Chase is fourteen and has been going to the little house in the woods several times a week for almost seven months when he sees Tyler at the grocery store.

It’s not the first time he’s seen Tyler around Harrisburg—it’s a small enough place and sometimes he sees the older man’s leather jacket vanishing out of the corner of his eye, especially when he’s out with Ben, but it’s the first time he’s seen Tyler and had to interact. His smile goes wide and happy as he eyes Tyler’s cart with a proprietary air. “You need pickles.”

“I bought pickles last week,” Tyler says flatly.

“Yeah, well.” Chase grabs two jars and drops them into the older man’s cart with a smirk. “You need more.”

Tyler rolls his eyes, but doesn’t protest. He tenses a little, looking past Chase before he glances at the boy and backs up, saying, “Be careful going home.”

Chase nods, grinning, and spins the cart to find his dad walking down the aisle toward him slowly. “Get the pasta?” he asks.

John blinks at him. “Huh?”

“Mac ‘n’ cheese, Dad. Did you get the mac ‘n’ cheese?”

“Yeah, yeah, here.”

“Great! We need asparagus and apples,” Chase says and John trails the boy steering the cart like they’re on a goddamn race course—but he looks back, just once, to see Tyler still staring at the packages of beef, and wonders why the hell he was talking to Chase.

~*~

He was a good parent when Nora was alive. Everyone in town said so, when he took Chase out, when Nora leaned into his side at department functions. But more than that, Chase was always there, grinning and bouncing around him when he got home. Sometimes he’d catch Nora watching them, her eyes soft and fond, and she’d kiss him, tell him that he was a good father.

He didn’t care about the rest of the world’s opinion—Nora thought he was a good parent, and that’s all that mattered. She took the lion's share of the work, sure, because of his long hours, because she was with Chase constantly, because she was patient in a way he didn’t know how to be.

God, he misses her. He misses her sweet smile and the dinner she usually burnt and the way Chase was so loud around her.

He’s quiet now, and John has no idea how to bring him back out, to make him talk. He knows he was a good parent once, but he’s painfully aware that he hasn’t been a good parent since Nora died.

Chase is staring at the tile, something speculative about his curious gaze.

“Problem, son?” John asks.

Chase shrugs. “Did you put in the tile?”

“No,” he says, and then, through a tightness that feels choking, he adds “Your mom, she put it in.”

Chase’s head comes up, his eyes wide and hopeful. For a moment, it feels like she’s there, a living thing between them conjured by speaking of her, and it hurts, how much he misses her.

He breathes, forces his hands to stay steady, and says, “Was thinking about watching a movie tonight. Interested?”

Chase nods, eager eyes a tiny bit wary, and for the moment, tile is forgotten.

~*~

The tile comes back up a few days later when he finds scribbles in Chase's notebook, abandoned on the table while Chase makes dinner.

John wonders about it and almost asks if Chase thinks they should renovate—maybe Nora won’t feel like she’s haunting the house if they change things, but then the notes vanish and Chase mentions a field trip his class is going on, so he reaches for a beer and forgets about it.

It lingers though, summoned back when he finds dusty jeans in the laundry and a tab open on his laptop with different tile designs. There’s a pattern here, and he doesn’t know what it means, and that—well, it bothers him.

When Nora was alive, Chase was an open book, without a single secret. Now, though...

Sometimes, when he pulls up and finds Chase smelling like wind and sweat, and his cheeks flushed, when he sees unfamiliar handwriting on his son’s homework, when Chase says something dry and cynical and so much older than his years—

He knows Chase is keeping secrets. He only wishes he knew what they were.

~*~

“What’s wrong?” Tyler demands, not even looking up as he laces up his boots.

Chase scowls. “It’s polite to say hello, ask about my day before you demand to know what’s wrong. Maybe nothing is wrong.”

Tyler straightens and gives Chase an unimpressed eyebrow. “Hello, Chase. How was your day? What’s wrong?”

Sarcastic bastard. Chase ignores him, snagging a Coke from the fridge and a banana he slices. He alternates between feeding himself and Lucas, eventually muttering, “I got detention at school. Dad’s gonna be pissed.”

“Was it fighting again?” Tyler asks. He adds a cup of peaches and a spoon for Chase and waits, radiating impatience.

It’s not the kind of impatience he feels when he’s at the station, with his questions being tolerated but not really acknowledged or answered. This is impatience laced with concern and care, thick with emotions, something Tyler doesn’t deal with well.

“Yeah. But it wasn’t my fault,” he mutters.

Tyler is quiet for a moment. “I got into a lot of fights when I was younger,” he says, and Chase blinks at him. Tyler doesn’t talk about his past. Neither does Chase—it’s like an unspoken rule in the RV and cabin, that they don’t discuss what they’re both running from.

This—it feels like an offering, and commiseration, and Chase isn’t sure what to do with it.

“It doesn’t help. I know—it’s easy to be angry, and you should be, because it wasn’t fair. But fighting isn’t going to fix anything and you’ll get hurt.”

“I know,” he says miserably.

“But sometimes it feels like if you don’t let it out, if you don’t hit something, you’re going to explode out of your skin.”

Chase stares at Tyler and once again wonders what the hell the older men went through. Because—

“Exactly.”

Tyler steals a slice of banana. “I’ll teach you to spar. You can let your aggression out that way.”

Chase swallows hard. “Why? Why would—”

Tyler scowls and stands up. “If you don’t want to...”

“No. I do. I—thank you,” Chase blurts out, anxious and grateful.

Tyler studies him for a long moment and then points. “Homework first, ok?”

Chase nods, and Tyler smiles, small and pleased, before he goes to the house to work.

~*~

He doesn’t mean to snoop.

Ok, no, that’s wrong. He totally means to snoop.

Because Chase is fourteen goddamn years old. Because his clothes are dirty with sawdust and dirt, and sometimes John finds blood on crumpled toilet paper in the wastebasket. Because he’s quiet—so fucking quiet, but sometimes, when Chase thinks he’s alone, he smiles at something on his phone, a small, secret smile.

Because his browser’s search history is a mess of long-term health care and home improvements and self-defense, of all things. There’s only so much John can put down to curiosity and school assignments, to teenage secrets, and Chase—he’s gone past that. So far past it, John has to wonder who his kid even is anymore.

There’s also the fact that sometimes John will see his son walking through Harrisburg with Ben. It doesn’t happen often anymore, and every time it does, it strings unease in his gut, because there’s always that man.

Tyler Reid, twenty-four with a truly fucking tragic past, enough baggage to fill a bus, and always watching Chase, never close enough to draw his attention, but never far enough that he can’t see the boy at all times.

So John does mean it when he follows Chase, when he undoubtedly snoops.

He’s quiet, creeping through the woods behind his son, and that’s a revelation in and of itself, because Chase walks with a grace and purpose that startles him, none of the aimless, clumsy fumbling—the deeper he tramps into the woods, the more it fades.

Chase pauses once, twitching his book bag on his shoulders, and then huffs at something on his phone.

Two hours later, when Chase wanders back home after sitting in an empty clearing and doing his homework after he walked for another two miles without any real destination—John has to wonder what the hell that message on his phone had said.

~*~

He sees Tyler three days later, leaving the coffee shop with a bag of donuts and a book tucked under his arm, his head down to avoid conversation.

Maybe it’s the grey dust on his black boots, maybe it’s the phone call he got from the school—again—or maybe it’s that Chase didn’t even engage to argue with him this morning, even though he’s been quietly angry for days.

John isn’t sure what it is that makes him push Tyler Reid against the coffee shop wall and snap, but there he is, snarling, “What the hell do you want with my boy, Reid?”

Tyler stares back, impassive, seemingly unbothered by the furious chief of police in his face.

“I want him to be ok,” Tyler says, “I don’t want him to turn out like I did after my parents died.”

John flinches back at that and stares at Tyler, who isn’t reacting but John knows he’s furious.

“You’re a fucking pervert,” John says, disgusted.

“I would never touch Chase,” Tyler says, fury leaking into his voice, finally. “But maybe if he had someone who cared at home, Chief, he wouldn’t have wandered into my woods.”

That hits hard, and John kind of gapes, breathless and aching from the unexpected verbal blow. Tyler shoves him off and glares at the older man before he starts to stalk away.

“Stay away from my son, Reid!” John shouts, furious and uncaring who hears him. “You stay the fuck away from my son!”

~*~

When John gets home after a long shift that caused more headaches than it resolved, the house is quiet and still. There’s no dinner waiting in the kitchen and no happy chatter from the TV and no Chase sitting on the couch studying. There’s nothing to even indicate that Chase is home except a thin strip of light under his bedroom door.

John knocks and pushes the door open, his eyebrows raising when he finds Chase cross-legged on his bed, Skyping with Ben.

“Hang on, Benny,” Chase says and mutes the computer before giving John the blankest look he’s ever seen from his son.

“Can I help you?”

John takes a heartbeat and then grumbles, “Reid told you.”

“Told me what?” Chase says flatly.

Something like shame squirms in his gut, but he’s right, dammit, he knows he’s right. “Son,” he starts, and Chase laughs. It’s sharp and bitter and cutting, and John flinches back at it.

“Now I’m your son? Now? Fuck you, Dad,” he says.

John blinks, because Chase is fourteen and he sounds so tired—so tired and broken, like all the anger has drained away and he’s just been left empty.

“I needed you to remember I was your son a year ago, when Mom died and I was alone, and you sent me to live with Gran for the summer instead of being there for me. I needed you to remember I was your son when I came home to an empty house, or when I started school, the freak whose mom died. Or when we were at Gran’s for Christmas and you spent all of it drunk or fucking fishing. I needed you and you weren’t there, so don’t trot that shit out now. Not when it’s convenient.”

“I know I haven’t been there,” he starts again.

Chase shakes his head. “You don’t. If you knew how much you hadn’t been here, you’d know why Tyler is important to me. You’d know that he helps me with my homework and makes sure I eat every night and is teaching me to protect myself.”

That snaps John’s attention around. “Protect you from what?”

Chase laughs bitterly and shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve got it taken care of. Just go back to drinking and leave me alone.”

“I’m your father,” John snaps, enraged suddenly. “And Tyler Reid is—”

“My friend,” Chase snarls, “And maybe I need that more than a father who forgot me.”

“Chase—”

Chase twists away, turning his attention back to Ben. “Sorry, man. I’m back.”

“I can let you go,” Ben offers, voice small.

Chase shakes his head. “No, don’t worry about it. It wasn’t anything important.”

It hurts, hearing that, being dismissed like that, and that hurt drives his words more than concern. “I don’t want you around him, Chase. At all. I’ll arrest him if he comes near you.”

He slams the door on his son’s pale, shattered expression and stands there for a moment, listening as Chase signs off, his voice tight.

He stands there when he hears the soft, choked off sobs coming from his boy.

He stands there until he feels guilt and regret burning in his throat, and then he goes to find the Scotch.

~*~

He works longer hours than normal for the next few days, and he tells himself he isn’t hiding.

But when Tyler Reid stalks into the police station, pale and furious, John realizes he fucked up. He fucked up again.

“Is he ok?”

“I don’t know,” Tyler bites off, “He’s missing.”

~*~

Chase leaves before school. He tells Ben that he’s got to piss and hands his friend his cellphone and then, when the halls are empty and no one has thought to wonder where the hell he is, he slips away.

He knows it won’t stick, that he’s acting more out of outrage than anything else, but he hitches his book bag higher on his shoulders and walks down the street. There’s a little row of offices on the edge of town that’s more artsy and hipster than practical. One is quiet and dark, edged up against the preserve with blacked out windows and bouquets of dried flowers in front of the door.

He jimmies the lock and lets himself into the dusty remains of his mother’s studio, then curls up there, under a sheet that smells of paint and musk, and cries himself to sleep.

~*~

John stares at Reid for a long moment. “What do you mean, ‘he’s missing’?”

He hasn’t seen Chase since that night, and he doesn’t text much, but it’s only been thirty-six hours, and Chase—

“He hasn’t been to the house,” Reid says, “I didn’t worry too much, figured you told him to stay away, but he isn’t in school either. I got a text from someone asking if I’d seen him, but it was from his number.”

John’s stomach plunges and he snatches the proffered phone from him, scanning it.

> uh, hey. have you seen Chase? he’s not in class, but he came to school

“Ben. Why does—Nevermind. Where do you usually see him?”

Tyler gives him a disgusted stare. “Do you really think I’m going to tell you anything? He ran from you. Whatever the hell you said, it scared him enough he didn’t run to me, even though he knows I’m safe. I did my due diligence, sir, and told you he’s missing.”

Reid turns away and John reaches for him, jerks him around and ignores the snarl that earns him, the fury that Reid directs at him.

“I don’t want him hurt either. Hate me all you want—it’s mutual, buddy—but help me find him.”

“Where the fuck do you think I’m going?” Tyler snaps, frustration bleeding into his voice, and John—there’s a part of him, a large part of him, that wants to arrest Tyler, wants to throw him in jail and keep him away from Chase, always.

But there’s fear and worry in the other man’s gaze.

“Ok,” John relents, against his own instincts. “Call me if you hear anything.”

~*~

It’s dark and he’s hungry. His butt hurts from sitting too long and the sounds coming through the studio’s walls from the bar are keeping him awake.

He’s a little surprised his dad hasn’t been here yet.

Of course, he’d have to notice Chase is missing, and he hasn’t been great at noticing Chase for over a year.

He huffs and finally drags himself to his feet.

The thing is, he knew this wouldn’t last. It was more an outraged tantrum than anything else, but he wanted his dad to notice—to care.

He wanted someone in this world to fucking care.

He wipes his cheeks angrily, steps outside, and his gaze snaps up to stare at Tyler, who’s leaning patiently against his Mustang, hands shoved his pockets. He looks strange here, a wild animal in civilization, half a person without Lucas in his chair, and so fucking perfect Chase feels tears burning in his eyes.

Chase’s breath leaves him in a sob, and Tyler shifts, catching him as the boy throws himself into Tyler’s arms.

“I’m sorry,” he says against Tyler’s leather jacket, “Tyler, I’m so sorry. I fucked up.”