while Josh carefully unbuttons and re-buttons his coat. He wants to ask how Tyler managed to mix up the buttons so badly, but he knows the answer, so he just pulls Tyler’s beanie further down to better cover his ears and kisses him lightly on the cheek.
Tyler takes a deep breath and looks up into Josh’s eyes for the first time in a while. Lately he’s been irritable and restless, constantly on the defense. But right now he looks like a deer caught in headlights.
His eyes are red, and there’s remnants of blood crusted under his nose. Even just from his face, Josh can see that Tyler has lost weight. Josh tries to maintain a neutral expression as he caresses Tyler’s cheek lightly, but he can’t help the concern that flashes across his face.
Tyler registers this, and his moment of vulnerability ends as quickly as it came. he’s back on the defense.
“Let’s keep walking,” he mumbles, words slurring together as he tugs on Josh’s sleeve. If it weren’t for the current situation, Josh would be rambling on about how cute Tyler looks in the oversized coat he stole from Josh last winter. But right now, Tyler looks like he’s drowning in it.
They sit on a patch of dry ground underneath a large tree, right next to the frozen pond they’ve skated on a thousand times before. Josh hates that they aren’t here to skate this time. He hates that he went through Tyler’s bag. He hates what he found. He hates that he had to look in the first place.
But he loves Tyler. So he sucks it up.
Before he can begin to speak, Tyler cuts in.
“It’s not mine, okay? It’s not… that’s not me. I don’t do that stuff anymore. It’s for a friend. I haven’t relapsed. I’m clean. Okay? Are we good?”
Josh takes Tyler’s shaky, mittened hands into his own. “I’m not accusing you of anything, Ty, I’m just worried. You’ve been… off.”
Tyler shakes his head in denial, but he lets Josh continue.
“I remember everything you told me about your past when we first started dating… and I mean everything. The bingers in the woods. The way you'd test if it was the real thing with tinfoil and a lighter. The feeling you’d get of bugs crawling under your skin. How sometimes you felt like a zombie-“
“Josh. Stop,” Tyler warns. “I don’t want to talk about that. And that isn’t what’s happening now. It’s not mine.”
“I will stop. I just, I want you to look me in the eyes and honestly tell me that you're okay. You made me promise not to let you disappear, and I made you promise not to hide if things got bad again.” He lifts Tyler’s chin up gently. “Please don’t hide from me.”
For a moment, it seems like Tyler will soften up. He closes his eyes and inhales through his nose, bottom lip trembling. Josh is patient.
But Tyler’s nose starts to drip blood on the exhale, and the moment is lost as he starts to panic. Josh moves to wipe the blood away with his sleeve but it’s too late.
“I didn’t want you to see me like this. You weren’t supposed to see this” he gasps, tearing away from Josh and stumbling to his feet, stomping onto the ice of the semi-frozen pond. Almost immediately the ice sounds like it’s cracking, and Josh yanks him back onto solid ground before he can even register what’s happening. Tyler squirms aggressively, trying to pull away, but Josh just envelopes him in his arms and holds him tighter.
“I’m not letting you get yourself hurt. You gotta calm down, Ty.”
“Leave me the fuck alone, Josh!” He hisses, struggling against Josh’s chest, trying to stand back up. “You’re just gonna leave anyway!”
At this point he’s half screaming, half sobbing. These are violent cries, and his body shudders with every ragged breath. Even at Tyler’s lowest, Josh has never heard him cry like this. It makes his chest ache.
“Breathe, Tyler, you’re okay. I’m not going to leave you. I’m never going to leave you, you know that.” he says soothingly, pressing his cheek to Tyler’s as he holds him from behind, rocking them back and fourth. Tyler’s face is soaked in warm tears.
He stops struggling as his body goes limp, but he continues to sob brokenly.
“I know, I know,” Josh whispers into his ear. “I know it hurts. I got you, Ty. We’re gonna be okay.”
Tyler shakes his head. “I don’t know h-how to stop this time,” he stutters. “I can’t shake this again, and I’m right back where I started. All of the progress is just… gone.”
“Then we start over, okay?” Josh says, nodding. “You can snap back from this. Maybe not as quickly or as easily as you’d like, but you will be okay again.”
Tyler sniffles and tries to catch his breath for a moment.
“You still love me, J?”
“I love you very much.”
“You won’t leave me?”
“I will never leave you.”
Tyler sits there quietly and leans back further into josh’s embrace. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”