Friends With Time ⌛ (Tyler Galpin x Reader)

Day 36-45

Day 36:

Speaking with the monster today is awkward, but a good kind, a softer kind of awkward. It's weird to be friends now. You're not entirely sure how to talk to him, but if you follow what he does, it makes sense.

You pull out your own journal, but the pages lined with descriptions of days gone by fill your chest with a sense of wrongness. You're not sure why, until long after you've set the book back. You spend that night reading, and the Bubble is full of warm lamplight. With a fuzzy blanket draped across your legs and a warm mug of tea sending a curl of hot, peppermint-scented steam into the air around you, you feel at home here, curled up on the couch.

You haven't read much farther into your father's journal, but it seems to be more of the same.

Suddenly, an idea hits you, and you flick through the pages of his journal to the last one, with the ripped out page and half of the book left.

You twist, grabbing a pencil from the coffee table, and flip the page. You shade in a drawing of your Hyde, and above it, you write, "How To Help a Hyde Shift Back." The words are drawn carefully, written with an excessive amount of care. Your handwriting was never the best, but you're continuing your father's guide, and that means it has to be perfect.

You write, lost in thought, copying his style down to the way he uses bullet points.

My Hyde is especially fond of La Mer by Charles Trenet, you write. Ask them what they like. The whole goal is to calm them down. You pause, then scratch that last line out. The whole goal is to make them feel safe. Take time to make them feel safe.

Day 40:

"What kind of opener is that?" the monster demands, staring at your opening move.

"It's called 'Horsepocalypse,'" you tell him, with as much dignity as the name can muster. "One of my friends from the Academy invented it."

"I can see that," he says, moving a pawn forward on his side of the board.

You smack the glass. "Hey! It's a good opener!"

Your monster looks up at you, brow furrowing as he smiles. "Sure. Pawn to E5."

You roll your eyes and move one of the ivory pieces on your side with a finger, sweeping his pawn over to your capture pile. "Horse to E5."

He groans, and you skim a finger along the chess set that you found in the store room.

There were two sets, so with one on his side and one on yours, you and the monster can play chess together. When you found them, nestled underneath some cabinets in the store room, you wondered whether it was your father's. Why else would there be two sets? Maybe he even played on your chessboard.

You know what your mother would say about such an activity, but the days on the sea can be hard and long. At least this way, you're not bored.

"Pawn to F6," he says.

Day 45:

Today you do it. You finally breach the question you've been mulling around in your head for almost a week now.

You and the monster are sitting together. He is moving pieces around on the chess set, and you're polishing a sack of the white china dishes you found. Hidden in that corner of the store room with all the other things you're finding, they were covered in sheets of thick dust. You tried to wash them this morning, but dust like that has to be wiped off before you can wash them.

You shake the smooth cloth you're using, dust blowing from it like a puff of dandelion seeds.

"When you monstered out, a week or so ago," you start, glancing at the cloth.

The monster winces. The pieces on the set wobble as he pushes it back, turning to look at you with guarded eyes. "Yes?"

"What caused it?"

The monster shrugs, pulling his flannel tighter around himself.

"It's like an anxiety attack," he says, fingers moving to gesture as he tries to explain it. "You're panicked and then you're caught in that panic until you can either calm yourself down or find someone else to take the fear for you."

Take the fear for you. The thought drills cold chill down into your bones, but you press on, pulling a wineglass from the sack of dishes. "So what triggered it? The panic?"

Tyler wraps an arm around himself, eyes meeting yours with the traditional shiver in your belly whenever your eyes lock. "If I tell you, you have to promise that you're going to stay with me if I monster out."

You nod, setting the glass down. "Of course I would," you say, meeting his eyes. "I promise."

Tyler shudders, and his fingers nervously smooth over his jeans. "It's been almost two months," he says, picking up a chess piece, "and I- I can't stop thinking that I'm going to die down here." He swallows, eyes racing along the floor of his cell. His face doesn't give anything away, but the black queen piece starts to shake in his hand. "Just me, alone, in this cell with the artificial light until I die."

"You won't be alone," you say quietly, but he shakes his head.

"No, Y/N. I've thought about this. You'll be here for a year, but then you'll either be in Paris or your mother's going to send you somewhere else. You're a good warden, Y/N, but there are so many others who aren't. You know that. How soon until I'm starving down here? How soon until I'm pale and weak and the supplements aren't enough? How soon until I forget what the sky looks like, or grass-"

He swallows, face flinching the way it does when you fight off tears. When his voice finally reemerges, it's raw and barely more than a whisper. "I mean, I'm going to die down here, Y/N."

You don't know what to say, his throat moving up and down as he swallows, eyes blinking hard.

"I'm sorry," you say, turning to press your head against the glass, eyes closed. "I'm sorry, Tyler."

You sit there with him for a while, then turn to find him resting against you, eyes closed, asleep. He must've been exhausted. You trace a finger across his skin, not moving. You wouldn't wake him up if you left now, but you want to be there when he wakes.