Yellow

three

After Tye's tour, Carter brought him into his office, to try and catch up with him.

"I'm just checking in Tye, I know all of this can be overwhelming." He said gently. "We're here to help you as much as we can."

Tye just nodded.

"Alright love, off you go." Tye gave him and awkward wave and headed up to his room, checking no one was around and in the room before barricading the door again.

He had to run while he still can. He'd said three words total to all of them and they still had far too much information on him. He packed his favourite clothes, his phone and his charger into his rucksack, shoved his wallet into his pocket and opened the window. He heard the call to lunch and knew now was the time to go. The dining room was on the other side of the house and it meant none of them would see him.

There was a drain pipe by his window  and it was enough for him to grip onto whilst he made his escape. He pulled himself off the window ledge and down the drain pipe into the grounds of the house.

Beyond the grounds were woods and beyond that he remembered a road. He was free. But that didn't stop him running. He wanted  to get as far as he possibly could before they realised he was gone. He would not let them ruin him. He would not open his heart up again.

It turned out the house wasn't far from the city, only a half an hour walk, which meant that they would have a tough time finding him. Particularly as there were no pictures existing of him. A description of him from the memory of a day and a half would not be enough to aid a search and for that he was thankful. He felt a little bad, but it was there own faults for being weird.

He wandered the streets, before finding the bus station and upon checking the map, finding the bus that would take him furthest away. He smiled and waited. In half an hour they would never ever find him.

^^^
"Poor baby, he didn't come down for lunch." Riley pouted.

"Maybe we should take something up for him?" Alexis suggested. "Not a lot because we don't want to make him sick. Maybe a sandwich."

"Good idea!" Riley clapped his hands excitedly. "Maybe he'll even smile for us."

"It would be nice to see him smile." Alexis nodded. "He's so pretty."

"That's what I thought." Riley nodded. "I wanted to cuddle him."

"Why do you call him baby?" There's no way you're older than him." Alexis frowned. Riley nodded.

"I am! He's seventeen."

"I guess you're right then." Alexis laughed, he put the sandwich on a plate and the two made their way to Tye's room.

"Tye! Its Riley and Alexis!" Riley called knocking on the door, frowning when he received no answer. He turned the handle but it wouldn't move. Riley sighed. "Carter!"

"What's up Riley?" The man in question appeared at the bottom of the stairs.

"He's blocked the door again. I'm worried."

Alright, stand back." Carter forced the door open, the room was empty, the window hanging open. "No, no, no." He ran to the desk, but Tye wasn't there.

"One of his bags is gone." Alexis pointed out. Carter dragged a hand through his hair.

"Alex you're in charge, I'm going to get our boy back." He said before all but running to his car.

Carter felt sick. He shouldn't have left Tye on his own, he must have felt vulnerable and that's why he ran.

He had a good idea of where Tye had gone, he would have wanted to get as far away as possible if it were him. And he soon found his boy sat waiting for one of the buses. He didn't notice him until Carter was crouched in front of him.

"Hello love." Tye froze. Carter didn't touch him, despite how much he wanted to. "You shouldn't run away like that. I was worried sick! You're coming home, now." He raised his voice more than he wanted to, but he had to get his point across.

Tye shook his head desperately.

"Tye, love look at me." Carter shook his head. "That wasn't a request, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Tye looked away, biting his lip. Carter shook his head and grabbed him, carrying on his hip like he was a baby, Tye fighting him every step of the way back to the car.

"Get off me get off me get off me get off me." He repeated manically, when Carter put him in the car he curled up in the seat sobbing.

"I'm sorry love, but I need you to be safe."

The drive home was silent apart from Tye's sobbing. And when Carter tried to get him out of the car he had a meltdown. He screamed and kicked at Carter and when the man finally grabbed hold of him and began carrying him inside he fought against him, screaming.

"Get off me! Don't touch me! Please!" Tye was sobbing, he was screaming and it was terrifying.

"Carter!" Noah yelled as he took in the screaming, clearly terrified boy in the mans arms. "Put him down now!"

Once Carter had let go off him, Tye bolted up the stairs, presumably looking for a small space to hide in.

"He doesn't like to be touched. And you just sent him into a meltdown." Artemis summed up the situation. "That was a mean thing to do Car."

"We almost lost him, five minutes later and he would be gone. I had no choice he won't talk to us so I can reason with him, he wouldn't come willingly so I did the only thing I could think of." Carter sighed. "I'm not proud of it, but he's home."

Alexis sighed, leaving Carter to try and explain himself to the others. He wanted to find Tye, but first he wanted to grab a hoodie, as he was cold. That was when he heard the sobbing. Pausing and throwing the hoodie back on his bed, he opened his wardrobe to find Tye sat in the bottom of it. "Mind if I join you?" He got a shrug in response and took the opportunity to sit opposite him, grabbing his lava lamp from his desk and closing the doors, the only sign they were in there was the glow of the lamp and the wire sticking out from under the door.

"You're having a pretty shit day huh?" He commented, Tye shrugged and wiped his eyes. He was still crying, but he was calmer now. "I'm not gonna lie, grabbing you like that was pretty shitty on Carter's part." Alexis sighed. "Are you doing okay? Or are you still panicking?"

Tye shook his head.

"You scared?"

A nod.

"It's okay, we won't let it happen again. When I left Noah was about to yell at him, and Noah and Car never fight." Alexis told him. "We respect your boundaries. None of us are going to touch you without asking, even a high five. And we aren't going to force you to talk. You can if you want."

Tye nodded slowly. "T- Thank you." His voice was hoarse, probably from screaming, but also lack of use probably played a part in it.

"Why don't you go for a nap?" Alexis suggested, Tye shook his head. "You can nap in my room, I'll stay with you?"

Hesitantly, Tye nodded. Alexis smiled at him. "Alrighty, come on then." Alexis climbed out of his wardrobe and waited for Tye to follow him, before leading him to his bed. "Just rest, you're safe." Alexis added, tucking his blanket around the smaller boy, watching him slowly fall asleep.