Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Josh sees this same kid everyday, sitting in the same spot outside the Taco Bell. He’s skinny, tattooed, and quiet. His head is tilted down most of the time but when he looks up and meets Josh’s eye, he smiles politely. It’s not an “I’m happy” smile. It’s something more like an “I’m okay for now” smile and it breaks Josh’s heart every time he gets it.

He passes the Taco Bell on his way to school and again on his way back home, so he ends up seeing a lot of the kid. He’s always there, strumming this tiny ukulele he has with him, and singing in this life changing kind of voice. He has a container for change and maybe if Josh was braver he would speak to him as he drops some in. As it stands, Josh isn’t brave at all, so he looks away until he hears the sound of coins hitting metal and then he walks away without a word.

Josh is admittedly struck by this stranger. He is small and innocent looking in every possible way, from the gentle fall of his hair against his forehead to the playful rhythm his fingers make against the side of his ukulele. It would be easy, Josh thinks, to hold this boy close and protect him from the world. Josh wants to save him from whatever kind of demons he has because he can see that he does have demons. Maybe it’s wrong of him to grow so attached to someone he’s never talked to but Josh feels a certain fondness for the guy.

He’s not entirely sure he needs protecting, though. There is a power in the way his lyrics echo down the street, a fire in his eyes as he sings them. He has scars up and down his arms. Josh can see that he is perfectly capable of handling himself.

If anything, this makes him even more interesting. Here is someone who plays by his own rules. Here is a person who doesn’t let anything, be it his situation or society, define him. He’s an overwhelming kind of beautiful that only comes with being completely confident in who you are. All Josh can think is that to behold him is exhilarating in the same way skydiving must be. So, of course, he’s terrified by these feelings, because even when you have a parachute, there’s still a chance you might crash.

Josh feels like he’s done enough crashing to last a lifetime and a half by now. He has this tattoo on his arm that he got a year ago when he was in a really bad place emotionally. His parents freaked out at the time but it was worth it. The tattoo is a reminder that life goes on and that everything can be okay, that it has to be okay. Josh doesn’t know if this boy knows that it can be okay, though. Josh has been in a dark spot before and he recognizes it in the faces of others. It haunts him, this ability to know when someone’s breaking inside. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever lose it but he prays that he will.

Josh can see that the boy in front of the Taco Bell is dealing with something harsh and maybe he doesn’t know what it is exactly, but he’s still worried on his behalf. He worries for other people all the time but there’s a distinct difference between fearing they’ll get a bad grade and fearing he’ll never see them again. He also knows that the boy is homeless, that he doesn’t have anywhere to just wander off to, so he is a bit concerned when the kid’s suddenly gone.

It’s Friday by the time he reappears, voice loud and soulful as ever. He’s cross legged on the ground in front of the store, back pressed against the bricks, fingers dancing between strings. His eyes are half closed in happiness throughout the song but when he finishes, he frowns. He puts the ukulele down and threads his fingers through his hair, tugging hard. It is this more than anything that gives Josh the bravery he needs.

“Why’d you stop?” He asks, stepping closer.

The boy looks up through lashes darker than coal. There is a tiredness to this gesture that makes Josh want to wrap him up in a blanket like a baby.

“No one’s listening anyway.” He says, as if he truly believes it.

“I am.” Josh says and seats himself on the ground beside him.

He’s getting dirt on the back of his jeans, which will result in a talking to from his mother later that night but he doesn’t care much when he sees the smile slowly inching across his companion’s face. He inclines his head towards the ukulele as if to ask “May I?” and is given a small nod. He picks it up and runs his fingers along it’s smooth base.

“Nice,” He comments “Where did you get this?”

“Guitar Center.” the boys says so softly that it can barely be heard.

He waits patiently for Josh to hand the instrument back over but seems relieved when it’s in his arms once more, as if he was worried Josh might take it away from him. Josh feels a little offended at that, even though he knows he shouldn’t be. The boy looks kind of like a spooked animal next to him and he feels incredibly lucky that he hasn’t run away yet.

“Cool. That’s where I work, actually. Music is awesome.”

For this sentiment Josh is rewarded with a small smile, a real smile, he thinks. He checks his phone for texts when he feels it buzz and he can feel eyes watching him. They bore into the side of his face, their gaze intense. Josh licks his lips nervously as he sticks his phone back in his pocket and looks over again.

“Hey,” he says carefully “I’m Josh. Josh Dun. What’s your name?”

If the boy is going to run, he’s going to do it now. He’s completely put off guard by the question. His eyes widen and he slides a little further away. He looks down, as if ashamed.

“Tyler Joseph.”

“Nice. So you’ve got the double first name thing going on there, huh?”

Tyler laughs and it’s the kind of laugh Josh never wants to stop listening to. It’s as musical as his voice is when he sings. This makes Josh laugh too. Without fully understanding how, they end up grinning at each other.

Up close Josh can see dark bruises forming on Tyler’s pale skin. There are scratches too, long deep ones. One mark in particular looks like it couldn’t have come from anything but a razor blade. It’s neat and methodical, sitting silently on Tyler’s bare arm. Josh would think that it looks like an uninvited guest among his moles, if he had any doubt it had been placed there with purpose.

“I love listening to you play,” He admits “I always come by here when I’m going to school just to hear it. But this week you, uh, where were you?”

The shame is gone now and the fire is back. Words fall out of Tyler’s lips that sound like “I tried to kill myself.” but that can’t be right. It’s the worst and wrongest thing Josh has heard in his life. It sits in his brain like a tumour, expanding into anguish and still somehow declared benign by Tyler’s sweet yet lifeless gaze.

“But someone found me and took me to the hospital.” Tyler sounds angry about this. He sounds like he never wanted to be given his breath back, like he’d happily leave everything behind.

Josh is reminded so simply of all the pain he has ever felt. Despite everything, he never went through this. For him, it was fighting against the rest of the world. He had felt like his entire existence was united against everything else. Back then, he hated everything but himself.

For Tyler, maybe it was more like he was fighting against his own mind. If that was the case, it must have been that he could deal with any enemy except himself. He could fight off anyone but his own thoughts. He didn’t like the person he was so he had been driven to the next logical step: eliminate them from his life.

“See this?” Josh finds himself asking and pointing to his arm, where a tree is growing in ink “I got this a while ago. I was going through a lot then that I didn’t know how to deal with. I never... you know, but it was pretty rough. I’m sorry about whatever you have going on.”

“You don’t get it.” Tyler spits out and it should hurt but it doesn’t.

“Yeah,” Josh agrees “I don’t. I never will. No one will, perfectly. But I don’t have to understand it to be sorry about it. Listen, Tyler, I don’t know you very well but I’m willing to listen to what you have to say. If you need someone to talk to, I’m right here.”

Josh has never offered himself to a person like this before. He wasn’t expecting himself to but he has a nasty habit of saying whatever is on his mind. He doesn’t regret what he’s said. Tyler looks at him, considering. His fingers travel down to his ukulele again and begin to play an unfamiliar tune. He opens his mouth but he doesn’t sing. Instead, he talks.

Josh doesn’t know how long he sits there with Tyler but he doesn’t bother checking the time either. He feels comfortable here. It’s ridiculous, because they’re still sitting on the hard pavement in front of the Taco Bell. Josh is comfortable anyway and he finds himself gazing at Tyler, wishing they had become friends much earlier. Are they friends? He wants them to be but he isn’t sure Tyler does. Tyler is lightning and ice and the ocean all in one and he’s just plain old Joshua Dun.

Josh is an idiot too, because he asks “Why don’t you... why don’t you live at home? You know, with your parents or...?”

Suddenly calm and easy Tyler is scared Tyler again. He turns swiftly into widened eyes and raised brows. Josh is immediately sorry that he asked. Tyler rubs his hand up and down his arm, leaving faint white scratches along the surface. He looks away.

“Sorry.” Josh whispers. He wants to say it a hundred times until Tyler slaps him for repeating himself.

The night air begins to hit Josh’s bones and chill them. He knows he has to go home before his curfew. Tyler doesn’t have a curfew. He could stay out here all night. Josh wants to stay with him, with only what he’s wearing to keep him warm and only the food in his stomach to sustain him. He won’t. He has to leave.

“Come home with me,” he doesn’t know why he suggests it but it feels like the right thing to say “I have to go home.”

Tyler is laughing in a such a pure and honest way but when he stops his smile is tight. “No thanks.”

“Okay,” Josh says, because he’s not allowed to argue here “See you tomorrow then.”

When he stands, he feels Tyler’s hand reach up and clasp around his wrist, pulling him back in. “Promise.”

“I promise.” Josh laughs and, in as little as a minute, he is addicted to the rush of this touch.

Chapter Text

Tyler is impossible to forget, so much so that Josh doesn’t have room in his head for anything else. After school the next day, he is more focused on seeing him than on his prior plans for the day. He’s already left the building by the time Pete and Patrick run up to him, reminding him that they’re supposed to hang out. It’s a little pathetic, considering they only made the plans two periods ago. Josh chalks it up to being tired but Pete has this knowing look.

“Aww, Joshie’s in love.” He taunts.

He’s full of shit because he’s never even met Tyler, so how should he know? Josh isn’t about to tell anyone that Tyler makes him feel like the rest of the world is poison and he’s the antidote. They’ve only known each other for a day but Josh has been silently watching him for months. It feels like they’ve been friends much, much longer. Josh really has been friends with Pete and Patrick for a long time, though, and he has no reason not to hang out with them.

So, instead of walking home alone, he goes to Patrick’s house. They’re all chatting casually about what happened after they last split up, when they pass the Taco Bell. Like usual, Tyler is seated on the ground across the road from them. He looks up gracefully and meets Josh’s eyes with his own warm brown ones.

“Hey.” Josh says, but it comes out so quietly that no one hears him.

Josh doesn’t want to let himself believe he has any power over Tyler’s emotions, so he pretends he doesn’t notice the way he’s staring at him, frowning ever so slightly. He looks away when Josh repeats himself, louder this time, ignoring. Josh hates that it stings. He hates that his heart feels heavy in his chest, weighing him down as he keeps walking.

His friends look at him with unmasked confusion and all Josh can do is shrug. Part of him, very selfishly, wants Tyler all to himself. Tyler is like a hidden treasure. Josh doesn’t want Patrick and Pete to know about him and steal his friendship. They’ve done it before, though it was always by accident. They’re both exciting and easy to get along with, that’s why they’re his friends, but it also makes him the most often left ignored of their little group, especially considering how they're each the other's best friend. Sometimes Josh feels like a third wheel. With Tyler, he feels like he's the only person in the world who matters to him. It would be really sad if that was true, though.

Later, once Pete is done being loud and obnoxious at Mario Kart and Patrick is done kicking his ass, Josh bids them a friendly goodbye. He starts to walk homeward but when he reaches his doorstep he feels incomplete and turns without remorse, taking off back down the road. He walks until he’s in front of the Taco Bell again, hands in his hoodie pockets. He fiddles with with his wallet and kicks a pebble forward, letting it skid across the sidewalk.

The boy it lands in front of shoots him an unamused look “Hi Josh.”

“Hey Tyler. Did you not see me earlier?” He asks, despite knowing the answer already.

“No. I saw you” Tyler stands, throwing his backpack over his shoulders and cradling his ukulele in his arms. “You were with your friends, right?”

“Yeah,” Josh says. “I had plans with them but I still promised I’d talk to you today, so here I am now.”

Tyler nods thoughtfully “So it’s a good thing I made you promise, isn’t it?”

“Definitely.”

“Definitely definitely.”

There’s this thing that happens sometimes, where you’ll be in the middle of chewing something, or maybe even drinking something, and you’ll just forget how to swallow. It ends up that you’ll be sitting there for a moment, suspended in this weird half finished eating state. A few seconds later you’ll remember and you’ll finish, but you’ll be questioning yourself. What just happened there? When Josh is looking at Tyler, that happens to his ability to breathe. After a brief pause in their productivity, his lungs switch on again and he is confused as to why it even happened in the first place.

When he’s blinked away his uncertainty, he turns on his heels and holds open the restaurant door next to him. He looks wordlessly at Tyler until he gets it and goes inside. It’s reasonably empty, save for one or two families and a small collection of hungry college students.

“What do you want?” Josh asks, looking up at the big menu above the checkout stand.

Tyler shakes his head vehemently. “I’m not hungry.”

That’s a lie bigger than the giant bell sign outside. “Come on, I’m buying. Taco? Burrito? You look like a chalupa guy to me, actually.”

Tyler is painfully paper thin. Josh’s gaze follows the gentle curve of his belly beneath his shirt, watching the way the fabric clings to his frame. He is every kind of perfect just like this. Still, he would be better for having a full stomach to return that soft comfortable quality that healthy people have to them. He would feel better at least. Josh feels like Tyler hasn’t eaten a real meal in a long time. Tacos just barely meet the minimum requirement for that category, but they’re something.

“Okay, I am a chalupa guy.” Tyler admits but grabs Josh’s arm when he tries to pull out his wallet “But I’ll pay for my own food.”

Josh shrugs and orders his own taco from the cashier. He can see that Tyler is trying to prove that he can hold himself up, that he isn’t someone to be taken care of. Josh admires the effort but he hardly thinks it’s necessary. He never thought for a second that Tyler was anything but strong.

The cashier brings up their food and Josh takes out a few bills to pay for his own. Tyler digs around in the front pocket of his black skinny jeans and pulls out a handful of coins. They’re all small silver pieces of five or ten cents each. The cashier stares at them blankly and Tyler’s face tints red around the edges. Josh places his own hand over Tyler’s , shutting it around the change. Then he grabs a few more dollars out of his wallet and places them on the counter.

“Thanks.” He tells the cashier, even though he doesn’t like her, and grabs the tray with their food one handed.

They find a booth to sit at and, for a brief moment, Josh’s free hand stays against Tyler’s. He wants to brush his thumb over the silken skin there, but Tyler turns both their hands over before he can, moving Josh’s into a cup shape and dropping his change in it.

“I’ll pay you back the rest later. It probably cost more than I have.”

Josh presses the coins back into Tyler’s palm, keeping the contact for a few seconds too long “Don’t bother.”

They get around to sitting by the window, looking out at the early dark sky of mid March in Ohio. Josh finishes his taco quickly, but Tyler is only a bite or two in by then, so he orders a drink to occupy himself. He sips the cold, cheap root beer while he watches Tyler chew. The way he eats is telling. He takes small nibbles of his food, so careful to make the taste last, needing to savour every second. When he finally finishes, he looks like he could go for seconds, but Josh won’t suggest that because he doesn’t think Tyler will let him buy him anything more.

He does let him offer his drink, however, and Josh is caught a bit by surprise watching the steady movements of his Adam’s apple. He realizes he is staring at the simple slope of his throat. It has been bruised considerably, probably from fights, and these are entirely the wrong kind of marks to be left here. Tyler should be covered from head to toe in delicate signs of affection, not by anything like this. It sickens Josh to think about.

He has no idea how, but Josh is reminded of his elementary school days. He’s thinking about second grade, when he was tiny but lanky, bright eyed and bushy tailed but easily angered. It comes to him thinking about what Tyler must have been like as child. He must have had a home back then, a family. The childlike gleam of Tyler’s eyes is somehow so familiar. Before Josh thought it might just have been because he’s, well, Tyler, but now he’s not so sure. If Tyler has lived in this town his whole life, which most people who live in it have, he probably went to the same school Josh did.

He can remember now. Tyler was so different then, cute and fluffy, like a kitten. He was the most conservative Christian boy Josh had known. Seven year old Tyler definitely would have been opposed to the tattoos that now adorne his body. He wouldn’t have liked the dark wardrobe either, having dressed purely in pastels. Seven year old Tyler probably also wouldn’t have liked Josh, even seven year old Josh. Seven year old Josh was a sporty kid who spent most of his time playing in the dirt. He remembers now that this younger version of him used to relentlessly tease a boy in his class, who had chocolate brown hair and pink bubblegum lips. It’s only now, in a Taco Bell at eight at night, that the “oh, of course” of it all hits him. Tyler is this same boy.

He wants to know what happened to change this boy into the Tyler in front of him, but he won’t ask again. Maybe it’s not his business as to why or how. All he knows is that Tyler has shifted drastically in ten years time. He’s unrecognizable from the shy kid he once was. But even now, he slurps up the last drops of root beer from Josh’s plastic cup with all the same sweetness he’s always had.

Josh thinks he remembers Tyler being part of the poetry club, so he asks “Do you still write poems?” and grabs the cup away to lay claim to the final sip.

“Yes,” Tyler says, somewhat surprised “I didn’t know you remembered that we’d met before.”

“I didn’t at first. It just happened right now.”

Tyler hums to himself in satisfaction of this answer. “I remembered you right away.”

“You did? I was kind of a bully to you, huh?” He adds shamefully.

Tyler looks completely against this idea. "I don’t think so. I kind of looked up to you, actually. I thought you were so cool. There was this one time...” he sighs.

Josh leans forward on his elbows. “This one time...?” he prompts.

Tyler proceeds to recap himself, in third grade by then, being attacked by a group of older boys. Josh, apparently, had appeared out of nowhere, fearless, and rounded on them. He got beat up but Tyler left unscathed. Josh wants to remember it but he can’t. He just trusts that it happened, even though it doesn’t sound much like the version of him in his head.

When they leave the restaurant, the sky is already darkening into black. Tyler is looking at Josh like he knows he’s going to leave soon. Josh hates that. He doesn’t want to be predictable this time, not so soon into their new friendship. He takes out his cellphone and dials.

“Hi mom. Can I sleep over at Patrick’s tonight? Thanks. Love you too.”

Tyler is staring at him “Are you going back to your friend’s house?”

“Nah,” Josh says, slugging Tyler on the shoulder impishly “I’m staying with you, you big goof.”

“My life isn’t a game, Josh.” Suddenly Tyler is angry and looking at Josh like he’s been betrayed. “It’s not fun. It’s not a joke. It’s-”

Josh takes Tyler’s hand in his, for no reason other than because he wants to. “I know.”

They go to a nearby park and sit on a bench, watching the stars appear above them. Where they are sitting, their knees brush against each other. Josh tries to believe that they aren’t still distant, worlds apart, in the twilight, but it’s a pointless effort. For just one night, he closes his eyes under the moon’s loving smile and pretends that he and Tyler are one and the same. When he falls asleep, it is slumped back to back against his new friend, hands still clasped together.

Chapter Text

Tyler is sitting on the edge of the three foot high wooden fence in front of Josh’s school. He’s dirtier than usual with his neck and hands having recently covered themselves in dark black smudges. Students tilt their heads at him as they walk outside towards the parking lot. He is out of place in this setting, rough and unkempt against a clinically clean backdrop.

Josh notices him immediately but Tyler himself is captured off into the distance with little regard as to what exactly he’s looking at. He’d look like he’s day dreaming, if day dreams could be sad. Josh turns to his friends, beside him, an apologetic expression guiltily crossing his face. He’ll have to shed their company before he goes over to see Tyler.

“Seriously?” Pete asks, before he can make any excuses. ”I don’t know who she is, Josh, but she’s got you whipped.”

“Don’t be so insensitive, Pete,” Patrick nudges Pete in the side, probably more because they just like play fighting with one another than because he’s actually standing up for Josh, since he adds “When’s the wedding?” a moment later, after Pete has retaliated by pulling him into a headlock.

Josh rolls his eyes “Aren’t you two too busy being married to each other to worry about my relationships?”

“Aha! So, you admit you have a relationship. And that means you're skipping out on us again, right? ” Pete asks with fake hurt. “Well, you know me, I’d rather just have some alone time with my husband anyway.” He wiggles his eyebrows seductively at Patrick.

“Please don’t leave me alone with him.” Patrick stage whispers, only mostly joking.

When they’ve gone on their way, Pete slinging his arm around Patrick’s shoulder and Patrick mouthing “Save me.” at Josh, he walks over toward Tyler. The other boy doesn’t look up, but straight on ahead. He fumbles on a few chords, then gives up on what he’s been attempting to play. Josh cranes his neck to see what Tyler is so interested in watching. At the side of the building, a yellow school bus has pulled up and students dressed in matching blue sweaters file off one by one. They are the school choir, returning from a music festival field trip.

“Were you ever in choir or band?” Josh asks, by way of greeting, sitting down beside Tyler.

Tyler grips the section of the fence beside himself tightly. “I wasn’t good enough.” he says, like that could ever be true about any part of him.

“Well, they don’t have ukuleles in band do they? They just don’t have the means to understand your brilliance yet, that’s all.”

In response, Tyler strums tenderly.

“Come on,” Josh calls out, springing up onto his feet. “Let’s walk.”

“I can play the piano, too,” Tyler says, sadness creeping into his tone of voice, as they’re heading down the block “But I don’t have one to play.”

“I’ll get you one for your birthday,” Josh proposes ”A grand piano, a huge one. It will have to have wheels so you can push it around with you everywhere. Or we can find you one that you can just ride around to get places, with, like, an engine or something.”

Tyler’s eyes crinkle around the edges in amusement.

“Okay, maybe not. How about one of those little baby keyboards?”

“You’re too nice to me, Josh,” Tyler says unexpectedly “But you don’t know me. You don’t know that I’m out of my mind, that I’m broken.”

Josh doesn’t know how respond to that, so he just shoves his hands deep in his pockets and stops talking. He doesn’t think Tyler is broken. Maybe he’s a little cracked in some places and dusty in others, but he’s nothing that can't be mended with time and care. Josh won’t tell him this right now because his doesn’t think Tyler will fully appreciate it, but as far as he’s concern, there’s not a flaw to be seen.

They go back to their old elementary school’s grounds. The early spring rain starts to fall lightly on their heads, before transforming into heavy downpour. Josh notices droplets landing and catching on Tyler’s full lips. He fights the urge to kiss them away. Water sticks to his chin, dripping down in a beard of cold wetness. Josh is grateful for the water, letting it wash him and these thoughts away together.

“It looks different,” Tyler observes astutely of the school “Was it always this ugly?”

“Yes,” Josh answers truthfully “It was pretty bad back then too.”

They sit on the swings. Josh hasn’t been on a swing since he was ten years old but he remembers that it used to make him feel like he was flying. He wants to fly now, more than ever, so he pumps his legs as hard as he can and soars past his problems. Tyler stays unusually still for himself, swaying back and forth slightly in place.

“You’re doing it wrong!” Josh calls cheekily down at him.

Tyler smiles sheepishly back, twisting his swing to the side, so it will spin around in circles. “Better?” he questions, teasing, then sticks his tongue out.

Tyler runs a hand back through his damp hair, pushing it away from his face, but it only falls back, messy and suggestive. Josh tightens his grip on the sides of his swing and propels himself forward. At the peak, he lets go altogether, allowing himself to hurl through the air. He lands in a pile of the wood chips used to bed the area and lays forward on his stomach contently. This is what he and his friends used to do all the time.

He perks up again an instant later, running around behind Tyler. “No offence, but you’re really bad at swinging.”

Josh moves his hands down to rest against Tyler’s back only for him to flinch away reflexively, wincing.

"Hey, what’s wrong?”

Tyler gives a noncommittal “Nothing. Honestly.” so, with permission, Josh lets his hands wander down again. He presses them to Tyler’s shirt very deliberately, so as not to cause any problems. The issue must be a one off, though, because soon Tyler is launching through the air. Now Josh is thinking about parachutes again, when Tyler comes crashing backwards and he catches him safely in his arms, only to send him off once more in the direction of the sky. He’s floating up above and suddenly he’s turning around and beaming down at Josh, like the sun.

It keeps raining. Josh says he wants to go to the store to get a drink but really he’s just looking for an excuse to get them both under cover. He can see Tyler shivering in his tank top and is relieved when he pulls a large floral print shirt out of his backpack and wraps himself up in it. They’re both already soaked by now, however, and it’s too late to fix the damage.

Tyler is saying “I can still pay you back. I got some money today. I’ll buy your drink for you.”

“When are you going to learn to let things go already?” Josh vexes, poking lightheartedly at Tyler’s ribs. “We don’t have to settle the score. Friends do things for each other without expecting that.”

“I have to pay you back somehow.” Tyler insists.

“Then play me a song.”

This is a good compromise. They stop right where they are, alone in the middle of the road, letting themselves become even more waterlogged. Josh has seen Tyler perform plenty of times, but he has never heard him like this. He takes on the confident stage personality he only has when he’s singing and changes his stance to ready himself. He bounces around freely as he sings, letting all his energy loose. Strangely, he chooses to go without background music this time, using no instrumentation. Instead, he slips promptly into theatrical verses and then off into poetic rap, switching between styles without pausing. The lack of any other sound except the rain hitting the pavement highlights the beauty and versatility of this voice. Midway through the song, Josh hears it crack delightfully.

Josh claps when Tyler’s finished the whole thing. He doesn’t want to look too impressed, but the smile on his face betrays him “What song was that?”

“It doesn’t have a name yet. I just wrote it.” Tyler announces this likes it’s no big deal.

Josh won’t say wow out loud but he’ll let himself think it. He settles himself back into his body, back into the real world and out of his head, where the words are playing themselves on repeat. Tyler had said he still wrote poetry, but Josh had never expected it to be like this. Poetry, from what he’d seen in the past, had always just been rhyming stanzas and boring English units. From now on, he's an official fan.

This particular poem is breathtaking. It’s intense from the first word straight to the last. Josh has only ever heard Tyler sing other people’s songs before but he seems, if possible, even more alive when he’s using his own words. They sound happy but his words are unmistakeably dark, ridden with allusions to suicide, depression, and God. It’s a striking insight into the depth of his soul. Josh can’t believe he trusts him enough to share these thoughts aloud.

They do eventually end up at the corner store. “What’s your favourite slurpee flavour?” Josh asks.

“Gummy bear,” Tyler says, before he notices the smirk on Josh’s face “Don’t. Don’t you do it, Jishwa.” he adds half warning, half fond.

Josh contorts his face into an innocent smile ”Jishwa?”

“Jishwa Dun,” Tyler christens him “Jish.”

“Jish” goes inside and fills a medium slurpee cup half way with Gummy bear flavour and half way with his own favourite, Lemon Lime. They don’t go together perfectly, but Josh is opening himself up to new experiences and he has certainly never tasted this before. While he’s checking out, he eyes Tyler waiting outside beneath the rain cover, talking animatedly to an old man. He sees him empty his pockets and hand the money he had offered Josh over. This explains why he has so little to spend, despite his great skill at busking. Here’s Tyler, in a bad place, still finding ways to help others rather than himself. Josh gets an odd taste in his mouth that he can’t drown out with the strange concoction in his cup.

They loiter around outside the convenience store for a fair amount of time, trying to avoid the now freezing shower beyond them, out on the street. When the lights dim in the houses surrounding the area, Josh isn’t sure how he should say goodbye. It feels harder than it should be. He considers hugging Tyler for solid minute before deciding that he shouldn’t. He’s paying attention to his shoes rather than Tyler now, thinking that he needs new laces.

“Come home with me.” Josh finds himself saying again, this time less of an idea and more of a game plan. “It’s too cold, man.”

Tyler tugs his floral shirt closed over his chest and tucks into himself, preparing for the storm ahead. “Maybe.”

“Maybe.”

“I like you, Josh.”

“I like you too, Tyler.”

Josh takes the long way home, regardless of the weather. Tyler keeps pace with him, not bothered by puddles, jumping in some of them like a hyperactive child. Josh doesn’t even consider being reasonable and not joining him in this little game and soon they are both mud covered as well as sopping. They don't mind.

Chapter Text

They stumble onto the porch, Tyler grabbing at Josh's shoulder for stability as he bursts into a fit of giggles. Josh isn't far behind him, holding on only until he's got the key in the lock before he too is overcome with mirth. They clutch at each other to steady themselves and stay upright as the door opens, revealing light and comfort. Josh hopes Tyler enjoys the lingering smell of a home cooked meal as much as he does.

Josh's mother is scrubbing dishes at the kitchen sink, elbow deep in soapy water, turning her head with hawk-like reflexes at his entrance. Josh stops where he's standing, bowing his head with shame. He feels Tyler bump into him. Tyler, spotting Josh's mother, repositions himself behind Josh like he's using him as a shield.

"You missed dinner," comes an accusing voice. Then, accounting for Tyler, the voice turns kind. "Who's your friend?"

Tyler ducks out from his hiding place timidly, still hanging back as much as he possibly can. "Tyler Joseph, M'am."

Josh has no idea what Tyler's experience with parents or families in general is but judging solely by his circumstances and his reactions now, it seems unlikely that they're good. Josh loves his own family. He knows he's lucky to have them support him like they do. His mother is caring even in her punishments, his father always set to teach him about the world. His younger brother and sisters are annoying, as siblings are bound to be, but they have been his friends through childhood. He doesn't consider his family the perfect all American dream of what one should be, but he wouldn't change them. Tyler, intimidated by the tiny woman in front of him, might choose to change his own.

"I hope you're planning on showering," Josh's mom inspects them, dissatisfied with the results. "Both of you."

"Right," Josh thinks aloud, subconsciously looking down to observe the whole of his filth. "Sure, mom."

"Guests first," she advises warmly, eyeing the extra muck on Tyler. "What were you two doing?"

There is an uneasy pause before Tyler provides "Gardening." which is as unbelievable as excuses get, but which earns a smile.

Josh has the impression that Tyler is a bit of a favourite among mothers, specifically when he's displaying this side of himself. What mother wouldn't consider him a good influence with all his natural charm and humour combined? Josh's mom may or may not trust his lie, but she doesn't seem offended by it. Maybe it's for the benefit of his company, but she chooses not to berate Josh over the state of his return any longer, preferring to shoot him a loving yet unimpressed look.

"Go show Tyler to the washroom, Josh. And pick out some clean clothes for him."

Josh does as he's told. Down the hall way, he notices that he is trailing mud behind himself up to the point of the bathroom. He takes his shoes off before he opens the door. Tyler, close behind, follows him inside with some hesitation. Out of nowhere, they are alone in the silent privacy of the most confined room in the house.

Josh leans over the tub to demonstrate how to work the shower "So, just turn it to the left and then pull this to turn it to the shower setting, okay?" he explains.

Tyler nods in understanding. He looks like he's ready to protest at the idea of washing up at all but even he has to admit that he'd be better off with help here. Josh pulls down a towel from the rack and drapes it over Tyler like a cape but Tyler doesn't smile back. Josh pats him awkwardly on the shoulder in passing as he exits the room.

Downstairs, he grabs the first articles of clothing from each of his drawers. They have fairly similar styles, so he hopes Tyler will feel comfortable with these. It ends up being just a pair of black jeans, like he wears everyday, for the pants. The shirt is for a band Josh isn't sure Tyler will recognize but it's freshly laundered and safe feeling nonetheless. Josh adds the biggest hoodie he has in his closet, just in case Tyler flees on him before the storm does.

Back up the stairs, down the hall again, and stalled at the door, Josh knocks lightly. The door inches forward of it's own volition, allowing a sliver of the back wall to peer out. All that's visible is a hint of the mirror, reflecting a section of the shower curtain, behind which is Tyler. Josh grasps the handle and pulls it back firmly shut as he knocks a second time, a little harder. There's no response.

"Tyler? It's Josh. I have clothes for you."

"Come in." his voice is muffled by the layers seperating them, which are made earth shatteringly fewer when Josh slides inside.

There's only a curtain between him and Tyler, stripped of any clothing or emotional mask, exposed and vunerable, within arm's reach. This closeness cuts more than any distance. Josh is stock still by the sink but he eventually finds the will to move again a moment later, depositing the bundle in his arms on the closed toilet seat. He scoops up Tyler's discarded outfit to replace it. In seconds, he's out once more, dropping it all hastily into the hamper to be washed. He rubs at the places the fabric of the clothes has touched him like he's been burned by their relation to their wearer. It's more that he has the image of Tyler burned into his mind's eye. He's stuck thinking of Tyler, a few feet ahead, dripping wet like he was outside, but immune to the water's freezing sting because now it's hot. It's searing hot.

Josh would think Tyler would sing in the shower but he doesn't, at least not now. Josh might be disappointed or shocked if his brain wasn't already busy playing the song he had sung earlier over and over, searching lines of it for anything he isn't moved by. He stands there by the door for a moment longer, lost in introspection, but he is back in his room by the time the sound of water hitting the ground limits itself to just outside his window. The similar but oh so different rendition that could be heard throughout the thin walled house fades away.

Realizing that Tyler doesn't know how to find his room, he ventures back to greet the scene of Tyler and his mother caught in conversation. Tyler, for his part, is made all cuddly now by this new level of hygiene Josh has never seen on him. He's tender and reddened by warmth, encompassed in Josh's oversized sweater. Josh's mom, in pajamas, leans back to get a good view of the new and improved Tyler.

"Much better. You clean up well. Such a handsome young man." she notes in motherly approval, as if he was her own son.

"Thank you, Mrs.Dun." Tyler whispers politely but he's tugging his sleeves further over his hands like he's trying to burrow himself away.

"Are you staying overnight, Dear? Do you need to call your parents?"

Josh leaps in to save Tyler from this question. "He's sleeping over." he says, more directed as an order to the boy in question than as an answer to the asker. "It's still raining pretty hard."

He expects Tyler to argue but all he does in reaction is move a step in Josh's direction and meet his eye like he doesn't know how to form words to suit the situation. He's holding his backpack in one hand, letting it dangle seconds from the hardwood floor, and his ukulele in the other, fingers wrapped loosely around it's neck. Josh wants to see him kept clean and relaxed like this forever. The heat of the shower is still emitting from him. He smells like Josh's own shampoo.

"Well, goodnight," Josh's mom smiles "Go to bed soon, boys."

Once she's off to the master bedroom, Josh gives Tyler a short tour, ending at his own room. He's always appreciated having the basement bedroom, as it's kept him from having to share with his brother, Jordan, but he appreciates it more for Tyler's impressed grin. Tyler looks around at anything and everything with interest, from the posters on the wall to the unmade bed, like each item is an important clue toward Josh's character. He likes what he sees. At the drum kit in the corner, he stops, bright eyed.

"Can you play something, Josh?" he breathes.

Josh hates to ruin the excitement on his face with a "That would probably wake people up." but his sisters bursting in angrily would be worse.

He leaves Tyler to explore further while he takes a shower of his own. Alone in front of the full length mirror, he peels his clothes off to examine himself. He runs a hand over his lightly muscled chest with some degree of disgust. He's illuminated by the row of lights above him but all he sees is the silhouette of a boy who looks like him. This Josh is jittery and uncertain in his actions. He is wild in his thoughts. He can't move his mind from Tyler, Tyler who is downstairs in his space, clued in to every hidden part of him. It's a very small and scared part of him indeed that wonders what Tyler would think of the view in the mirror.

Tyler had been in this same shower, this same enclosed and personal area, only brief moments before. Josh pulls his mind away from this in order to lather up, rinse off, and towel dry with record time. He won't let himself be naked too long and is in pajamas in a hurry. Normally, he'd wear half as much to bed. Tonight, he will settle for this.

Upon his return, Josh turns his laptop on. "Do you want to watch a movie?"

They agree on Lilo and Stitch and put it on with subtitles and low volume. Tyler demonstrates his Stitch impression, which is bad but cute. Laying back together on pillows that feel like home, their laughter hits noise complaint levels again. It is then that Josh asks Tyler if he wants pajama pants instead of jeans and Tyler simply shrugs and kicks off Josh's pants to reveal his boxers.

"This is fine."

Suddenly, Josh feels sick. Without warning, he's bounding off his bed and over to his closet. "You take the bed. I'll get my sleeping bag."

He can hear Tyler fighting this decision but he ignores him to dig through the contents of a large cardboard box he's pretty sure houses his camping gear. On sleepovers, he would usually sleep in the same bed as his friends. He doesn't quite understand why he can't do that with Tyler, but something is different. He throws the sleeping bag aside with disinterest when he locates it, having caught sight of something else buried beneath.

"Hey, check it out!"

Tyler strides over to view the object of significance with him. It's their elementary school year book. Really, it's more a collection of pictures stapled together than anything, but it's cool to look back on. Neither of them have viewed their copies of it since they received it. It was hidden far away in storage, barely distinguishable in a pile of old report cards. Josh flips to his class photo and points out himself at the back of the class, one of the tallest students.

"I was shorter than you!" Tyler laughs, indicating himself, seated at the front of the picture.

"I'm still waiting on a growth spurt." Josh grumbles back, but he doesn't really mind.

Tyler is the first to pass out. He's laying on his side, nestled into Josh's duvet, face pressed against his pillow. Josh lies down on the floor because he tells himself that's what he should do. He stares up at the bed but he can't see any of Tyler from the angle he's at, just his general shape beneath the blanket. He closes his eyes but can't sleep with the quiet. The storm hasn't ceased all night and thunders on beyond his window. Josh lets the water do it's job, playing like white noise, turning his dreams to static like a radio between stations.

Chapter Text

Josh wakes up on the edge of something that might be a dream or a nightmare or both at once. Regardless, he floats out of it slowly, starting with a yawn. His eyelids are heavy, as is his head on his pillow. He’s half way between uncomfortable and the most comfortable he’s ever been in his life, resulting in simply feeling ordinary. For a minute, he lets his worries stop existing. This is until harsh light from his ceiling hits his face and reminds him that it’s only Tuesday. Reluctantly dragging himself up off the floor, he smiles sleepily in the direction of the bed.

“Morning.”

Tyler is peaceful, lying back with arms crossed behind his head but eyes open, dozing. “Hi Josh.”

They drift closer together in this sleep kissed state. Josh is pulled forward by his feet until he lands in front of Tyler. His arm lifts like a puppet’s just to brush up ever so slightly against Tyler’s, as he sits up. They look at one another but there is no tension in the air between them. There are no fireworks either, only a feeling of utter normalcy, like they’ve been in this same position thousands of times.

“Hey,” Tyler begins, hands falling naturally into the pockets of Josh’s hoodie, which he still has on “You have to go to school today, right?”

“Yeah.” Josh remembers wistfully.

“When?”

The alarm clock’s urgent screams will be delayed for another three hours. "Not for a while."

Josh turns to pull his shirt over his head and put on a clean one, trying to shake the part of him that cares that Tyler can see his every move. He’s not watching. He’s not watching. Josh wouldn’t watch him either. Tyler is already dressed and mysteriously well groomed for four in the morning. Considering his devil may care attitude the previous night and most of the time, it’s nearing suspicious. Once fully clothed, Josh quirks an eyebrow at him.

“What?” Tyler questions innocently.

“You’re telling me you just so happened to be awake at four AM, when I just so happened to get up?”

Tyler rubs his neck “Well, come to think of it, I may have poked you until you woke up and then stealthily laid back down so you wouldn’t realize. Are you mad?”

“No,” Josh laughs “But why? Why did you wake me up,Tyler? I need sleep. I have a test today, jerk.”

Tyler looks amused. He catapults from his spot and takes off up the stairs, not waiting for Josh to keep up but calling after himself “We’re going on an adventure, Jish.”

Josh convinces Tyler to have breakfast before they switch over into adventurer mode. As it so happens, the bowls are still in the dishwasher, waiting patiently for someone to turn it on, so they eat their cereal out of mugs. Josh’s has a picture of a rooster on the front. Tyler’s is covered with assorted small repeating cacti patterns. Josh doesn’t want to be punished for being too loud so early so they sneak out and eat on the porch, where no one is likely to spot or disturb them. Their sock feet hang close to the dew covered grass, slightly grazing it. Froot loops on his spoon as the sun comes up, Josh figures he could learn to be a morning person.

Tyler takes him to a park he’s never been to before. It’s nothing special except that it is. They’ve reached that centre part of spring, where the rain never lasts, so today is all sunshine and leftover puddles. This time, they avoid them to keep their shoes dry. They navigate around them like they’re dancing in the dark, with no spectators at this hour.

It’s eerily quiet and the sky is fading into violet. Whether or not trees were ever meant to grow so similarly to rocket ships taking off, Josh is hard pressed not to compare them. He says as much to Tyler, who is the poetic one in the first place but who still thinks he’s being over dramatic. Josh doesn’t care if he is. He thinks the forest is supposed to be made into metaphors. Or maybe that’s just a quality of any place you go with people who are structured like sonnets.

They go deeper into trees and farther away from the sleeping city. Josh doesn’t have a watch and he’s left his phone charging in the corner of his room, so if they get lost or lose track of time he’s sure to miss his first period Chemistry test. Tyler has no such responsibilities to dodge. He runs his hand carelessly along the rough bark of trees as he continues past them. They are oaks and willows and wonderful light wooded beasts Josh has never known the name of but has seen out his window since childhood.

“Why are we here right now?” he requests, because surely there has to be a reason.

“This is the best time to be here.”

“Why are we here at all?”

“Because our feet took us here.” Tyler rides his own feet to the base of an enormous, proud oak. “Do you bet I can’t climb that?”

“Yes.” Josh says, just because he wants to see Tyler give him that “I’ll prove you wrong” look.

He gets it. Tyler latches onto the tree and pulls himself up onto its lowest branch. Once he’s seated himself upon it, he smirks down at Josh, unable to conceal his excitement beneath it. Josh smiles back because this is all that he wanted, even if he won’t admit it if asked. This fire burns in the middle of them, setting them both aflame all together and without pause for thought.

Tyler miscalculates. He reaches up to a weaker branch that can’t properly hold his weight. It’s abruptly made clear that it won’t work as a crack plays out in bold contradiction to the rest of the silent forest. First, there’s a crack. Then, a thud.

Tyler lands on top of both Josh and the solid dirt floor. He mumbles some kind of apology but all Josh can hear is blood rushing through his head. The force of the fall is stifling so they end up lying there for a period, limbs tangled, trying to regain feeling. Josh’s back takes the worst of the pressure, as do Tyler’s legs, each having hit the ground the hardest. Josh pushes Tyler gently off himself.

“Sorry,” Tyler atones after they’ve stood up and brushed themselves off.

“I wish I was still sleeping.” Josh kids, then, seeing Tyler’s face fall, amends “With you, obviously.”

Tyler winks at him and Josh realizes what he’s said. He searches desperately for a way to fix his mistake but Tyler has already moved on and wandered off. He’s down the path now, picking up a stray branch to draw pictures in the dirt with. Josh hurries to catch up with him.

“I meant as friends.” he clarifies firmly.

Tyler has a strange expression on his face, a combination of friendly exasperation and confusion.

“Of course,” he says, feigning ignorance “What else would you mean?”

When they come out the other side of the trees, they reach a tiny playground. Josh tries to use his own head like he’s the lyrical genius. He would write playgrounds as a metaphor for something about Tyler and childhood and fate. Tyler may be the poet but Josh is beginning to feel like a hopeless romantic. Abandoned swings hidden here are less inviting than their Elementary school counterparts and they invoke a different emotion. They are something similar to fear of the inevitable in the way they have rusted and died over the years. So, if that has anything to do with Tyler’s spirit, there’s a parallel to draw.

What hurts is that he looks happy. They grin openly at each other and joke more often than seems entirely necessary. Still, Josh has seen Tyler bare his soul through song and it’s as clear as the day is beginning to look like it will be that happiness is not all there is to him. Any person has complex thoughts, though, so Josh tries to forget the matter for as long as he can.

There’s a water fountain by the playground. Josh didn’t consider bringing anything with him when they left the house, so he’s considerably lacking in a water bottle. He moves over to get a drink but feels Tyler’s hand grab around the back of his shirt and pull him back. Tyler points to a tiny, lower positioned fountain, meant for dogs.

“You should use that one since you’re so short. You're like a tiny little pink chihuahua.”

Josh huffs defiantly “Okay, but you have to press the button for me since you’re my owner.”

Tyler snorts, then winks again and Josh mentally berates himself. He is not used to being awake right now. He is incredibly tired. His brain has no filter or common sense at nearly five AM on a increasingly stressful school day, so he forgives himself for the slip ups. He doesn’t, however, forgive Tyler for making fun of them.

“I don’t even know what I meant by that.” he admits, embarrassed.

Tyler shrugs. Without prompting, he tackles Josh into a hug. This is something Josh has never felt before. He has never even thought about feeling it. Tyler is warm against him. He still smells like Josh’s shampoo and body wash and even his laundry detergent. There’s something that stands out as unfamiliar and that is what Josh focuses on. He’s waiting for the arms around his middle to leave but they stay. Tyler moves closer, resting his head against Josh’s shoulder like a pillow. At some point, he starts to weep fully and without any inhibitions.

Josh moves his hand to the back of Tyler’s neck to stroke at the soft hair there in a reassuring way “What’s up?”

“Josh,” Tyler says “Can you just hold me for a while?”

“Okay.”

So he does. He lets minutes drag on as he runs his hand up and down Tyler’s back in soothing circles like his mother does when he’s sick. He kicks out his invasive day dreams and only gives the part of him that wants Tyler to feel as safe as possible access to his actions. If the day dreams took over, he might act irrational. Instead, the protective part of him holds Tyler until he doesn’t need to be held any more, like any good friend would.

They sit down on the wooden border between the playground and the grass. Tyler is red faced and snot nosed. Josh kindly chooses not to notice. He keeps up with the back rubs because Tyler seems to appreciate it but they sit side by side now rather than face to face and there is a reasonable distance separating them.

“The day we met was a bad one for me. It was one of those days where the whole world feels like it’s trying to kill you. So, you figure why not do it yourself? I tried before and just ended up in the hospital but the day I got out I was going to try again.”

“Why didn’t you?” Josh doesn’t dare meet Tyler’s eye. He buries his head against his raised knees, cocooning in, in avoidance.

“You wasted all my time. It was too late to go to the store and buy pills like I wanted to and I was too weak to do anything else. That gave me time and the next day I didn’t want to do it anymore.”

“I should have been the one to make you promise you’d come back.” Josh chokes out against his jeans. He’s the one crying now too.

Tyler stops talking to pet the top of Josh’s hair consolingly before he resumes “Today is like that too.”

Josh doesn’t understand. He doesn’t get why, after all the good times they’ve had in these short few hours, Tyler would feel what he does. He’s sitting here on a day where the sky is free of distractions from it’s simple beauty. It’s a day where the wind is light enough that it tickles only those who want it to. Nothing has happened to induce pain. Pain exists on its own. It just is.

They are both mourning the loss of the morning’s innocence. “Skip school and stay with me.” Tyler begs.

Josh does.

Chapter Text

On Wednesday, Josh returns to school. He does so with a fair amount of dread weighing his shoulders down. Having missed his Chemistry test is one thing but not having an alibi for doing so is much, much worse. With no note from his parents or a doctor, the excuse of sickness won’t hold up. His mom gets a call from the office as soon as he sets foot in his first period classroom.

Luckily for him, Josh has never really been a problem child as much as a harmlessly rebellious one, so his parents are light with their disciplinary methods. He’s on the receiving end of an angry call from them at lunch saying he’s grounded, but it’s only for a week. This means he can go to school and work but nowhere else. At first he thinks he wouldn’t even care if it was for a year and he wasn’t allowed outside at all. He’s proud of himself because he believes he did the right thing staying with Tyler. He had good reason to skip and he will never feel bad about that. Tyler’s life is more important than any class. The restriction on his activities does put a barrier on when they can see each other again, though, and that puts a damper on his mood.

He doesn’t expect to get a chance to so much as tell Tyler about what’s going on, so he is surprised to find him after school, leaning casually against a wall in a crowded hallway, looking like he’s waiting for someone. Josh opens his nearby locker. Tyler almost looks at home here now, contrary to the last time Josh saw him at school. He’s slowly regaining his usual level of scruffiness but his temporary makeover hasn’t worn off yet. Josh thinks his hair looks better without being brushed anyway.

If Tyler is paying any attention to Josh, he hides it well. Josh considers the possibility that maybe he’s not waiting for him, that he’s here for someone else. He swallows this fear when they lock eyes across a sea of their peers. Tyler, very much like he’s trying and failing to swim, navigates past a group of freshman girls before being swept back up in the tide and knocked aside again. Josh moves forward to meet him at the half way point and yanks him over by the sleeve of his sweater.

“Tyler,” Josh plucks at the worn material between his fingers “Are you ever planning on giving this back?”

“Nope,” Tyler replies unabashedly “It’s mine now.”

The hallway is a war zone, so Josh directs Tyler into a small empty music room off of it, where they can talk. “Listen, I got grounded, so we can’t hang out until next week.”

Tyler makes a face, then starts examining the contents of the room, judging different instruments by the sounds they make as he taps them. “But your mom loves me.” He mutters as he knocks against the side of a cajón.

The classroom door creaks open by means of an older, stern faced female music teacher “Mr. Dun, what are you doing here?”

Josh is prepared to get in trouble for the second time in one day when Tyler flashes an unassuming smile over at the teacher and asks “Is it okay if we borrow some drums for a few minutes?”

The teacher agrees, if only because she wants to see where Tyler is going with this. He turns his grin on Josh. ”You never showed me what you can do.”

“I didn’t, did I?”

Josh hasn’t played the drums in a week. He’s been too busy with school, largely, and with work, sporadically, and with Tyler, mostly. Being around Tyler is a fascinating new hobby to explore, which has quickly taken over large chunks of his life. That extends beyond just cutting into the time he would usually be spending with Pete and Patrick. Josh doesn’t regret all the time he’s spent with Tyler instead, but he misses the feeling of drumsticks in his hands and the thrill of a good beat.

He lets himself loose as he plays. This is his element. There’s no doubting that. It’s easy to see that he’s more free here than he’s been in ages. His kit is the creative outlet he needs to finally clear his head. Amidst the crash of symbols and the pounding of drums, he is at the eye of the tornado. He is in control. He hasn’t been in charge of anything in his life for a long time but this is it. The natural order has been restored.

Tyler observes in awe, his mouth hanging open, his pupils blown wide. “Nice.”

Josh gets up to put away his drumsticks. He pouts. “Just nice?”

“I mean amazing,” Tyler tries “It was amazing.”

“What, not perfect? Not mind blowing? Not sensual?” Josh indulges.

“No, but it was certainly erotic.” Tyler counters.

The music teacher clears her throat loudly, a reminder of her presence. “Boys... maybe you should be heading home?" She suggests in a voice that makes it closer to an order.

Josh has work at three thirty so Tyler takes the opportunity to walk with him to Guitar Center claiming “I just really need new ukulele strings. No seriously, Josh.”

Upon his arrival, Josh’s coworker, Mark, is finishing up his shift, so he leaves him in charge. After a quick goodbye, Josh heads into the Employee’s Only area to put on his uniform. He entrusts Tyler with browsing a wide selection of strings, instructing him to ask for help if he needs any. The front room is empty of any other customers for the moment but Josh is sure another of his coworkers, Debby, is around somewhere to handle things.

When he hears her scream he thinks that she must be being held at gun point. There’s a robber threatening her life for all the money in the cash register. Or else some maniac is threatening her life for the sheer fun of it. Josh gulps, sheds his fear, and sneaks back out into the main room.

The only people there are Debby and Tyler. In fact, Tyler looks more like a victim here, hands up in surrender as Debby shouts at him. “Out! Get out!”

Tyler takes a step back, his hand clasping tightly around the ukulele strings he’s picked out. "I didn’t-”

“What’s going on?” Josh enquires.

“He’s a thief!” Debby accuses, crossing her arms over her chest and glaring over at Tyler.

“I-I’m sorry.”

Tyler’s hand loses its grip and he places the box he’s holding down on the nearest shelf. He’s all innocence and humiliation, his cheeks rapidly colouring and turning ruddy like water colour paints mixing into a unintended mess. He’s as skittish now as when he and Josh first met. He walks over to the exit, his hands still up, until he reaches it. Once he gets outside, Josh can see him running away through the large glass windows of the shop.

Josh turns on Debby. “He didn’t steal anything.”

“He was going to,” She replies callously ”I’ve seen him around, Josh. He’s a thief. I know you want to believe the best in people, I do too, but you can’t trust everyone who walks into a store or you’re going to get stolen from. That’s a fact.”

Josh likes Debby a lot but he thinks she’s wrong about this. He walks over to the shelf and moves the strings Tyler had wanted over so they are in the correct spot again. He’s fuming. He ignores Debby, choosing to straighten out a rack of guitars instead of returning her hesitant smile.

“Why are you so upset about this?” Debby asks.

“He didn’t steal anything, Debby. He’s my friend. He wouldn’t-”

“Okay. Sorry. Maybe I overreacted a little bit there.”

“He’s my friend,” Josh repeats “What, you think just because he’s in a rough place he’s suddenly a criminal?”

“Josh,” Debby says reproachfully, reaching out to touch him kindly on the shoulder “I’ve seen him steal before. This isn’t just because he’s homeless or any of that. I’m not stereotyping your friend here. I’ve seen him do it.”

“Huh?” Josh sputters in disbelief.

He wants to kick something or maybe scream. Instead, he settles on working the rest of his shift, greeting customers less cheerfully than usual and ringing them up with less than the typical amount of conversation. His shift lasts four hours but his anger, luckily, doesn’t and when it dies down, he’s determined to find some reasonable explanation. He was never mad at Debby, really, or even at Tyler. Rather, he’s confused at the world outright.

He has to be home before his parents assume he’s done anything other than work, so he walks like lightning to reach the Taco Bell, where Tyler, bundled up into himself, sits. Josh seats himself down just like he did on the first night. Neither of them acknowledge each other for a moment, as if they have all the time in the world to get to the point where they can so much as say hello. They don’t have that time. Josh would like to have it, he would give many things just to have that right now and forever. What they do have is a possible extra ten or twenty minutes to talk, so Josh grabs onto that for now, as tightly as he can.

“It’s been a tough few days, hasn’t it?” He starts, sneaking it in like a joke, like he could laugh at this observation.

“I hate my life,” Tyler answers, which isn’t a joke. It will never be a joke. “I hate myself.”

If Josh ever heard anyone else criticizing Tyler the way he criticizes himself, he would probably punch them. Or else he would at least have some other idea of what to do. The problem is, there is no way to tell a person that they are angelic whilst also informing them that they’re acting completely brain dead. Josh hates the idea of getting used to this, of having to learn how to deal with Tyler having these thoughts, but he’s becoming very quickly and achingly aware that there is no way to have Tyler without them. Even if it’s just for now, they are a part of him. A very sick, heart breaking part, but a part nonetheless. Whether he can ever extract them is still unclear. Josh wants to heal him but is struck by the understanding that he can’t. No one person can ever fix that alone, no matter how much love they give.

“Well, I don’t hate you,” Josh says at present, because he’s still going to try “Not that it matters, but I actually care about you a lot. I like you, Tyler. Remember? I like you. And I think I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

Tyler takes Josh’s hand and squeezes it. “I don’t want to disappoint you but your coworker was right about me. I have stolen things before.”

“Why, though?”

“It was for food. I used to go by the grocery store and take stuff from people that had a lot when they were putting it in their cars. I don’t do it anymore but I used to. I regret it. You don’t think I regret it every day of my life?” He asks desperately.

“I think you might regret it way too much. And I’m not disappointed in you,” Josh clarifies “That’s not your fault, man. You were hungry. Anyone would do the same thing.”

Tyler doesn’t appear so certain of this. “I thought I might get a job, try to pay them back, you know? I could pay it forward. I want to help people.”

Josh nudges Tyler lightly in the arm, in a friendly manner. “I think there’s an opening at Guitar Center. I could ask for you?“

Tyler runs a nervous hand through his hair."Yeah, because they’ll hire me without an address. What am I thinking?”

“Use my address.” Josh offers.

Tyler rolls his eyes in response. “I don’t live with you.”

“My mom loves you, remember? I’m sure she’ll be fine with you moving in.” Josh wisecracks.

Tyler laughs and pushes Josh away playfully. “No way.”

Josh goes home feeling a mixture of emotions that he can’t easily identify. First, he knows that he feels sad. Then, anger seeps back in and after a while fear takes over. Beneath all the negativity, however, is still this shining glimmer of hope that comes in the form of that perfectly crooked smile and those bright brown eyes. If Tyler is going to be the source of his misery, he may as well be the source of his relief as well. And if he’s the subject of his dreams that night, he at least has good reason to be there.

Chapter Text

Josh keeps seeing signs of Tyler’s lifestyle. He hates these tiny things with a passion. They are hidden in every stranger passed out on a park bench. They are every busker being ignored on the side of the road. He hates the reminders of suffering but not the people themselves. He pays new attention to these people. He takes an extra minute to listen to their stories, not because he wants to seem like a good person but because he can’t shake the idea that they are important, that they might even be better people than any of the well dressed kids at school.

There does happen to be a woman passed out on a park bench one day. She’s tall and thin, weak and fragile looking, frail. There is a teenage boy too. The boy has his hand in the woman’s pocket, scrounging around for anything left unattended. Josh doesn’t do it to be a hero. He doesn’t even plan on doing anything. The old him would walk past without saying a word. Maybe he’d feel bad about it, but he’d forget by the time he got home. This time, he’s different, so he reacts differently.

“Hey!” He yells.

This guy is much larger than him. He lurches forward at Josh’s words and Josh is reminded instantly of the story Tyler had told him about him standing up to a group of bullies. Josh is no hero. He doesn’t want to be one either. Still, he has fairly strong morals and he won’t let just anything go. This is perhaps a bad thing. He prepares to be pummelled and ground into a fine powdery version of who he used to be.

“Get lost,” The boy tells him “I don’t want any trouble.”

Josh feels someone walk up behind him and follows the stranger’s gaze as it jumps over his shoulders. For a second, he considers that it’s Tyler, there to grab him swiftly by the hand and shake his universe again, like he has so often done. Turning his head, he is greeted alternatively by not one but two familiar faces. One is that of a average height dark haired boy, the other a shorter blond.

“You get lost.” Pete threatens back, though he isn’t exactly scary in his batman T-shirt.

The boy must not like his chances against three other people, despite being far more built than any of them. A wallet isn’t worth the effort, so he backs off without further conflict. The woman on the park bench snoozes on obliviously. Josh thinks that’s a little bit rude considering he almost got very injured for her sake, but he only thinks that as an after thought to being glad she’s okay.

“What’s up?” Patrick questions “We just saw you across the street and though you might need some help.”

Josh doesn’t want to explain."Are you guys hanging out today? Can I join the party?”

Josh hadn’t realized how much he’s missed the company of his closest friends in the past while. He’s just gotten out of being grounded, during which time he wasn’t allowed to hang out with them at all, but he’s also been seeing less and less of them as he spends more time with Tyler. That’s one disadvantage of them not knowing each other. It’s not entirely his fault, of course. He can see now from the way Pete jostles his shoulder up against Patrick’s that they were not expecting him to ask to tag along. They have been spending more and more time alone together.

“Am I cutting in on a date?” Josh teases but he’s a little hurt by the prospect of them not wanting to spend time with him.

“Yes.” Pete replies smoothly but Patrick turns pink enough that Josh suspects this is nothing more than an unexpected quip.

“No,” Patrick confirms “We’re going to the beach. Come with us. We miss you.”

Just like that, everything is okay between the three of them. They go down to the beach, where the white sand meets the white tide meets the white sky. In Spring, it is colder than is ideal but warmer than is anticipated. If the sun keeps up these beating rays, it will be an early Summer. The water is calm today, splashing against the rocks like the bated breath of the lovers lying out on their beach towels.

“I don’t know,” Josh muses “This is a pretty romantic spot you were going to together, just saying.”

They jump into the water in nothing but their underwear, causing it to stick to their skin. Josh, as their friend, can’t help but feel like he’s intruding on something in the way Pete splashes Patrick with a spray of water, leading out into a gruesome battle between the two. He wants to fit in here in the same place he’s been his entire life, but something small and unnameable has changed. He ducks underwater, holding his breath for as long as he can, and emerges again aware that, at some point, his friends have switched over to holding hands beneath eye level. Suddenly, he’s angry at the idea that they could hide this from him, their best friend. He would have been the first person to be happy for them, but for them to hide it from him-He gets up and storms off toward the shore.

“Josh!” He hears them calling out his name but he doesn’t look back.

He picks up the pile of his clothes at his feet and high tails it to the public change rooms. He slips inside, infinitely grateful that his friends have chosen not to follow him for the time being, and walks over to the showers. Beneath the spray of hot water at the farthest shower head is a boy, face tilted up into the ceiling’s light rain, lips parted ever so slightly. His eyes are closed. He wears no more than Josh himself does, adorable pink boxer briefs tight against his skin.

Josh tries not to startle him.“I didn’t see you swimming.”

Tyler steps back on instinct, crashing back into the wall. Recognizing Josh, he lets out a held breath and moves back into the stream, fingers teasing at leftover shampoo in his hair. “I don’t like swimming.”

Josh nods, as if that’s a reasonable explanation. For Tyler, it is. He just wanted to take a shower. Josh drops his clothes on a bench, walks up to the other shower head and turns the faucet to it’s hottest setting, begging it to burn him away. Tyler is less than a foot away from him, his bare skin covered in glistening soap.

Josh tries not to look at him but his gaze catches back on his chest, at scars forming there. They are deep and long, dark pink against a background of pale peach. Josh gravitates toward him until the two of them are under the same scorching spray. They are so close now, so close. Tyler inches closer too, so they are nearly pressed against one another. They let the water flow down their backs and hit the floor with force they could not have imagined.

Josh brushes his thumb across a scar with equal pressure to the touch of a butterfly. ”What happened here?”

“I got in a fight.” Tyler says, pulling away like he’s been snapped out of a spell. “I’m sorry. I have to go.”

“No, wait,” Josh grabs his arm when Tyler tries to turn his faucet off “Come sit on the beach with me or something. Come on.”

Outside and dressed, Josh meets up again with Pete and Patrick, who are standing expectantly by the doorway. Josh smiles at them, to tell them he never meant anything by his actions earlier on. Pete pats him on the shoulder in greeting. "What’s wrong, bro?”

“Nothing,” Josh answers and it feels true “I was just shocked that you guys are... whatever you are.”

“We’re just dudes being bros, man. It’s nothing,” Pete laughs “You were seriously stressing over that? I’ve known Patrick since he was a baby. How freaking weird would that be?”

Patrick looks vaguely hurt. "Yeah. Weird." He shoves his hands in his pockets and glances over from Josh to Tyler.

Pete notices Tyler too. “Hey, are you Josh’s friend or are you just waiting for him to get out of the door way? Because I can yell at him to move if you want.”

Tyler smiles at this. “I’m his friend,” he says genuinely and Josh feels a huge burst of pride “I’m Tyler.”

“I’m Patrick,” Patrick introduces “Don’t mind Pete, he’s usually this much of an asshole.”

Patrick and Pete go back into the water but since they’ve already dried off, Tyler and Josh go off to walk along the beach. The sand is soft and pillowy against their shoeless feet. They make a game of collecting seashells and rocks that they think the other will like. First, they list their requirements. Tyler likes the largest shells, the ones with pure white insides and dark exteriors. Josh isn’t so picky. He says he’ll take anything and Tyler says he’s ruining the whole point of the game. He shoves all different varieties into his arms, making him choose a favourite. Josh just says he loves them all and sticks them in his pockets to keep.

After a while, they seat themselves on an abandoned log. Josh can still visualize Tyler’s body, half naked next to his, so he pays extra attention to the sun setting on the horizon, forcing this memory out. He takes in the smell of the salty air rather than the smell of shampoo from the boy beside him. He hasn’t seen Tyler in a week, so he’s happy to be here, with both him and his other favourite friends. This is nice. This is good.

Tyler lies down on the ground, with no anguish over the way he’s becoming dirty yet again, sand attaching itself to his shirt. "I missed you.”

“I missed you too.” Josh replies, feeling a little like a small child with a big crush.

“But I really missed you,” Tyler says in a way that makes it matter more than anything in the world at this moment “I’m so glad I met you.”

Josh pokes his toes against Tyler’s side, just to feel the warmth coming off of him. “Tyler Joseph, do you honestly think that you’re the least bit lucky to be around me? I still can’t believe I get to be your friend, that I’m lucky enough. Who else gets to be right here right now? No one. I’m the luckiest man on Earth. No, I am. Listen.” he knows he sounds cheesy and over the top and any number of other things.

In the distance, Patrick pushes Pete underwater and they end up in a scramble for dominance, resulting in them falling back against each other with wide smiles. Josh watches and maybe understands why they don’t have to be anything that he might assume of them. Right now, all they are is this, happy and together. Tyler, lying at his feet, gazing up at him with a beam, seems fine with this too. So it’s okay, for now, the way things are. Nobody’s fighting it yet. Someday it will need changing. Someday it will get better and worse and strange, but for now it remains. This is okay.

Chapter Text

Being grounded was supposed to teach Josh a lesson but, as it stands, he has much left to learn. At lunch, Patrick sits across from him, eating his hamburger with clear disdain. He chews slowly on purpose, like he’s trying to stall Josh. Josh slides a note across the table towards him. Patrick opens it boredly, raises his eyebrows, then pockets it.

“Dentist’s appointment?” he asks.

“Yes,” Josh confirms “Just give that to the coach, okay?”

“Fine,” Patrick says, taking a generous handful of Josh’s fries ”But you’re paying for this.”

“Sure. Just, don’t tell anyone, okay? Not even Pete.”

“I wouldn’t tell Pete. Why would I tell Pete?” Patrick looks offended.

Josh gives him a pointed look. “Patrick.”

“I won’t tell anyone, Josh. What are you doing anyway? It’s not a Dentist’s appointment, unless you decided to go twice in one week for some reason.”

“Tyler wanted to meet me for something.” Josh admits.

Patrick grins. “Your new boyfriend is a bad influence, huh?”

“He’s not my boyfriend. But what can I say? Who doesn’t love a bad boy?” Josh grabs the remainder of his fries before they’re completely gone. “You’re a life saver, Patrick. See you last period.”

Josh meets Tyler at the front gate of the school. He’s mildly askew, a little bit roughed up. One new thing is that he has a cut lip. He’d never be one to start fights but he can certainly hold his own when they do arise. They've been coming up too often as of late. He’s not entirely lost in the clouds when Josh comes out, aware of himself but still beating his hand against his knee to a tune playing in his head.

“Did anyone see you?” he requests with worry.

“No. Hey, how come no one ever thinks you should be in school during the day?”

“Do I look like a regular student?” Tyler gestures down to his outfit of badly torn black jeans and a flowy cardigan that looks like it might belong better on his Grandmother “I dropped out and I guess people just assume that much at this point.”

“So why do you need me to miss all the excitement of third period Gym class?” Josh asks as they fall into step with one another.

“You’re going to aid and abet in the crime of the century.” Tyler jokes.

“No crimes. I save those for Math.”

“Alright,” Tyler sighs, pretending this ruins his plans “Just a misdemeanour then? No? You’re no fun.”

They end up at a house that appears, for all intents and purposes, as finely crafted and homely as Barbie’s own dream house. It doesn’t have the pink shutters on the windows or the plastic flowerbeds but it does have a fresh coat of white paint and mailbox that reads “Joseph”. If this is Tyler’s house, the place where he grew up, it suits him in a strange way. It is every part of him that perfectly fits the mold. It’s the tiny Christian boy from Elementary school. It’s his constant need to be a good person and especially to be seen as such. It’s his need to be loved and his belief that he never can be, all in one. Josh hates it.

“Why are we here? We can go somewhere else.” He gives the opportunity to leave early on, just in case Tyler needs to cling to it.

“I want to get my things,” Tyler says, like he’s bracing himself. “I want my piano.”

“Is anyone home?” Josh peers in the closest window, feeling like they might as well actually be breaking and entering. “Do you have a key?”

“I have a key,” Tyler sounds distant ”I want my piano.” he repeats.

“I know,” Josh tells him softly ”We’ll get it. But wait a minute before we go in. Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.” Tyler takes out his key, goes up the steps and opens the old fashioned stained glass adorned door. “This is my home, Josh.”

This Tyler is a new, far away one. He’s glassy eyed and disconnected. What Josh suspects is that he’s retreated into this form of himself in order to hide from something. The house is big, too big to keep their eyes on everything at once. Tyler’s room is at the top of the stairs. Only, it isn’t Tyler’s room anymore, not really. It hasn’t been for months.

A question he’s never allowed himself before begs at Josh’s lips. “How long, Tyler?”

“It’s been nine months since I’ve been in this house. This is my home, Josh. I just want to go home for a while.”

They go up to Tyler’s old bedroom and Josh agrees to stand guard by the door. No one seems to be home but he isn’t sure what he’ll do if anyone sees him here. He is very much an intruder. He’s the guest of an intruder, more like. He wonders if they will call the police. He wonders if he’ll get in real trouble for being a part of this. Tyler’s parents are at work but they could potentially come home early.

Another, more rational, part of his mind tells him that no parent would be proud of having kicked out their child and that they would get in more trouble for not taking care of Tyler than he would for being here. He doesn’t think Tyler ran away, judging by his reaction to the house. He is almost happy to be here. No, his parents forced him out. Josh feels a sudden rush of affection for his own family.

He looks into the bedroom. It has blue walls, a neatly made bed, and a desk full of writings. He wanders over to this desk and cards through a selection of loose leaf paper. None of it is blank. It’s all words, verses, poems, metaphors. They are brilliant. Josh notices a basketball hoop above the door frame.

“You play?” He asks, indicating it.

“They offered me a scholarship,” Tyler informs, transferring a large keyboard piano into Josh’s arms “I didn’t get a chance to take it.”

“That sucks,” Josh adjusts the weight against his chest “But I though you wanted to make music?”

“I do,” Tyler smiles “That’s one good thing about how my life turned out. I didn't get a chance to miss out on making music either.”

There isn’t much else Tyler wants from his childhood bedroom, other than the ability to purge himself of memories. Josh convinces him to take some of his abandoned papers, in the hope that they might be usable in new songs. Beyond that, there is a hat resting on his bedpost, which he removes and fits onto Josh’s head.

“There,” he admires “Looks good on you. You should keep it, since I took your sweater and all.”

They are almost ready to leave. Josh wants to get out as soon as possible but Tyler strays back, running his hand over the material of his old blanket and looking over his old posters for longer than he needs to. Josh thinks surely they will get caught at this rate. Unfortunately, he can too often be all too right about these things. Tyler observes “I can’t believe this is the last time I’ll ever be here.” at the exact same time a voice cries out in shock “Ty?”

“Maddy.”

The girl is maybe two years younger than they are. She’s in the middle of an obvious cold, her nose runny and her cheeks red. She’s blonde, pretty and clothed only in an old, cotton robe. She smiles at Tyler with the brand of fondness signature to any exasperated younger sibling.

“Ty, why are you here?”

Tyler pulls his sister into a close hug."I’m getting some of my stuff. Why aren’t you in school?”

“Sick,” She explains, which is clearly the truth “Why won’t you return my calls, you jerk?”

Tyler looks down in embarrassment. ”I dropped my phone in a river like three months ago.”

They hug for a long time without saying much more. When they do break apart, Maddy looks over at Josh with rising concern.“Is he your boyfriend? Mom and dad would kill you, Tyler.”

“Josh is just a friend,” Just a friend. “Say hi to Zach and Jay for me, will you?”

Madison agrees to this, hugs Tyler again, possibly even tighter than before, and bids them on their way. Then she hugs Josh too and thanks him for taking care of her brother. Outside, what speaks to Josh is the way the world keeps moving for her, even when Tyler is far away. Tyler has been out on his own for nine months, living who knows how, only surviving on his impossible odds and his own ingenuity and some degree of possibly magic or karma. Here is Madison, still living day to day in a universe that has been ripped apart. Josh feels this pain like someone has grabbed at the centre of his ribcage and tried to separate it into halves. He can’t imagine not seeing his own, bratty, annoying little siblings for months at a time. To not see Tyler for that long, after having grown up beside him, well, he never wants to hurt the way Madison must.

Josh can’t miss his last class unless he wants another week away from his life, so they walk back toward the school together. Tyler, out of nowhere, requests a piggy back ride. Josh, weighed down already with his backpack and Tyler’s piano, has to briefly leave their things in a heap on the sidewalk to comply. Tyler is heavier than expected for someone so light on his feet. This is, after all, the same Tyler who looks for all the world as if he is an overgrown kindergartener only to hold back deep and tumultuous thoughts as unexpected as the rest of his genius is.

The school feels a million times smaller when Josh gets back inside and into a classroom. It feels limiting. In Math, he plays with a scrap of paper in his left coat pocket. He took it from Tyler’s old bedroom, with permission. He is dwelling on these lyrics, that melt into him like candy on his tongue. He whispers them to himself. they mean something beautiful, he knows, even if he isn’t smart enough to fully understand them.

He’s thinking about them again later that night, as he buries himself beneath the sound of drums. He keeps playing, over his parent’s protests, searching in these beats for an answer. These words play in harmony with his own inner music. Josh can imagine them alongside each other. He can imagine Tyler up on a stage in front of thousands, reciting poetry that likens itself to the music on the radio, but is so much better. Josh pretends he could be up there too, at the drum set, doing this. This, he thinks, right now, is a beginning and an end.

He doesn’t tell Tyler before he does it, because he doesn’t want to deal with his complaints, but the next day he goes out and buys a cell phone. It’s not the newest model or the fanciest model. It has only the most necessary features and is plain and black. He gives it to him the next time they meet, holding up a hand to stop the inevitable objection.

“I have purely selfish reasons, I promise.” he insists “Call your sister. And put my number in there too. Deal?”

Tyler goes along with it, accepting a gift for once. “Deal.”

That night, they talk for hours on end.

Chapter Text

Both of Tyler’s instruments are being stored in the corner of Josh’s room currently, but the boy himself is missing in action. He hasn’t been around for days. Josh is simultaneously relieved at the “seen” markings beneath his texts and annoyed at the lack of any response. He doesn’t know where Tyler would go without any of his prized possessions or why he’d cut off contact. He just doesn’t know.

It’s a rainy day again and this time the downpour is unforgiving. To capture it in words would be to describe the drabness of it all, bleak and grey and out of place amidst what has mostly been fantastic weather. Clouds stitch together and then pull apart like pieces of stuffing falling out of the child’s stuffed animal that is the sky. It is a boring kind of rain that does little more than cause a small annoyance to anyone getting to work.

Tyler is on the street corner in this rain, devoid of any umbrella or reason. He’s talking to a man in his mid to late twenties. The man nods, like they’ve reached some sort of agreement. He’s looking at Tyler with this sickening hunger. He moves over to open the door of his car, which is an older Chevy, very cool, painted cherry red. Josh hangs back, across the road from where Tyler ducks into the passenger seat of this same car.

“Tyler!” Josh calls out to get his attention, launching out of his temporary paralysis and jogging to catch up with him.

Meeting the car before it can speed away, Josh stops in front of the side window. Shocked by his appearance, Tyler looks out and shakes his head at him from inside. The man behind the wheel is older up close and far less welcoming. He gives Josh an apprehensive look and slowly rolls the window down.

“Who are you?”

“Who are you?” Josh returns, aware of the fact that he’s acting childishly. He shifts his attention to his friend. “Tyler-”

“You know this guy?” The driver turns on Tyler warily.

“Tyler,” Josh repeats, ignoring the other man. “Where-”

“Hey, punk,” The man in the driver’s seat growls “What the hell do you want?”

“Where are you going?” Josh finishes.

It hits him that it’s none of his business what Tyler does with his life or where he goes. He had thought that all of his insisting he cared about the other boy would have been enough that Tyler would have at least wanted him to know what was going on with him, that he would give him that much. He is sure now, watching this strange man, that Tyler has gotten himself caught up in something bad here. Possibilities shoot through his head lethally.

Drugs. The man could be a drug dealer who Tyler’s gotten involved with somehow. Either he’s a customer or he works for him. Josh doesn’t know how these things work in the real world but he’s seen his fair share of movies. Only, the man doesn’t look drugged out. He lacks the signature reddened eyes or general demeanour. He’s not twitchy and anxious but glares at Josh with bad attitude and matching breath that can be explained away with personality alone. There’s the possibility that he doesn’t use his own product but it seems far more likely that it’s something else entirely. It’s not drugs. Okay.

Josh allows himself a small amount of relief. Moving on, he skims other options. It’s revolting, honestly, the number of reasons a grown man might need or want a teenage boy like Tyler, especially one who he thinks no one will notice the disappearance of. Josh knows he’s definitely been watching too many of those movies when he considers that the guy doesn’t seem too murderous. Angry, absolutely, but with reason. He’s not cold blooded.

The truth is something that, normally, might only have driven Josh to despair. This time it clutches him with no remorse, drawing him up into more anger than he has ever felt. He can feel himself shaking with it, his hands tightening into fists, his fingernails drawing blood against his palms. He doesn’t hold himself back any longer. He kicks the car door, hard. Then he does it again, letting his emotions take over his body and drive. A part of him is happy when he hears cries of shock at the damage.

“Tyler, get out of the car.” He’s absolute in this order but careful to remain sympathetic in his tone.

Tyler doesn’t budge from where he’s seated. “Josh, don’t-”

Josh reaches around and presses a button his phone."Unless you want me to show this license plate to the police...”

“Get out.”

Tyler turns around to look at the man sitting beside him in confusion. “What?”

“You heard me. I don’t have time for this shit. Come back when you lose the boyfriend.”

The door opens and Tyler is forced out onto the street, where the rain continues to hit the pavement melodiously. The guy at the wheel, considerably freaked out, hits the brakes. He’s gone fast, leaving behind only Josh and Tyler and tension. They are silent. They are both angry, Josh in the direction of the now absent car, and Tyler at Josh.

Josh grabs Tyler’s hand, tight, like he can never let go again or he’ll lose him. He leads them both along the route back homewards, relying on muscle memory to get him there, as his mind is occupied. After a minute or two, he loosens his grip, becoming aware that it’s much too strong. Tyler pulls away. Josh doesn’t have to look back to know that he’s still following. He wants to look back but won’t for fear that he’s not ready to look Tyler in the face yet, unless he’s willing to shed his anger for tears.

They go inside and downstairs through a luckily empty house, into Josh’s room. Tyler drops his bag with the rest of his things in the corner and lowers himself face first onto Josh’s bed. Josh sits tentatively on the edge of it. His fingers graze Tyler’s arm.

“No.” Tyler says bitingly.

Josh moves back and stands up. He goes over to his drum kit and starts pounding away at it. His anger threatens to leave him but he won’t let it yet. He won’t let himself fall into sadness over this yet. He won’t cry. So he builds the rage up instead, imagining that his drums are the strange man from earlier and that music is his apologies. It’s morbid and Josh hates himself immediately. He wouldn’t have hit the man if he’d stayed. He stops playing because it’s no longer soothing. Tyler sits up and watches him.

“Do you know what that guy would have done to you?” Josh grills him.

“Yes.”

“Do you?”

“Yes.”

“He wanted to have sex with you, do you know that?”

“Yes,” Tyler says again, casually. “I know that.”

“You know?” Josh repeats “You know that that... that paedophile-”

Tyler takes a pillow from the head of Josh’s bed and snuggles it up to his chest, like a child with their favourite blanket, an act of self comfort. “I’m nearly eighteen, Josh. He didn’t know that I’m underage.”

“Yeah, as if you look freaking twenty five, Tyler. He knew.”

Tyler throws the pillow at Josh’s head and Josh drops his drumsticks on the floor. He reviews how Tyler must have looked out on the street corner. He’s seventeen years old and he looks young for his age. He’s in his constant state of disarray. Despite his hidden spunk, he is vastly innocent on the outside, puppy-like upon exterior viewings. He may not be the same kid he once was but he holds true to the same youthful naivety, at least in outward appearance. A dark wardrobe, smudges on his cheeks, and tattoos do not hide it as well as he believes they do.

“He just wanted to use you for sex and drop you back on the street when he was done.” Josh accuses, and now tears really are building up at the corners of his eyes. “Do you want that, Tyler?”

“I’d rather have that than you thinking you’ve saved me or something.” Tyler spits out, his words stinging. “Maybe I wanted to have sex with him. Did you ever consider that?”

Josh shakes his head stubbornly. "The Tyler I know isn’t that much of an idiot.”

This breaks into a long quiet period. Tyler lays down and rolls onto his side to face the wall, covering himself, face included, in an itchy, knitted afghan Josh’s Aunt made for him when he was a baby. He rests his forehead up against the wall, as far away from Josh as it’s possible to be while still staying in the same room. Josh leaves him be for the time being.

“Do you want something to eat?” When there’s no answer, Josh pauses at his bedroom door “I’m going to go to the kitchen and get something. Don’t leave, okay?”

He waits until he’s been guaranteed beyond any remaining doubt that Tyler will stay where he is before he journeys upstairs. There’s no obvious preplanned meal choice for a homeless boy who’s just very nearly avoided being sexually abused, especially one who is in deep denial about it and may have let it happen before. Josh doesn’t want to let it be true that it could have happened before, when he wasn’t able to stop it. It’s simpler to focus on food. His sister Abigail, filling out home work at the kitchen table, gapes at Josh as he overly loudly navigates the cupboards for the optimum snack to feed Tyler.

“What are you looking for? Australia?” She asks in disbelief.

Josh rubs the back of his neck. ”Uh, do we have stuff to make tacos?”

He knows that Tyler is a huge fan of tacos and not much else in the way of food. He has to compromise in making these. There are only soft tortillas, so the tacos become burritos instead. There also isn’t any beef, so they become vegetarian burritos. Josh is still fairly proud of his handiwork as he sets them out on a plate, each one full of cheese, lettuce, salsa, and sour cream. It’s not Taco Bell, but it will have to do.

He sits down on his bed next to the blanket burrito that is Tyler. “Hungry?”

There’s no response, but Tyler repositions himself and accepts the offered plate. He takes large, uncharacteristic bites, like he’s extra starving today. The food must have been a good idea because it instills trust and Tyler doesn’t look so mad at Josh anymore. His knee knocks against Josh’s and he keeps it there, creating one tiny point of contact between them.

Josh sighs. “Am I going to have to take you to get checked for STDs or was this a one time bout of idiocy?”

Tyler glares and actually succeeds at being threatening, which is difficult to accomplish with salsa smeared on your cheek. “You don’t have to do anything ever. Are these pity burritos, Josh? Is that what this is?” He sees Josh eyeing the sauce on his face and wipes it away.

“No,” Josh says defensively “Never. We’re friends. I thought I got that through your thick skull already.”

Tyler shows no sign that he has even heard Josh. “Because as far as I can see, you’re no better than that “paedophile” you have so much against.”

“What the hell do you mean by that?”

Tyler stands up. “You know what he would have done, Josh? He would have taken me back to his house. We’d get undressed. I’d be naked.”

“Tyler, what-”

Tyler slides his hands down and grabs his shirt by the ends, dragging it off over his head and throwing it to the floor. “Then, I’d kneel down in front of him.” He gets on his knees in front of Josh, looking up at him with big hateful eyes.

Josh doesn’t know what to say but he has to say something. “Tyler...”

“He’d moan my name,” Tyler smirks and his hands go up to rest on Josh’s hips. “You’re just like him.”

“Stop.”

Tyler stands."You want me, don’t you?”

“No. Stop.”

“Yes you do. I’ve seen the way you look at me, Josh. You want me. You want me beneath you, on top of you, all over you, all the time.” Tyler is angry now and he directs these words out like tiny bullets, intent on hurting Josh.

Josh is sure he looks like a mess. He’s flushed. The truth is, he does want Tyler. But not like that. Never like that. He’s not some sexual object. It’s just that he’s so overwhelmingly alluring in his every point of existence that Josh can’t help but be drawn to him. Josh never wanted to use him or to help him out as a way to get with him. He needs Tyler to understand that, more than anything.

“No. What do you want me to say? That I think you’re hot? That I think you’re sexy? Tyler, you’re my friend. I want to be around you because I like you as a person. You are so funny, so interesting, so talented. I would never use you like that. You have to know that, Tyler.”

Tyler’s persona slips away as easily as it came and is replaced with cutting shame."I didn’t... today was the only time I was going to let anybody take me home with them.” He says, answering Josh’s earlier, abandoned, question.

He sits down. “I know you don’t like me like that, Josh. I know.” He adds quietly.

Josh puts an arm around Tyler. "It’s fine.”

“No. I shouldn’t have accused you of that. I only did because, well... I guess I’m upset that you never will feel like that for me. Because that’s how I feel about you.” Tyler explains in a very small voice.

Josh swallows a giddy feeling, covers them both with a blanket, and smiles kindly. “Stay with me. Not just tonight. As long as you need. Forever if you want.”

Tyler picks up his half eaten burrito and prods at it, appetite long gone. “Are you okay with that? What with my feelings, you know?”

“I’m your friend.” Josh reminds him. “Friends are there for each other no matter what. It doesn't matter.”

Chapter Text

Tyler is a one way ticket to paradise. He is the imprint of warm hands on cool glass, his heat lingering. He is one unexpected but not unwelcome piece of chocolate amidst a bag of salted peanuts. He is all of this and, at present, he is asleep. If he is already a wild ride, a lasting memory, and strangely sweet, sleep only enhances these qualities. Sleep turns him perfect in the most peculiar ways yet. Josh has already admired his features so often that his observations become tedious to recount. They are the same observations now as before. Tyler, the rise and fall of his slender frame in time with Josh's own breathing, is lovely.

Lovely or not, he drools. Josh's singular pillow, shared between them for now, is being covered in saliva. Tyler doesn't snore but he does smile widely at his dreams. He lays heavy atop Josh's arm, unmoving even as Josh tries to wiggle free. He clasps at Josh's shirt, akin to a cat settling down for a nap, and nuzzles up to him. Yes, he's lovely, undeniably so.

He is lovely still as he squints at the blaring alarm clock. "Josh?"

"Yeah?" Josh asks, expecting to be let go now, though the awakened Tyler only holds him tighter.

Tyler rolls over onto Josh quite deliberately, aligning their bodies like they are paper cutout people folded over on one another. "You're comfy."

Josh hits the snooze button. "And you're evil," He complains, trying to lift Tyler off of himself by the waist. "You act all cute and sweet but you're pure evil. I have to get up. Where did nice Tyler go?"

"Tyler isn't nice. He's a crazy suicidal headcase." The crazy suicidal headcase cuddles closer.

"Hey! Don't say that about Tyler. I happen to like him."

"You shouldn't."

"But I still do. And there's nothing you can do about it."

Tyler turns his face inward facing Josh's neck and yawns loudly, indicating the end of the conversation at hand. He snuggles up, ready to fall back into sleep. Josh, however, doesn't have the ability to stay in bed all day. He'd like to. He has never had anything like the domestic air of this before. Morning cuddles have become far more prominent in his life in the past five minutes than they have ever been. Unfortunately for him, Josh can't miss another day of school or risk being late. He shifts and Tyler grumbles, anchoring him back down.

"Is it a week day?" He asks with genuine curiosity.

"You don't know the day of the week? Do you even know what month it is?"

"December," Tyler responds sarcastically. "Fine, whatever. Go to school. Or church. Or, my personal favourite, stay here."

Tyler rolls off of Josh, pulling him along with him so Josh ends up on top of him. Josh makes to get up but Tyler snakes his arms around him in a hug. Their legs slot together naturally. It's nice, so Josh allows himself one minute longer of this bliss. When his allotment is over, he looks over at Tyler, who smiles cheekily.

"Let go." He tries to sound like this is what he actually wants.

"No."

"Come on, Tyler."

Tyler gives in and laughs, setting Josh free. "I didn't know what I was doing. I'm too tired to think straight. Really."

"Sure you are." Josh opens his dresser to start getting ready.

He can't let himself enjoy this too much or become dependent on it. As much as he likes the sudden affection, it is dangerous to let it continue. Josh, completely enamored with Tyler, thinks his friend is gravely mistaken and confused beyond belief. He has said he has feelings more than friendship for Josh. This is impossible. What it really is is that Josh has been the first person in a long time to give Tyler the love he deserves. He will gladly keep this up in the form of as many platonic cuddles as he can get but he won't take advantage of it. He likes Tyler far too much to do that to him. Tyler is confused. Maybe Josh himself is just confused too, maybe he's not feeling what he thinks he's feeling.

Josh is half way into his jeans, one leg in, one out, when his door knob turns. He fixes his state hurriedly and, in utter panic, throws his blanket over Tyler's once again sleeping form. He hasn't gotten around to telling his family about him staying over yet. It's not as if they would react badly to him simply sleeping over without permission, but Josh acts on instinct more than anything right now. He's certain they'll be fine with Tyler staying for a while longer, so he doesn't entirely understand his own reflexes at work.

Josh's mom smiles weakly at him from the doorway. "Can we talk?"

"Okay." Josh pulls out his desk chair and sits to listen.

His mom perches herself on the edge of the bed, narrowly avoiding where Josh knows Tyler's feet lay. "Now, I wasn't trying to spy or anything, but I came down here last night to get your laundry," She motions to the overflowing mountain of clothes in the hamper "And I overheard you mentioning something about having... having sex. Of course, I left right away to give you and, well, whoever you were with some privacy but I'm a little disappointed that you would bring a girl home without asking your father and I."

Josh's head spins. "Tyler." He says foggily.

"What's that, Josh?"

"Tyler. He, uh, he slept over last night. He's still asleep." Josh explains.

His mother blinks. "Oh. Joshie, you know you can talk to us about any-"

"We were just talking," Josh adds quickly "We were just talking about it. Not about us having it! About..." This isn't a lie but it doesn't feel like the full truth either.

"Okay," His mom says and she turns to glance over at the blanket behind herself."You do still have those condoms we gave you, don't you?"

"Yes, mom." Josh blushes. He has never removed them from their spot in his bedside tables's drawer. He'd made a mental note to never open that drawer again.

His mom smiles at him and walks over to pat him on the head in a typically motherly way. "But you can talk to me about anything, you know. You do know that, don't you?"

"I know," His mom turns to leave but Josh calls her back "Wait. Mom?"

"Yes, dear?"

"Can Tyler stay here for a while? He's... having trouble at home."

"Of course." She says. To her credit, there are no follow up questions.

Josh eventually has to wake Tyler up and drag him outside because, as a kid who supposedly goes to Josh's school, he is supposed to be going to school. Josh actually does go to school and Tyler splits up with him to journey off on his own. When the clock strikes three, Josh comes home to an empty room. As far as the eye can see, it is devoid of anything other than the furniture and the mess. He is clued into the opposite by the sound of notes being played upon a piano. He follows the music to it's source by ear and ducks down.

"Why are you under the bed?"

Tyler is laying on his back on the hard floor, piano perched on his chest. "I needed inspiration."

"What kind of inspiration does this give you?" Josh flops down beside him.

"I don't know." Tyler drops his keyboard at his side and picks up a spiral bound notebook and pen to replace it. "But it's darker down here and it's easier to think in the dark."

Sometimes depression is quiet. It makes people quiet. It silences words and worlds alike. It can make a man forget what he's thinking just so he can fall into a long silence, stare off into space, and remain suspended in place for ages. Tyler is quiet and he's scribbling fast and heavy handed on unlined paper.

"What are you writing about?"

"Suicide."

"Oh."

Josh crosses his arms behind his head. This is truly quiet. Tyler keeps writing and Josh closes his eyes. Having somehow ended up underneath his own bed with a boy he hasn't known all that longer, in companionable lack of discussion on any subject, he starts to lose himself a little. This isn't peaceful exactly, nor is it chaotic. It's where they are right now. It's deafening and unnecessarily sad.

Josh lifts his foot and crosses it over Tyler's leg. Tyler looks up from the page he's been vandalizing. He flips the book over to a blank slate. His pen and mind creates, like always. This is different. This is the place they are now and it's not the same at all.

"Read that to me." Josh requests.

Tyler, so bold in the morning and the night before and every day Josh has seen him, closes his book shyly, hiding his poetry from view. "Not yet."

"Are they all about suicide?" Josh implores.

"No, not all of them."

"Tell me about those ones then. Read them to me. You don't have to act them out or anything."

Tyler considers this, then hands his notebook over. "How about you read them to me? Just the ones at the beginning."

Josh takes the opportunity. He opens on a poem or a song about faith. He reads it aloud in awe, without any of the proper inflection. He doesn't have the tone right. He mispronounces some of it. Tyler closes his eyes and listens to his own words, his own belief. He turns so his legs stick out the side of the bed and his head rests on Josh's stomach. This is nothing like the morning was. He isn't insistant on this. He isn't in control now. He's letting Josh take charge as he turns soft, taking in Josh's voice. Josh tries to speak in a way that sounds better for Tyler to listen to. It comes out wrong. It doesn't do it justice but Tyler sighs contently. His poetry pierces them both.

Chapter Text

On Sunday, they go to church. Josh's family is going anyway and Tyler says he wants to tag along, so he does. He doesn't have any formal clothing, so they rifle through Josh's closet to find something suitable and well fitting. The shoulders on his button ups are a tad too wide, which is better than the alternative, and his pants are a bit too short, which exposes Tyler for the mismatched sock wearer that he is. Tyler doesn't know how to tie a tie, so Josh does it for him. He steps out of the closeness of this action as fast as he can, because he feels wrong in it. He feels both like he is leading Tyler on and leading himself on. What he wants can't happen, so he just has to get used to it. He's been spending these last few days playing into the idea that maybe it would be alright but he has to stop before he's too far gone. They are friends. Tyler's tie ends up too loose because Josh doesn't finish tightening it.

Tyler hasn't been to a church for a long time. He tells Josh that this is important to him and that his religion was once a big part of his life. It's a positive thing that they're going. It lets him reconnect with his faith. Josh has never been as devout, but he usually finds peace in the service. For whatever reason, as Tyler stays calm and enjoys what's happening, Josh is the one who snaps.

He sits in the pew between his brother and Tyler. Tyler is transfixed on the front of the room so he remains unaware of the way his hand rests lightly and casually on Josh's thigh. Josh's attention strays down to it. He is thinking about why Tyler would have been kicked out of home and the church. But then he's thinking about fingers carelessly curling in against his pant leg. What this does to him is worse than it should be. He thinks he wants to exchange fingers for lips and for lips to travel on some more. He thinks he will take Tyler out to admire the cherry blossoms by the connected Christian school after they leave and he will cradle his face. He will meet his lips with his own as soft as anyone can, will keep them there forever and surely die of starvation for the meals he's missed and the taste of this alike. And this he thinks in a church.

Thoughts are powerful and can be enough to draw emotion out. Thoughts create such wanting and needing and such nagging hope. Josh brings his finger up to brush across his own lower lip, pretends the sensitive skin there is satisfied. He lowers it again and down to Tyler's unflinching hand. They have held hands before but he lays his palm over Tyler's and Tyler jumps in his seat. He keeps looking out at the service, removes his hand like he's only just regained sensation in it.

When church is over, Josh does take Tyler to see the cherry blossoms. They split up with his family, walk through an untrodden dirt path, and there they are. Thoughts don't play in. The blossoms are pink and white, falling in feathery flight, birds made of petal origami. A numbing pain places itself in Josh's gut. The blossoms are beautifully dying, losing their life as they fly through the air and to a ground that is littered in the bodies of their kind. Josh may as well be dying too, but it is a beautiful death the same. The cause of it is beside him, spinning in circles, arms out, flowers landing in his hair, commanding Josh to join him. He collapses in the pile of blossoms at his feet and they end up relaxing at the base of a giant tree.

"Did you like it?"

"It was nice. I felt a little more like the person I used to be." Tyler muses.

"That's good. That's great."

Tyler kicks petals so they briefly jump up like confetti and parade down again. "You want to know why I haven't gone in a while, don't you? It's the same reason I left home."

Josh grimaces. "No. I don't need to know that if you don't need to tell me."

"I don't have to tell you," Tyler leans forward. "But I do need to. I need to. Will you listen, Josh?"

"I'll listen."

Tyler undoes his tie. "Just listen," He wraps the black silk fabric around Josh's eyes and ties it behind his head, forming a blindfold. "Don't look at me, please."

"Okay," Josh laughs. "Why can't I look at you?"

"Because I'm going to cry, probably."

"I've seen you cry before." Josh reminds him and it hurts to remember that day.

"It's different. I know it's going to happen this time." Tyler informs him.

Josh can't see but he feels Tyler shifting nervously next to him. "I won't peek then."

"I..."

He senses Tyler moving closer to him, his breath ghosting over his face, tickling it. As soon as he's there, Tyler pulls back once more and farther. He takes a deep breath. They sit without saying anything more for a long time, until Tyler can form the words he wants. These are his words to come up with and Josh can not drag them out of him, nor would he want to. It takes a fair while.

Josh was born to bear witness to the tundra of Tyler. It is an ever present dead winter weight in his head and his heart. His heart ticks on like a product of that storm in it's power. Tyler's a storm, a hurricane, a tsunami, an earthquake, a blizzard, and even a heat wave. Tyler, indefinable, indescribable, everything nature never meant to give so much passion and beauty, tries to describe himself.

He starts with "I'm not gay."

"Tyler..."

"I had a girl friend and I loved her. I really loved her. But I've loved boys the same way too, I think. I can't put a label to it but it's something. My parents tried to understand and I do love them, but things just didn't work out. So I stopped going to church with them when they made me leave home and I never went since. I was angry at God, I think, for making me this person. That's not just because of this but I can't help but feel the worst about this part of myself because it was the breaking point. I was already so broken, I didn't want to let myself be whatever this is too. But I started to feel something for you, Josh, and I just... I don't want to lose you. I have to explain that I'm not trying to be with you, because I know you don't want that, but I want you to understand what I do feel. Please."

"I understand." Josh breathes, and he wonders if Tyler is crying.

"Josh..."

"And I still care about you. You need to stop being so stubborn and learn to accept that you're never going to scare me off, okay?"

"Okay." Tyler agrees and removes the tie blindfold to drape it around his neck again, without tying it.

Josh opens his phone to the sound of an unexpected text. It's Pete, inviting him to hang out. "You remember Pete and Patrick, right? How does meeting up at Taco Bell sound?"

Upon arrival, Pete is at a table, eating nachos happily. He grins and waves them over. Patrick, apparently, is in the bathroom currently, his seat saved with his sweater. Josh and Tyler sit next to each other. They have to pull a fourth chair over from a nearby table, which scrapes loudly against the restaurant floor, and which is somewhat higher up than the others. Josh gets this one and embraces his increased height fully by placing his feet up on the table, level with his chair.

"Hey!" Pete cries, offended, through bites of chips.

"Yeah," Patrick agrees as he walks over to them "Don't put your feet near my food, thanks."

"Your food? So you guys are sharing, huh? Aren't they a cute couple, Tyler?" Josh teases.

Tyler, who knows that they aren't, smiles warmly at them. "I've honestly never seen two people so in love."

Patrick hides his face in his hands. "Oh no..."

Pete stands up on his chair, gathering the attention of the room. "Did you hear that, everybody? Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz are in love! I bet they're way more in love than any of you are!"

Patrick pulls Pete back down by the leg, not caring to be gentle. "We're not dating. We hate each other, actually." He directs this last bit at Pete, who is looking at him fondly.

"Right," Pete says "I hate how much I love you, 'Trick."

"They were my nachos anyway. You're just a mooch."

Outside, Pete and Patrick recount their plans for the day. "I found this awesome list of cute date ideas," Pete begins "But I don't have a girlfriend, so of course I have to do them with Patrick instead and make them best friend dates. We're going to do them all! You guys can come and it can be double best friend dates, which is like at least twice as adorable, if you ask me."

Best friend date number one takes them to an old-fashioned street in the downtown area. Along it is a row of cozy shops. Mostly, they are antique shops and tea shops. At the far end, there is a bigger store with large glass windows full of every imaginable item. It's a thrift shop, the kind of place where old ladies tend to drop off their trinkets and where most of the items available for purchase are hideous.

The idea is not to buy but to browse. This is a game of Pete's own design. They're to look for the ugliest and strangest objects they can and compete over whose is the worst. It's an easy concept in theory but the lines and lines of ceramic figurines are barely distinguishable from each other and the books are all exceedingly boring. Deeper into the store, the clothing section provides many more exciting opportunities.

Tyler finds an old sombrero, which is oddly fitting. Patrick tries a silver space age-looking jumpsuit from the 80s. Josh picks out a Metallica T-shirt, which has been dyed pink in the wash. These all result in light hearted giggles. At some point, Pete tries on a tight, form fitting leopard print skirt, but this isn't so funny because it kind of suits him. They don't buy any clothes and especially not anything they've tried on. They feel bad for the employees, so they spend a long time putting everything away, where it will likely remain for many years to come, unbought.

The one thing they do buy is a set of game boys Patrick finds in the electronics section of the store. They come with a few games and they're cheap, so he gets them and they go to the park to play pokemon. They sit in the grass and take turns battling against each other. Tyler is the reigning champion. Josh does the worst.

"Patrick and I are starting a band." Pete declares, after having defeated Josh's Pidgey.

"Awesome!"

"He'll be singing with his dreamy soul voice and I'll be playing bass. We already have the rest of the crew. You know Andy and Joe?"

"Andy Hurley?" Josh nods. "You didn't even ask me to audition for drummer, man."

Pete's Squirtle shoots out a waterbeam. "You want to be in a band?"

Josh shrugs, giving in to the loss of his Charmander, and gazes over at Tyler. "Maybe if it had Tyler's amazing vocals."

"You're losing," Tyler takes the gameboy out of Josh's hand and chooses a different attack than he would have, turning things around. "So we'd be a band with a drummer and a rapping, ukulele and piano player?"

"In suits." Josh adds, making note of their still present church wear.

"You have to come to our first show," Patrick puts in. "We need an opener."

Josh is almost certain he's joking, but he smiles at this. Everything seems so happy here. Maybe it's the video games or maybe it's the good company or maybe it's the mention of music, their shared love, but something is different. It works. Josh doesn't even feel undertones of sadness in this afternoon. The sadness must still be there. Happiness is in large supply today, though. Josh doesn't allow his mind to burden him with reminders of Tyler's earlier confessions or of his appearance, done up like this, formal if ruffled. Pete hands his gameboy off to Patrick. Hours later, they go home, Josh and Tyler together. And home, in this instance, comes to them.

Chapter Text

"Stop moving."

Josh stills himself where he sits. Tyler is in front of him, marker in hand, working steadily on covering his exposed leg in ink. Josh tries not to wiggle too much, but he's shaky and some areas come out with uneven outlines. Tyler scowls at his drawings in displeasure and goes back over them to smooth the lines. He's meticulous and holds great attention to detail. The pictures are abstract, unknown images but appealing to the eyes. He scribbles out a neat circle and a pattern of lines inside it.

"What's that supposed to be?" Josh taps beside it.

"I don't know," Tyler signs his name on Josh's knee. "You should get this one for real."

"No way."

"Aww, come on. I'll get your name too."

They switch positions seamlessly so Tyler is sitting and Josh is kneeling before him, marker in hand, the fresh ink on his leg smudging against his carpeted floor. Tyler makes no move to roll up his pants so Josh does it for him, brushing past the fine hairs there. He doesn't have any instructions on what to draw so he sketches out an enormous smiley face over the majority of Tyler's knee cap. Tyler screws up his face trying to figure out what it is from his upside-down viewpoint, then copies it across his own lips in realization. Josh signs his name too. It comes out messy and indistinct. He accidentally makes it half uppercase and half lowercase but Tyler says he'll get it tattooed despite its imperfections.

Josh expects that they'll wash the drawings off when they finish them but Tyler is adamant that they don't. He asks for more so Josh continues on to cover both of his arms in cartoons of puppies, music notes, and tacos. Tyler looks ridiculous but he loves it. He changes into shorts just to show off Josh's sloppy signature, which makes Josh feel awful about having hidden his away beneath his jeans. One more odd wardrobe choice Tyler makes is the rubber bands he wraps around his arm. When Josh asks about them, he gives no answer.

Bestfriend date number two takes them to a mystery location that is soon revealed to be the fair. It's one of its least busy days, having only just opened for the very beginning of the Summer season. There are a lot of people, nonetheless, crowds and crowds filling up what was empty unused space days prior. It has a positive atmosphere still, remaining inviting even in its vastness. Pete and Patrick await them by the main gate, shared expressions of child-like wonder on their faces.

They start with the games. Pete spends more time and money than he ought to on a ring toss stand in order to win a monstrous and, quite frankly, incredibly ugly green teddy bear. Patrick rolls his eyes when this prize is presented to him but Josh catches a hidden smile. Tyler hooks his arm with Josh's. He loves everything about the fair. Josh can imagine him fitting in nicely at Disneyland, Mickey Mouse ears atop his head. He could probably convince Josh to wear some too if they went together. This is a fantasy that only the far future could bring true and Josh likes the idea that they will know each other for a long time to come.

At the rides, Tyler claims that Josh is too short to go on anything. They ride on all the most extreme rollercoasters, Josh included, his height not being an issue. Tyler says the employees have just made an exception for him because he's so charming. Then, they go on all the more relaxed rides, including the tea cups. The bumper cars, however, are a no go. Pete has been officially banned after the events of the previous year. The story of what happened takes three full rounds to tell, which they watch as they recap it for Tyler.

It's after lunch that they split up to allow Patrick to lug his oversized stuffed companion, an annoyance all day, back home. Pete goes with him not out of compassion or guilt but because Patrick, after his goodbyes, shoves the toy into his arms and takes off as fast as he can without looking back. Josh and Tyler are left alone in the amusement park. They search together for any remaining activities the day passes Pete gave them will get them into. As boring as it sounds, the fun house catches their collective attention. Josh can't say why, but he feels the urge to go inside. Tyler, fiddling with one of the rubber bands around his wrist, agrees.

It's nearly empty inside. The mirrors distort their reflections to shoot back as images of boys with strange inhuman features and unusually sized bodies. Josh isn't particularly interested but Tyler's reaction is impossibly worse. He stares out at the not him looking back, snaps the elastic hard against his skin. He's shaking where he stands. Concern rises in Josh. They both regret coming inside.

"Are you okay?" Josh puts a hand on Tyler's shoulder to comfort him.

Tyler doesn't move his gaze from his reflection. "I'm a monster." He says.

"That's not the real you."

"I know. But I am. I'm disgusting, Josh. I'm a freak. I don't just see that in this mirror. It's in every mirror, even at home."

The word home pangs in Josh's gut as the rest of this speech twists in it. "Let's go do something else."

Tyler moves into Josh's outstretched arm to hug him loosely, head hanging limply to rest against his chest. "Josh, I'm so sick of feeling like this."

"So am I. You're not disgusting. Listen to me. You're the best thing that's ever happened to me and that has to mean something. You might think you are worthless but you're not. You think you can't be loved but just listen for once. Who cares if the rest of the world doesn't? I love you, Tyler."

This he has to say because it is so fundamentally true. "I love you, Tyler" is the blood that rushes through his veins. It's the water droplets that sing sweet salvation on his tongue when he's famished. It is every night they have spent together and apart since birth, let alone since the day they met. It isn't necessarily romantic. It's just true. Maybe it could be romantic some day, if Josh let it be. But Tyler is light and everything else is merely the absence of him. Josh will love him whichever way is best for Tyler's sake, which is not romantic right now. But Tyler takes his words the wrong way because he's been too hurt to know what he's doing. Josh has to stop him from making the wrong decision. Josh himself is, and perhaps always will be, the wrong decision. He loves Tyler too much to let him love him back.

Their eyes meet and inch closer. There is friction in the air between them. Josh's admission starts to feel like a nightmare that will haunt in the form of Tyler's day dream smile. Tyler looks at him with love he should only feel for someone who truly, truly deserves it. Josh is not that person. He doesn't deserve Tyler in any way. He especially doesn't deserve his grip on his shoulder or his softening gaze as rewards to his own selfish passion. He doesn't deserve eyes flickering shut and Tyler leaning in. He is too gorgeous like this for Josh to ruin with either rejection or acceptance. He has to. He dodges out of the embrace.

Tyler looks down at his feet. "I'm sorry. I thought..."

Josh knows in his heart that he is a bad person for it but he steps back to grab hold of one desperate kiss against Tyler's forehead before he turns and runs. Outside, children stare at him and their parents direct them in the other direction. He runs until he's sure he can't be followed, then walks slower than ever before. He isn't sure he'll ever go home again. Maybe he'll go live with Pete or with Patrick or with Mark from work, who would be nice enough to let him if he asked. He doesn't want to go back to his own bedroom, which in the last week has started to feel like a shared space. He has been so happy for every stray object of Tyler's occupying his room. Now he hopes that when he gets home Tyler will have disappeared from his life entirely. Maybe this is enough that Tyler will finally understand he is too good for Josh. If he hates him, that's great.

When he does eventually go down to his room, Tyler's things are gone. This stings more than the thought of it did it, the actuality of him leaving. Josh turns to glass and shatters all within seconds of having felt like stone. There is a T-shirt on the floor that Tyler forgot to take. It's blue and Josh picks it up, balls it up, and buries his face in its material. He cries.

He cries and he cries and he cries. His whole body cries, from quivering lip to gasping lungs. He falls onto his bed in exaustion, the act of doing so overwhelming him. He fights the tears. He stumbles up from his spot, braces himself against a wall, and punches it with all his might until he leaves an angry indentation and blood on his knuckles. Then, he's sad once more, collapsing onto the floor with fits of still more sobs.

His mom comes in to check on him and, because she's a good mom, she doesn't ask. He tells her anyway, leaving nothing out, the whole story. He tells her that he's in love with Tyler and that Tyler thinks he's in love with him too but that Tyler can't, wouldn't ever possibly be able to really love someone like him. She's not surprised, only gentle and safe to confide in. She holds her son close to her, like she hasn't done since he was young. He begs her to take the pain away and she is distressed that she can't.

"I love you," She whispers. "Josh, you are so loved. Why do you think he can't love you like you love him?"

"He just can't." Josh answers, and for the first time in what feels like ages, he remembers that he is broken too.

Chapter Text

The forest smells like the past, filling Tyler with nostalgia and the memory of a person he no longer is. It feels like the rapture. The rest of the world is gone and he's alone on the outskirts of his own universe, waiting to be swallowed whole by it. He kicks his shoes off and digs his feet into dusty ground. This is real. He drops his bag at his side and spreads his arms out like wings. He would much rather fly away then face reality.

"Is anybody out there?" He calls.

It's only wilderness and wild creatures. All he's given are the chirps and buzzes of the woodland. The cicada songs are loud, drowning, but not of any comfort. All in all, the trees are non responsive. If anyone can hear him, they aren't listening. Nobody's listening.

"Hello?" He shouts.

It's no use. The blackberry sky has no answer for him. He had little hope in the first place but it would have been nice to have been proven wrong. No such luck this time. If there isn't anyone willing to hear what he has to say, he won't bother them with it. He silences.

He goes off down the street and keeps walking for a long time. His beacon in the mist of this state of mind is a house at the end of the road, near the school he used to go to. It has felt like home for the short week he's been there. He has to remind himself that it's not. He doesn't live there, or anywhere else. The people inside aren't his family. The pink haired silhouette inside the kitchen window isn't and, shouldn't be, important to him.

Josh has said he loves him. Josh loves him, cares for him like he might care for a brother. Tyler shouldn't mind so much that Josh doesn't want to kiss him. It hurts but he wouldn't let it make him go. After all, he has already been preparing himself for this truth. Josh's love is platonic, yes, but it is love that Tyler wants. He would hold on to it forever given the chance even as he himself doesn't match the sentiment exactly. The problem is that Josh had run. He had left in a blitz of beauty, so kind in his rejection and yet able still to turn Tyler to this person he is now. Tyler's the last person left on Earth after that holy rapture of hearts. Josh is safe in Heaven from this despair and he is lost between lands, destined to be a sacrifice to emotional agony.

He won't knock on the door no matter how much he wants to. Josh will not want to see him. He keeps his eye trained on the figure through the window. Josh faces away but if he would only turn he might notice Tyler and react. He would shut the blinds. Or he would leave the room. Tyler, more than ever, even on his worst nights, feels the chill of the night air hit him brutally.

His ukulele calls to him, so he grabs it and begins to play. He plays Build Me Up Buttercup, the same song he had been playing moments before Josh had first approached. Josh had been the one to start that first conversation but Tyler had been secretly watching him for months beforehand. He had started sitting in the same place just to catch sight of him as he went to school. He had never expected Josh to talk to him or to help him as much as he had. To think, he had been ready to die that day.

Now Josh would probably never speak to him again. He might as well have never lived these past months. He buries himself in the remniscence of this music. This here is a huge reset button sending him back to the beginning. It erases the distractions. Here is his goodbye to everything. This is his goodbye to his family. It's his fare well to his new friends Patrick and Pete. It's one last song for Josh, who came by just to listen to him so many times and whose final words to him were an assurance of love. Tyler has never said it out loud himself but this is his way of making ammends. He plays as if he's a regular teenage boy serenading his girlfriend at her bedroom window. It's a serenade instead from a hopeless freakish loser to a boy who may well have been crafted from the thread of the gods. If his life was a movie, Josh would hear Tyler belting these lyrics for him but, of course, he doesn't.

"...Buttercup, don't break my heart." Tyler finishes.

He puts his ukulele down on the grass of Josh's front lawn and unzips his backpack. With a breath, he takes out a razor from the front pocket. He holds it to his wrist, then applies pressure. He digs in, watching the blood bead along the surface of the cut. It's not deep enough. It's not enough.

It's a rush. The flow of ruby and scarlet hues trickling down his arm like melted wax on a candle is overpowering. It's an intoxicating taste of the dark side and now there's no going back. Pooling at his wrist and staining his flesh is none other than the purest of wines or liquid power simply dyed to match the roses in the garden. Comparisons are too easily drawn to Christmas wrapping, strawberry sweets, and flushed cheeks. They are all of them red and consuming, drawing him in with the promise of pleasure.

But one cut isn't enough to satisfy. He moves in again, sharper this time. The stirring beast in his head roars in delight. "One more. One more." it begs. Then, another. He's clueless as to how he ends up on his knees, gravel digging in roughly against them. There's an unrest deep within but there's no stopping him now, so he strikes yet another line, the most fantastic so far.

Under dizziness, he feels starvation. He's desperate for relief. He's finally given it. There is no more of the childish boy, so often lost in a web of his own creation, unable to prevent his own self destruction. His vessel is occupied instead by an angel of death, well versed in morbid lullabies that will lull him into the safety of pitch black, lullabies that will make him one of God's children again. Every slide of his blade restores his faith, piece by piece.

But it's still not enough. He hovers his razor over his leg. Below the tear he makes there, he catches sight of black smudges that used to be a name. Alongside the smiley face, it's become gravely disfigured. Blood courses over them both, blocking them from view. Josh. It's Josh's name written there.

The razor clatters to the ground. Tyler stands up and swerves in unbalanced exhaustion. The physical effects of what he's done start to take their toll now that the poison euphoria he had felt has faded. He grabs his mutilated arm to stop the flow of what he now knows isn't wine but water. He is no closer to Heaven for having done this. If anything, this is only proof that he's Hell bound. The demon inside him sneers at its own victory. It's tricked him.

Tyler can only think of how selfish it would be for him to die where he stands. He's in Josh's driveway. This family has been so kind to him and he's repaid them in the growing possibility of a body in their front yard. The first person to open the door in the morning would be the one to find him. It could be one of Josh's younger siblings. It could be his parents. It could be Josh. It could be Josh who finds him dead and blames himself and goes to his funeral and thinks for a second that Tyler is worth his tears or his guilt. He's not. Tyler doesn't want to die anymore. He can't. He doesn't have the privilege of disappointing these people like that.

He tears his way up to the door and slams against it with all the strength he can muster. He has to get to a hospital. Everything has become a blur of colours and shapes. The door opens to light and pink hair and noise that Tyler can't decipher into words. He stumbles forward into the person in front of him, to their lasting sunscreen smell from earlier that day and to their human heat. Josh latches onto him as well, keeping him close. He asks a question Tyler can't hear. Words aren't words now, only sounds. Josh sounds like rain and traffic and the ocean. He sounds like Tyler's entire life packed into one moment. Tyler grabs that moment.

In what may be his final instance of clarity, these might be his dying words, so he makes them count. "I love you too."

Chapter Text

Josh calls 911. The operator is patient, procedural, and robotic on the other end, like she's had this same conversation hundreds of times. She's repeating herself, asking what exactly is wrong. She isn't moving quick enough. Josh is already listing off his address and demanding an ambulance. He pleads for her to hurry.

"Would you please state your emergency?" The woman asks again.

"He..." Josh steadies the unconscious Tyler next to him. "He tried to kill himself." This is as much his own revelation as it is an explanation.

Josh waits for what feels like centuries but must be mere minutes in actuality. Tyler is in his arms, unmoving. Josh places two fingers to his throat and holds them over his heartbeat. Tyler's pitiful pulse punctuates minutes of fear. It shudders in and out heavily. Josh fazes out everything else and focuses only on counting it. It's weak, slow, but there. All he can hear is Tyler's raspy breaths and not the sirens when they finally come.

It takes a paramedic gently pulling his arm aside for him to snap out of this state and regain control. She tells him he needs to let go for her to do her job. Josh only grips Tyler tighter until her words take affect and he releases him, allowing a man to lift him onto a strecher. The woman gives a small smile.

"We're going to help your friend as much as we can."

There is no certainty behind this statement, no promise that he will survive this. They will help. But help is bandages and medicine and doctors. It isn't a "he will be okay." It isn't a "don't worry." or a "this will never happen again." Josh doesn't need empty promises anyway. What Josh needs is proof that Tyler will not just live but keep living. He needs proof that he won't go out the day he's released and do the same thing again. How many times has he done it already? Today will not, can not, be his last day. But when, there is no if, when he wakes up in the hospital will he plot for tomorrow?

The front door is wide open to bugs and breeze and Josh, in shorts and a crimson stained shirt, stands in the doorframe. The paramedics work fast and are already shutting the back doors of the ambulance before Josh can run out after them. First, he slams the door behind himself, then sprints to reach them. He can't just stay here while they leave.

"Can I ride in the back with him?"

It's the first paramedic who nods and gestures for him to speed up. Once he's inside, they're off towards safety. It's not long to the emergency room. When the white antiseptic smelling vehicle is replaced by the overcrowded waiting room he's directed to, Josh should be relieved. He's not, even though he's glad Tyler has been taken to see a doctor. He's alone. He's alone and at least before he could feel Tyler's heartbeat at his fingertips. Now he can only trust that it's still rattling on, whether slow and uncertain or not. They're not together anymore, so now he's just one person in a hard chair, covered in blood that's not his own. And he's alone.

He was home alone already but the difference is stark. The waiting room is full of strangers and injuries. They pay him no attention and make no attempt to speak to him. They are each too busy suffering their own personal heartbreaks. He is only one story in a room of tens. If he could choose which story he would be a part of, he might have gone with the kid in the corner with the broken ankle or the college student who got in a fist fight. He would rather anything than to be the person on this side, the anxious mother or the stressed boyfriend. In his case, he is the teenager whose mental recordings continuously replay what he will never let be his friend's last words.

Love. He decides right then that he isn't ashamed of loving Tyler. They have to love each other, both of them, to protect each other. All it means is that he never meant to hurt Tyler like this. And it means Tyler never meant to do this to him either, so he forgives him for the pain. When he's given permission to see him, none of what has happened between them will matter. Love they share. They aren't in love, not yet Josh thinks and then hates himself, not ever he corrects and then hates himself more.

He flags down a nurse, explains his situation in part, and is told to go home for the night. He drags his feet the whole way but he obeys. At home, he throws his dirtied shirt in the laundry. If he wasn't certain Tyler would be alright, he would never wash it again, but he is. He's certain. He has to be. He finds the shirt Tyler had left on his bedroom floor and puts it on. It's soft cotton cornflower blue. He likes how it looks on Tyler and he likes it on himself too. He's happy his parents aren't there to question him.

He wants to go back, needs to be closer to where Tyler is, so he leaves a message for them saying he won't be home when they get back from their date. His siblings are home now, he can hear the TV on in the living room, but they're old enough to watch themselves. Before he goes he grabs Tyler's things off the lawn and puts them inside. It's raining again.

The waiting room gets smaller as he's shifted around the hospital by staff. Where he ends up is open twenty-four hours and lit by distracting, headache indusing lights. There are fewer stories to be told in this room. There are three other people, two asleep. One snores but no one bothers to wake him up. It's a refreshing break from the quiet. The quiet is what gets to him.

More because of it than anything else, he finds himself taking out his phone. "Patrick?"

"...Josh?" Patrick is groggy, as if he's just been woken up.

"Were you asleep? What time is it?"

"I don't know. Like three? What's up? If you were just looking to chat-"

"Tyler's in the hospital."

"What? Josh-"

Patrick's voice cuts out and is replaced by Pete's even more tired one. "Is he okay?"

"I don't know yet," Josh says, feeling small. "You guys are together?"

"Sleepover," Patrick clarifies. "Are you with him? Did you want us to come there?"

Josh is grateful. "If you don't mind. I just... I really need a friend right now."

"We'll be there soon," Pete puts in, immediately going with the flow. "You wants us to bring you some food or something?"

"Is Taco Bell still open?" Josh laughs bitterly.

"Maybe. Give us like thirty minutes, okay? We'll be right there."

"Thanks. I, uh, I love you guys. You're the best." Josh tries this out to see if it feels right. It does but not in the same way it does with Tyler.

Pete chuckles. "I love you too. But don't tell Patrick."

Patrick can be heard in the background. "I'm right here, you idiot. Give back my phone and put your pants on so we can leave."

When he hangs up, the melancholy still hangs in the air. Josh knows he's going to have to tell them eventually. They deserve to know the whole story, but he wants Tyler to be the one to tell it. It's his life. For now, Pete and Patrick can believe that he's been in some sort of accident. It's so soothing to hear their voices and to have them on their way that he can almost forget himself.

The moment he puts it down, Josh's phone rings. "Josh?"

"Hi dad." He fidgets and fiddles with a magazine on the table next to him.

"You sounded upset earlier," His father is straightforward but caring in tone. "Is something wrong?"

Josh may as well be honest. "Yeah. It's Tyler. He..."

An hour later, Josh is glad to have his friends and his parents at his side. Pete brings a bag of burgers because Taco Bell wasn't open after all and Josh learns that he's very very hungry. He hasn't eaten in hours. He hasn't even left the room in that time. Everone hugs him in greeting. His mom sits next to him and places a hand on his knee. They are all in solem mourning together, heads hung and energy low. It's like a funeral. But Tyler will live. He's so certain of this. Tyler will live. With the power of a prowling lion and the grace of his prey the elk, Tyler will rise from where he lays and be better again. Betterment takes time, so Josh will wait, but Tyler will live.

Pete drifts off around five AM and Patrick around six, falling onto his lap. Josh doesn't want to let his eyelids glue themselves shut. The other waiting room occupants are gone now and new ones have arrived with the morning sun. It's a new day and he'll be getting up soon. Josh doesn't want to be asleep when Tyler wakes up, so he tries to stay up. Unfortunately, his eyelids are stronger than he is and they win him over. They win him over to nightmares.

He's dreaming that he's back on his doorstep. He's dreaming that the whole world around him has turned red and that Tyler's blue shirt is the only contrast. And Tyler is there too. He's dying and then he's kissing him. The dream turns into giant crabs and banana guns far too soon and far too late all at once. It slides itself into the absurd and away from the forefront of Josh's consciousness, which is only thinking one thing. He'll see Tyler in a couple hours and, when he does, he will never separate from him again.

Chapter Text

"I thought you didn't want to see me."

It's been three days, tortuous ones, since Josh last saw Tyler. After leaving for school the morning after Tyler was admitted to the hospital, Josh hadn't expected he would be allowed to visit at all. The nurse who approached him had said he was only accepting visitation from family. It makes sense enough. Clearly Tyler doesn't want to be around Josh in his recovery. That's reasonable. Josh can't help but feel like he is responsible for what happened. Now finally granted access to the stuffy room he's been staying in, he wonders what changed Tyler's mind on the matter.

"My parents didn't want you to see me," Tyler corrects. "Of course I did. Josh-"

Josh sits down on a chair beside the bed. "So the hospital called them, huh?"

"Yeah."

"And they actually came?"

"Yeah."

"But, I mean, you've been here before and they never-"

"I guess this time is different." Tyler protests. "It made them realize they don't want to lose me. Josh, they asked me to move back in. I can go home."

Tyler has these hopeful eyes that kill Josh with their innocence. He doesn't trust the idea that people can change, particularly people who would throw their own child out on the street. He dislikes the concept of Tyler's parents. True, he has never met them, but their actions speak for them. Tyler making excuses for them provides no comfort at their character. As far as he's concerned, they are the worst people on Earth to manipulate Tyler the way they have. First, to hurt him like this, then to restore his faith in them only to, inevitably, knock it down again.

"Why didn't they want me to visit, though?" Josh demands. "What kind of parents wouldn't let you see your friends after...?"

Tyler looks away. "I saw Patrick and Pete yesterday. It's just you they don't like."

"Why me?"

Tyler smiles bitterly. "I said I wanted to see you when I first woke up. My parents guessed that maybe there was something going on between us. They, uh, they said I can go home but only if I stop... you know, if I stop liking boys. So I'm not supposed to see you because they're afraid that I like you."

Josh stares. "But what kind of parents would say that?"

"My parents did say it."

"Sorry, I didn't mean..." Josh takes Tyler's hand carefully in his own and brushes his thumb along the back of it.

Even this smallest of touches is so powerful compared to the absence of it over the past few days. The distance is replaced by the distinct normality of being together. The stark wrongness of the lack of connection is done away with only for a moment, as Tyler pulls away. Tyler would pull away. He will, when he moves into his old, blue walled bedrooom and stops talking to Josh altogether. So Tyler is alive and, ultimately, Josh is dead by means of separation. Right now Tyler is right here, breathing and burning and existing, and Josh has a possible twenty more minutes to live.

"They don't know you're here," Tyler admits. He hesitates, then takes Josh's hand back. "But I couldn't just leave without saying goodbye."

"Saying goodbye," Josh repeats breathily, bowing his head to press his forehead against the scratchy hospital blanket on the bed. "That's kind of dramatic, isn't it?"

"Not any more dramatic than loving each other." Tyler addresses the issue like it's nothing.

Josh's heart hurts but he fakes a smile. "I love you." He jokes painfully.

"I love you." Tyler responds in good humour.

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you."

"I love you."

"Stop it," Tyler is grinning wide now. "You're a dork."

"But you love me anyway." Josh teases.

"Enough that I have to say goodbye." Tyler concedes.

Josh swallows. "Do you have to say goodbye?"

"Yes. But not yet. Don't go yet."

Josh clasps Tyler's hand tighter in his own. He looks down at his wrist, which has been covered in thick bandages. Flashbacks of bloodshed hit him. He can remember the feeling of it sticking to him, the smell of it staying behind. It strikes him with anxiety and he stares at Tyler to ensure he's really there. Actually looking at him, it's visible how much weaker he is now than he has been. His complexion is peaky and white. Under bandages, the pink edges of new scars must stand deep contrast against this, like drops of strawberry syrup in milk. He lays back heavy on his pillow and Josh becomes aware of how tired he must be.

He did this to himself. Josh had found the razor blade out on the lawn. Though he has always known of these urges in Tyler, it is eerie when it is made obvious. Tyler had wanted one thing that night. He had wanted to die. He had worked with purpose to put himself here. But the thing that led him there, what was it? And the thing that had made him change his desicion, what was that? Josh has too many questions to even think or ask all at once. He did this to himself.

"Why?" Josh begs and there is no need for further explanation of this question.

Tyler huffs thoughtfully. "You blame yourself." He states.

Josh shrugs, makes the electric eye contact he needs. "I guess I do."

"Please don't," Tyler sighs. "Josh, it's never just one thing. It's not you and it's not any other reason that would even make sense to you. It's just how it is sometimes. Sure, one thing can influence it or trigger the start of a breakdown but it's more that it reminds me of everything else than that it's the only cause. I get reminded of everything all at once and that's what does it really. So it's not you. I-It's me who did this anyway. I put these scars here."

"But Scars heal." Josh says with new boldness, like he needs to assure Tyler that this isn't permanent.

Tyler rubs over an old, faded, white line on his arm with his free hand. "Only to a point."

"No," Josh argues in this confidence he didn't know he had. "There are different methods of healing."He lifts Tyler hand and presses a kiss to the back of it, against a scratch. "See, all better."

Tyler laughs nervously. "Thanks."

"No problem," At a permissive nod, Josh moves on to trail up Tyler's arm with his lips.

He rests at every scar, cut, scratch, and bruise, placing small kisses on top of them. Each makes a tiny sound. He moves up and on until he reaches the soft of Tyler's shoulder and nestles his nose into it. He smells like the cleanness of the hospital and of blood still but also of sunshine and sandalwood. If Josh could go further, taste what he tastes like, he would. Alternatively he tastes nothing in chaste presses but for a vague tinge of shock. Tyler makes a gentle hitched breath sound that startles them both.

Josh leans forward towards the bed and Tyler shifts to allow him acces to his other arm, which he moves down slower. He looks up amidst what he's doing to see Tyler's eyes flickering shut but his mouth turning to a smile and to giggles. Josh, hit now with the suddenness of this all and of the fear of the word goodbye being brought up again, ends with his lips to Tyler's collarbone. There is a bruise there already, purpled and wrong, and he touches it as carefully as he can, eliciting only more laughter from his friend.

"That tickles." Tyler informs him with a playful shove.

Josh, immaturely caught up in the euphoria of doing exactly what he wants, kisses him on the nose. "Good."

"Can you bring me my things tomorrow?" Tyler asks.

"Okay." Josh falls back into his chair again, accidentally scraping it along the floor far enough to hit the nearby wall. "Okay."

"Then I'll go move back in with my parents and..."

"That's goodbye, huh?"

"Not yet. Tomorrow."

Josh rubs at his forehead, where a headache is forming. "See you tomorrow then."

He departs abruptly, without waiting for a response. He goes home but he calls his friends and asks them to take Tyler's things to him. He won't go back. The idea of a real goodbye, a real ending, is so terrifying and disgusting that he can't even fathom it. He can't go back and have to deal with that. It's like the sudden confidence of the day has drained from him completely to be replaced by utter cowardice. He couldn't look at Tyler again for the thought of it being the last time. Endings are impossible and incorrect and have no place here, so close to the beginning. Josh wishes he wasn't so quick to give up, remembers his vow to stay with Tyler. He hates himself for it but knows that he has to give up. His lips still spark from the sensation of sitting against Tyler's skin. His head pounds but barely stings. As before, he has become so lost inside the stratosphere of Tyler that he neglects the rest of his world. Tyler's leaving, for real this time, and it hurts him so much he feels nothing at all.

Chapter Text

Some people say falling in love is like skydiving. Even when you have a parachute, there’s still a chance you might crash. Josh is done falling in love, maybe forever. He’s taken risk after risk for the thrill of it and now he’s lost the nerve. He’s too scared to see Tyler go, that’s the truth behind his actions. That’s the reason he stays home all of the next day, only opening the door to hand a few bags off to his friend Pete, who takes them to Tyler for him. Josh took a risk all that time ago, when the pretty stranger, whose ukulele string dancing hands and tortured soul song lyrics struck him, met his gaze. Was it worth it? By God, was it worth it?

He’s a coward. He has Pete go to the hospital instead of him. Pete says Tyler asks about him and Josh knows he’s being selfish. He wishes Tyler would forget he exists so he can start forgetting about him. Pete says Tyler was discharged and went home with his parents. Josh hates both them and himself adamantly.

Josh wants Tyler anywhere but there, back in the bedroom of his childhood, a childhood that was never quite right, but Tyler is far too forgiving. He goes back again to a family he shouldn’t. Josh can’t blame him for the drift growing between them. It’s his fault yet again. He was always the one to beg for more space. Tyler never seemed ashamed of showing affection before but, with his parent’s rule, it’s
unlikely he’d even be able to speak to Josh on the phone. Josh can’t blame him for his parents being who they are either. He only hates that Tyler listens to them.

He blames himself, and the part of him that wants desperately for them to be close, for the next day, when he walks up to a Barbie’s dream house style home, where a mailbox reads the last name “Joseph.” He sits on the front steps and doesn’t knock but Tyler sees him through the window anyway, and comes outside. It’s surprising that he doesn’t ignore him entirely. Josh almost wishes he would, that he wouldn’t have that goofy smile on his face like everything's okay and he just cares about him so much. He’s wearing that hoodie that used to belong to him.

They both just exist beside each other for a while.

“Have you eaten?” Josh asks, breaking the silence, because Tyler looks thinner than ever beneath the baggy sweater.

“Only hospital food. Yesterday.”

This is Tyler through and through. He’s eaten so little so often that it would make sense, but it only hits Josh now that there might be some worse underlying cause to it all. An eating disorder. Then again, it’s so hard to determine which of his symptoms are related to which aspect of him, whether depression has given him the bloodshot eyes or whether another type of sickness has. He’s frail and fleeting of a person, like always, only now there is so much less of a chance for him to come back from where he’s going.

Josh does what he always does and offers to get him a taco. “Listen, I know you’re way too proud and whatever,” He says “but-”

Tyler flashes his wallet and a smile rather than his usual arguments. “Josh,
let me buy you lunch for once, alright?”

Josh quirks an eyebrow. “You got a job?”

“I applied at Guitar Center yesterday. Apparently they really need the help.”

“Hey! There you go!” In his excitement, Josh forgets that he’s supposed to be sad and hugs his friend. “So we’re coworkers now, huh?”

“Coworkers, friends, future bandmates…”

Josh grins. “Right. The band.”

They hug and their bodies fit together like- No, their bodies are- No, they hug and- Wait. Without warning, it’s different. It’s “kiss me now” different, “hold me here” different, it’s “screw Tyler’s parents and reality and depression and everything else that’s holding us back” different. It’s, okay, it’s “maybe we don’t have to make such a big deal out of this” different.

Josh still doesn’t kiss him.

They go to Taco Bell and their feet tangle beneath the table and Tyler says. “It feels like I actually did die, you know? Like, nothing matters because I’m already dead. It’s actually kind of freeing.”

Josh asks. “What is? Giving up on life?”

“No. Giving up on following the rules.”

“You’ve never followed the rules for as long as I’ve know you.”

Tyler orders a cup of soda to share between them and they take turns sipping from it. It’s a tad juvenile of them, but it feels like something just to be able to have that Contact between them. Josh mulls over Tyler’s words and what they mean in his mind.

“So, you just do whatever you want now? No more rules ever?”

Tyler leans in. He rubs absently at the bandages that remain around his wrist. He doesn’t look tired anymore, even though he probably still is. He’s still a wreck. He’s still so sick. He’s barely eating. He’s pale and paler. Less than a week ago, he took a razor blade from his bag.

Later, Josh found it and threw it out.

But today and forever, he’s still sick. There’s no undoing the damage.

By now, Josh is done with everything feeling like a lesson. There doesn’t need to be a moral here. He’s done waiting. There is no cure. There is no cure but they must carry on without it. They must always continue to live. He’s done learning that. He gets it. He’ll live. So, give him life. He’ll take loose ends and he’ll run with them. Just give him life.

“What changed?” He asks. “You were so happy to go home with your parents the other day.”

“Basketball.” Is the unexpected answer. “Yeah. Remember, I told you about how I was supposed to win a scholarship a year ago? I’m not that person anymore but my parents haven’t exactly caught on. I have seen them in ages, they just assumed that I was still doing that, I guess. I tried to play a game with my brother but… I don’t get it anymore. He won.”

“Tyler-”

“It’s just not me anymore. You know what is me? Music. I get music,” He touches Josh’s shoulder. “They don’t get that. But I realize that I need to pay attention to the things that matter to me. ”

They both try to throw away the confusing heavy doubt in their chests. They are both so exhausted from all the crying and hurting and hoping that they are like ghosts in their own bodies. Somehow it still feels like a victory to be around. In another moment it may not. More than likely, they will find times where falling down is easier than standing but, for now, they’re in a Taco Bell booth together once more, just talking to one another.

“Josh,” Tyler starts again casually. “Will you just kiss me already? Please?”

Josh comes out with “You-I-I love you.” Then, “I really do and it’s honestly a shame that that can’t mean anything more than what it does. But it can’t because everything is too complicated. I mean, I do love you and I must have said it way too many times by now but it just feels so true that I can’t stop saying it anymore. And everything hurts right now. Just existing like this, just being here with you or anywhere away from you… well, I know I tend to spew a lot of crap that just makes me out to be some angsty lovestruck teen but the truth is, I really, really do want to kiss you right now.”

“Then kiss me.” Tyler says, like it’s that simple.

Josh doesn’t. “No.”

“Kiss me. Come on, who cares?”

“No, Tyler.”

“Okay. Hey, I wrote a song about you. Do you want to hear it?”

“Not right now.”

“Kiss me. Kiss me, Josh.”

“No. But I really want to. I really want to.” He doesn’t kiss him yet.

“So, about the band… do Pete and Patrick still need an opener for tonight?”

They go to the show. It’s worth it.

Chapter Text

They get on the bus and ride together in the silent solemnity of evening. Tyler’s just barely late for his brand new curfew but Josh has an hour left on his and nothing to do with the leftover time. The show’s over, they’ve played music together in an indescribable harmony of sound, and now it’s time for them to part ways once more. There is nothing else, no expectations.

Josh notes, as he traces a bored heart in the condensation on the window behind him, how non threatening it feels. His earlier statement, his bold declaration of adoration for Tyler, should hang in the air between them. It should make their combined existence hard to manage but it doesn’t. Now is easy.

Tyler’s ukulele is laying across the empty seat between them. He places his hand beside it.

“I want to help people get better.” He declares.

He continues to stare off at the cosmos outside, the further darkening of the sky into night, but his mind is elsewhere. He’s absent from Columbus, Ohio and off in the atmosphere above, floating on the formation of a daydream only just beginning to realize itself.

He continues in a suggestion, bold and hopeful. “We could help people through music.”

They both get on their knees, turning fully to face their respective windows. Josh’s heart gets bigger. He draws an arrow through it. Tyler swipes a large area in front of himself clean to view through and leans his forehead against the cool glass. Josh pivots to look at him, leaning sideways on the back of his seat. He reaches across to brush one rogue hair away from Tyler’s eyes, which close into the contact, contented.

“Hair’s getting a little long.” He notes.

Tyler shrugs, moves, swinging his ukulele from the seat into his arms and letting himself fall backward to rest against Josh’s shoulder. “We could write a song about- ” He yawns, interrupting his own train of thought.

“We will, I’m sure.” Josh says fondly. We will, he thinks.

“I wrote one about you,” Tyler reminds him, plucking a few strings lazily. “You’d like it. It’s pretty, Josh.”

“Of course it is.” Josh answers without a hint of patronization. “Will you sing it?”

“Tomorrow.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Tyler rolls his eyes like this is obvious. “We work together now.”

“Right,” Josh remembers “Good.”

Tyler hums a soft agreement and starts to strum a gentle tune. It’s “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” by Elvis Presley, only it’s played even softer and quieter than usual, so not to disrupt the rest of the bus. It’s instrumental, wordless, but recognizable to Josh. He hasn’t heard Tyler play this song before but he’s heard it many times still. It’s a beautiful one, always, but now even more so, almost ethereal against the bleak background of traffic and tiredness.

It’s been a long time since they’ve been close in this way but it’s even longer in their memories. Distance, larger than physically, has been emotionally expansive over the past while. So, of course, they cling to the intimacy they have now. Admittedly, what their position becomes is something of a disorganized hug, Josh’s arm sweeping over Tyler’s shoulders lightly and Tyler’s head reclined against Josh, but it’s not at all uncomfortable.

That is, until a fellow bus passenger, a middle aged woman with wrinkles more than she should have at forty something, none of them laugh lines, hisses in their direction a jeering protestation of “Shameful.”

That’s all. There’s no further explanation, no lecture, just one simple word of disgust. Whether it’s their public displays of affection themselves that draws this ridicule out of her or who they are happening between remains unseen. Maybe she just isn’t a fan of Elvis. Josh has no way of knowing. Shameful. That’s all she says.

Josh groans, because he’s tired and because he’s sick of the things that make him feel tired, not the least of which is people who seek to hurt others with their words. Before, it may have been hard but now it’s easy to disregard her scorn. No pain stings him, only vague annoyance, which seeps swiftly back into bliss.

Tyler’s music dies down, and Josh looks to find him asleep in his lap, soothed into rest by his own lullaby. He laughs at the idea and “Shameful” glares at him from across the row. Josh beams back at her. He hopes she has someone waiting for her at home who she admires as much as he admires Tyler.

Tyler is an angel, he decides. No human has ever been anywhere close to this beautiful. Hell, he’s not beautiful. He’s beauty itself. Rather than fit the definition of a concept, he himself conceptualizes it. And, okay, that’s sentimental garbage, but, in Tyler’s case, what can Josh do to stop himself from believing it? It pops into his head whether he accepts it’s presence or not, so he might as well enjoy thinking it. Choosing to accept the cliches seems fine, so long as he doesn’t say them out loud.

He finds that spending time on this can even be good for him, possibly even healing in a way. However, it can also lead to problems. Namely, he should have been paying attention to his stop. They get off three blocks too far, Tyler groggy and still clinging to Josh’s arm. He loosens his hold but doesn’t let go until they reach his house, where he replaces his own hand with the ukulele.

“Take care of it for me.”

Josh carefully grips the neck of the instrument. “Why?”

“Goodnight, Josh.” Tyler says, and he goes inside.

Inside Guitar Centre the next afternoon, he leans across the counter with gusto. “Jish!” He greets “I came up with a name for the band.” He’s holding a book in his left hand.

“Cool,” Josh leans into the employee area and drops his bag and coat behind the doorway. “Did you hear what P and P are calling themselves?”

“Something like Trip Down Man, wasn’t it?” He jokes.

“Stumble Over Dude.”

“Climb In Kid.”

“No,” Josh grins. “Definitely not that one.” Nearby Debby and Mark stack boxes of guitar picks on a stand. “Hey, Debby. Mark.”

“Josh, my man.”

“Hi Josh.” Debby doesn’t look up from stocking.

She’s more ragged than usual, tireder. She has prominent purple bags under her eyes and bruises visible on her collar bone. Josh realizes suddenly that he has to be extra kind to her today. “Hey…”

“Bad breakup.” She replies, by way of explanation, gaze still fixed. “I’m okay, though.”

“Okay.”

“Josh?”

“Yeah?”

“I am okay. I promise. Don’t worry about me, please.”

So he doesn’t. He diverts his attention back onto Tyler. They spend the day in a dance of fleeting glances and prolonged touching. Josh is half happy and half sickened by it. Something further has to happen now, doesn’t it? A little bit dazed by everything, he’s still almost certain as to what comes next and, while he’s spent so long leading up to it, he’s almost afraid of it. They talked the night before of kissing each other, Tyler had practically begged him to engage him in the action, but actually moving forward is not so simple.

A considerable part of him is petrified of losing Tyler. To hold him and still see him fall. To have him as close as possible, and for him to break away again. It’s not irrational to fear this, seeing who they are. So, while he is well aware that he could never heal him, to behold the depth of that truth would hurt.

And lips, slightly pink and parted halfway, could never be worth the loss of friendship so deep and true as theirs has become. Friendship that is surely love at this point and which is undeniably romantic but which may not ever succeed as an honest romance. There’s difference, isn’t there, in those relationships? But he loves Pete and Patrick as friends too and that’s not an excuse. Cheek kisses must have happened somewhere within a decade of constant companionship but he’s never wanted to kiss them on the lips.

By the time he reaches his break, he wishes he was home instead. Outside, it’s raining, but he stands under the canopy of the Starbucks next door. Debby is there too, hunched over at one of the umbrella covered tables, head in her hands.

“Josh,” She says, when he sits. “He wasn’t a good guy.”

“I know.” Josh says, even though he doesn’t, not fully. “Did you love him?”

She did.

They take their fifteen minutes of calm in each other’s presence, through polite conversation. Somehow, however, their tones convey mourning. Imminent loss is on the horizon. Which is almost funny, when Josh thinks about how much nice he felt before he went to work that morning.

At the end of fifteen minutes, they come to laugh at a shared joke. Debby leans forward on her elbows, and Josh tucks an erratic hair behind her ear and kisses her on the forehead. And Tyler comes outside, cups the side of Josh’s face, and kisses him on the lips.