Troyler AU - Uncuff Me

fifteen

The fickle hours had slowly blurred into days and Tyler was nose deep in his case file. Flipping through pages after pages, his eyes darted from one line to the next in a pace that could rival the rapid current down the stream. He was immersed in it, completely drawn and he didn't have a care for the time that had passed him by nor did he realised it. He slicked the pad of his thumb against his tongue and turned the report to its next page, urgently going through it like his life depended on it.

In a way, his life was depended on it. His future, his happiness was depended on it, hanging by the flimsiest of thread and he was desperate, fuelling him to his limit to salvage it.

It was only when there was a thump on his door that had snapped him out of his reverie. He lost his place in the report and rubbed his eyes, dry and irritated from straining too long on the blotted words and discoloured photos. A brief exhale later, he looked at the clock on the opposite wall from where he was seated.

The hands on the clock was telling him it ten past eight, and only then he became conscious of the sunlight peeking through the blinds through his window. It was morning and the dull thump on his door just now would have been the papers. That'll have to wait, he thought as he raised his arms over his head and stretched out the kinks he felt on his shoulders, relishing in the fact that he had been up and working for almost thirty two hours continuously. He grabbed the mug beside a stack of unread files and drained the last drop of the cold coffee before he made his way to the kitchen with the intention to get a refill.

He turned on the tap and looked aimlessly as the stream of water sloshed in the pot. He placed the filled pot over the stove and lighted it up, and as he waited for the water to boil, he perched his arms on the kitchen island, his eyes taking in the state of his apartment and calculated the probability of his eyes going blind by the amount of reading that he has to go through by himself for the next couple of days. He had regrettably ordered to see six years worth of old case files, and he was starting to feel the repercussion from it. He ought to chide himself for attempting to read through all those files when Marcus was blissfully back in London attending his brother's wedding, but he didn't. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he let out an audible sigh as he thought of the incident that started this hectic madness.

A few days after his supposedly fall out with Troye, he was being called to San Francisco to assist in one of the missing girl's case. He was there for two days, and he'd just came back to his apartment and collapsed onto his couch in exhaustion when he sensed that the privacy of his home was being invaded once again.

"Hey, detective. I'd appreciate a little help, please."

Tyler thought he heard a voice talking to him but in his exhaustion-addled brain, he dismissed it without thinking twice. Just as he was about to close his eyes and drift into the desired sleep, he heard an incessant knocking and he jumped awake, eyes darting across the room to identify where the sound was coming from.

"Over here, bruh. Would you mind hurry up? I may have just found out that I have a substantial fear of heights."

Tyler looked over to his window and saw someone that looked unmistakably like Caspar, shivering outside. He shook his head in disbelief and considered leaving him out there until he goes away. He contemplated, for less than a minute and in the end, he stood up from the couch and strutted over to unlock his window. Caspar clumsily climbed in and almost falling over when he tripped over his own feet before Tyler locked his window again and turned towards Caspar.

"What the fuck, Caspar. Fire escape? Really? I should have you arrested for trespassing." Tyler blasted immediately.

"That was far out! You don't know how happy I am to see you, bruh. And thanks for saving my life. That was literally the scariest thing that I've ever done, and I have been surrounded by a group of cougars before with only my spandex on. And really, those cougars were coming at me like shark to blood and-" Caspar stopped in the middle of his rambling when he saw the glare Tyler shot him. "Okay, okay. Don't give me that look. Your doorman won't let me in and I remembered Troye telling me about the fire escape but I wasn't expecting it to be locked because the last time Troye used it, it wasn't. I guess you got smart about that and-"