Work Text:
Nighttime was never easy. He knew that well, waaaaay too well.
Tyler had learned long ago to dread when the sun sank below the city's unforgiving concrete walls, when shadows stretched longer and longer until they melted into the inevitability of night. Night should've been a small word, nothing really at all to concern him.
But it wasn't.
Oh, night was the oppsite of that. Night was so, so many things, all of them dreadful.
Tyler hunched in on himself at the thought, wrapping his arms around himself, as if that would do anything to stop the monsters in his mind. It wouldn't, he knew that all too well. Nothing ever stopped them…
Time was the closest he'd come to an answer and even that would only delay the onslaught.
He'd lost count of all the nights he'd spent curled up into a ball on his bed, shaking, every nerve in his body attuned to the rhythmic tick, tick, tick of his clock, counting down the seconds and minutes and hours until the night was gone, banishing his demons for a few brief hours. He'd been caught in the vicious cycle for so long that he'd almost forgotten how it felt to have a night where… none of that happened. Where he was able to rest, finally let his mind and body relax.
Tyler almost thought he'd dreamed those nights. The last time he'd had one, it'd been so long ago it felt surreal, like maybe he'd just imagined it.
It sure felt like he must've imagined it, especially right now. He could already feel it coming, the dark, almost tangible weight that hovered over him every night, whispering things to him. Horrible, horrible things that made him want to shrink away, until he no longer existed, or tear himself open and watch as his blood spilled to the ground, because he deserved it. Didn't he?
He took a deep, shivery breath, squeezing his eyes shut against the voice, the horrors he knew must be coming.
Just have to hold on, he repeated to himself. Hold on, it'll pass.
It always did.
He waited, watching as the shadows continued to stretch across his floor, until eventually the dark of nighttime had overtaken his room. The faint sounds of daily life that normally filtered into his room from the window had faded away, now the only sounds were his regular, soft breaths and the ticking of his alarm clock.
These two sounds had come to define his life, now. They were all he had to mark the passing of time, to reassure himself he wasn't just imaginging everything. So he was grateful for them, especially the alarm clock.
Sometimes, it felt like that regular tick, tick, tick that marked the seconds and hours was the only thing keeping him sane. On the really bad nights, his heartbeat would sync up to the clock, marking out a regular pulse for him, not letting him spiral into panic. He wasn't really sure how it worked, but he was grateful.
Some part of him knew it wasn't really right that a clock, an inanimate object, should be this comforting, the only thing that kept him in one piece, but it did. The clock was a promise that the sun would rise, the night wouldn't last. And he was grateful for it.
Another tiny part of him wondered if, maybe, he wouldn't need that clock to get him through every night. Maybe, somehow, nights would get better. He'd be free of the heaviness in his mind, the demons that whispered to him every night. Maybe someday, he could sleep.
Tyler smiled a little bit at the thought. Someday… it was a good word. He liked it.