Chapter Text
It started with gentle touches. And they didn't pay much attention to this casual affection.
They were friends. Broke bandmates that shared everything.
It started with a stupid joke, then a shove, and then they were tangled on the old rug in Tyler's basement, limbs locking in a playful scramble. Tyler was laughing, gasping for air, trying to pin Josh’s wrists to the floor, but Josh, with his bright grin, lunged up, overpowering him in one swift movement.
Then, the laughter died.
The shift in the air was instant - one moment they couldn't care less about the proximity and then their faces were so close to each other that Tyler could feel the frantic heat radiating off Josh’s skin.
It was Josh who leaned in first, or maybe it was Tyler. In the end, it didn't matter.
They were close as friends, but got so much closer as a couple. It was an unspoken truth that everyone who knew their band at the time could clearly see that what Tyler and Josh had transcended any friendship.
They cuddled in the back of the van, practiced unnecessary long hours just to be in each other company, and messed around with something they deeply adored - music. They messed around with each other, too - sharing kisses, when it seemed like nobody looked, making loving remarks about each other like it was the most obvious thing.
I want to be famous for loving you.
Their relationship didn't last, though.
And for quite a while, Tyler thought he wouldn't get over Josh, just like Josh wouldn't be able to do it either.
Eventually, the world kept turning.
Tyler met Jenna, and she was a soft place to land - a bright distraction from the storm that was thrashing him from the right mind, keeping the direction of his path steady. She offered him a different kind of love, one that didn't feel like it was going to consume him whole.
And Josh, in his own way, had to move on as well.
Tyler was left to pick up the pieces of what he had started.
Making his way back to the old house, he turned over this thought in his head. Nick and Chris were long done, and he wondered what they were up to now.
Probably sleeping the exhaustion away. Both of them had jobs to return to in the morning.
Twenty one year old Tyler had a job too.
He felt a dread rising up his spine just at the thought of going back to that local restaurant and getting on with his night shifts.
Columbus hadn't changed much through the years. It was a slowtown, where every exciting thing came with the buzz around it, with seemingly all of the people that he knew, talking about it. The humidity of the Ohio night clung to him, thick and oppressive, as he walked past the scenery.
There was the Taco Bell where they’d spent their nights, arguing over setlists until the sun came up; there was the alleyway where they’d once had been hiding from rain that snuck up on the sunny day. Just stuck there, sitting on top of the stacked wooden pallets, laughing because they had nothing to lose.
Now, he had everything to lose, and the weight of it was crushing.
By the time he reached the house he shared with Zach and Mark, he couldn't feel his legs.
He stood on the porch for a long moment, staring at the chipped white paint of the door frame. Could he even call this home? Home was with Jenna (a girl who didn't even know he existed yet). Home was the sound of his kids running down a hallway, their voices intermingling with the loud spinning of the thoughts in his brain.
He slipped inside, the familiar scent of old carpet and cheap laundry detergent hitting him square in his senses. The house was quiet, save for the hum of a refrigerator in the corner of the adjacent kitchen, that sounded like it was on its last legs.
He didn't want to see anyone. He was so thankful for this silence. There was no way in hell he would be able to articulate the reason why his face probably looked as grim as if he had attended his own funeral.
Tyler crept up the stairs, his heart hammering against his ribs when he finally reached his bedroom. The thought, he won't see this ever room again.
Tyler collapsed onto the bed, the springs groaning under his weight. This unholy sound made even more unholy memories to resurface in his head. He stared at the ceiling, where a glow-in-the-dark stars were staring back at him. Mocking him.
He felt pathetic.
Josh was everywhere.
Closing his eyes didn't help. If anything, it only made the flashes more vivid.
Josh sitting at the edge of this very bed, tapping out rhythms on his knees.
Josh peeking over Tyler’s shoulder to look at the scribbles in his notebook as if this product of his mind was the most fascinating thing he had ever laid his eyes upon.
Josh, leaning over his shoulder, his curls brushing against Tyler’s cheek.
The space was soaked in him. Every square inch of the room felt occupied by a version of Josh that Tyler had spent years trying to exorcise from his mind, sweep under the rug, lock away from the light, and throw away the key.
"This is stupid," Tyler hissed into the dark. "You’re thirty five, Tyler. Get it together."
But he wasn't thirty five. Not in this body.
He reached into the pocket of the jeans he’d found in the gear bag, discarded somewhere on the floor. His fingers brushed against something cold and plastic.
The flip phone.
He pulled it out, staring at the tiny, pixelated screen. It felt like a toy in his hand - too light and way too small.
He realized he still remembered Josh's old phone number. It had changed throughout the years several times, but the first one, the one he awkwardly had typed in his phone with his own hands, digits dictated by Josh, felt as if burned into his memory.
Tyler hated that it brought him some sense of relief. With the way their conversation ended, he knew he couldn't leave it hanging like that.
They were professionals at avoiding things that truly mattered, but this time everything will be different.
"You should talk to him." Said Jenna back then.
Back then, when Josh had gone no contact with him for a month. And while he was ready to keep away from touching the matter with the ten foot pole, she insisted that he called him.
His thumbs hovered over the keypad. The T9 texting felt like relearning a dead language. It's really ridiculous what they, as humanity, could achieve in a decade, technology wise.
He had to press the "4" key three times just to get an "I". It was a tedious but strangely nostalgic. He couldn't believe that he kind of missed this tactile struggle.
Tyler: im sorry
He stared at the sent message. The screen went dark. He stared at his flip phone. Why did it do that?
He closed and opened it again. It worked again.
Whatever. He typed more.
Tyler: can we talk?
The silence of the room was deafening. He tossed the phone onto the pillow next to his head and waited, listening to the house creak. He imagined Josh in his own room, staring at a similar plastic brick, fumbling with the same ghosts.
A few minutes passed. His obsessive thoughts spiraled - long enough for Tyler to actually start considering throwing the phone out the window - before the device buzzed with a jarring vibration.
Josh: fine.
The tiny text bubble felt cold, but it was followed almost immediately by another.
Josh: call?
Tyler’s breath hitched.
Tyler: yes
He didn't wait for Josh to ring. He hit the dial and pressed the plastic casing against his ear, closing his eyes as the line began to ring.
When the connection finally clicked through, Josh’s voice was small, exhaustion seeping through the sound of the low frequencies.
"What?"
The bluntness of it caught Tyler off guard. He had spent the last ten minutes sulking, rehearsing everything his brain formed into thoughts, everything unsaid that wanted out, but with the phone pressed to his ear, he was lost for words.
"What?" Tyler lamely mirrored.
A sharp exhale hissed on the other end.
"I'm hanging up," Josh said, his voice flat and devoid of the usual warmth.
"No! Wait—I’m sorry," Tyler blurted out, the words tumbling over each other in his haste to keep the connection alive. He couldn't be alone in this house. Not tonight.
Josh didn't hang up, but he didn't speak either. Heavy silence stretched between them.
"Do you even know what you’re apologizing for?" Josh finally asked, his tone resigned, as if he had already played out every possible argument in his head.
Tyler swallowed hard, his thumb tracing the hinge of the flip phone.
"I’m sorry I lashed out. I’m sorry I brought that topic up. The... the dating stuff. I shouldn't have gone there."
Josh just sighed, the sound crackling in his ear.
"I’m not mad about that. In fact... I’m sorry too. I shouldn't have walked away like that. It was immature of me."
And who knew more about immaturity than they did?
"I… kind of freaked out too. We haven't spoken about us dating since... you know what."
Tyler closed his eyes, trying to exorcise that from his mind. He knew exactly what Josh was talking about.
Their final attempt to piece things back together. The final straw that left Tyler breathless, crying on the floor, with thoughts of ending it all.
He focused his eyes on the windowsill in front of his bed.
"Truce?" Tyler asked, a flicker of hope blooming in his chest.
"Depends," Josh said, and Tyler could almost hear the small, lopsided smirk forming on his face. "Am I in the band?"
At Josh's words, a smile bloomed across Tyler’s lips. The tension in his shoulders coiled and then released, just a little.
"Depends," Tyler teased back. "How do I even go about kicking my other friends out of our band? I’m pretty sure Nick still has his bass in my car."
"Hmm," Josh hummed thoughtfully. "I have actually no idea."
"We need a solid excuse," Tyler said, his mind already racing. He pictured the awkward conversation tomorrow morning - bringing Josh into this living room, standing in front of Nick and Chris, and trying to explain why this guy he "just met" at a festival was suddenly his one and only creative partner. It was just ridiculous.
They should just practice in secret. Sneaking Josh into his basement when nobody is around to tell on him.
"Or we just wait," Josh suggested, his voice soft. "It happened naturally the previous time, right? Chris and Nick have their own lives. Who’s to say it doesn't happen again?"
Tyler went quiet. He looked up and stared at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling, their faint green light casting ghostly colored shadows. He thought about the what-ifs.
What if the butterfly effect was real? They had already witnessed time travel after all. What if he spends the next forty years playing the same five bars in Columbus, chasing a ghost of a life that no longer existed? What if he just gets stuck here, in this house, scrambling for the taste of fame that he had in his previous life?
"What are you thinking about, Ty?"
The endearment ripped Tyler’s thoughts right out of that dark place. It was the way Josh said his name, with a familiarity that made his chest feel all tight and warm.
What the hell was he even thinking about?
Tyler closed his eyes, his voice dropping to a whisper. He chose his words with the kind of precision he usually reserved for his lyrics.
"I want to do it all over again. I really do. But I’m so scared, Josh. I’m scared I’ll mess it up."
There was a pause, and then Josh’s voice came through, steady and sure.
"You won't."
"Why are you so sure?"
"Because you did it for the love of music from the start. All of it was a passion project. It still is."
Tyler let out a shaky breath because Josh was always right.
This music was all he had.
"You make it sound so simple," Tyler finally whispered.
"It is. Maybe the view is different this time," Josh replied. There was a shuffling sound on the other end, like he was settling into bed. "Maybe we're a bit too old for all of this really, but..." He paused, clearly lost in his own thoughts. "We're better than ever at this."
"That feels like cheating," Tyler muttered, though a small, competitive spark flickered in his gut. "Where do we even start? Writing Trench in a basement in 2012? I'd be a literal prophet."
Josh laughed at that.
"Imagine trying to explain the lore to Nick and Chris. They'd be ecstatic."
"They’d think I'm suicidal again and have me committed by noon."
The laughter faded into a weighted silence.
It was the kind of silence they usually shared on long bus rides across Europe, staring out at the blurred lights of the highway. But here, in the dark of his old bedroom, it felt more intimate. It felt dangerous.
"Josh?"
"Yeah?"
Tyler sprawled in his bed, thinking back to all of those countless times, when Josh was sprawled in this very bed beside him.
"It's nothin'."
"Oh." Was it just Tyler, or did Josh sound disappointed?
"I'm glad I'm not stuck here alone," confessed Tyler. "I'm serious. I don't know what I would do without you."
And only then did he realize how it could come across. He blamed his teenage brain for all the stupid things that came out of his mouth so far.
"I'm glad I have you, too." Josh's voice was soft.
The type of softness that had him forgetting about the implications of the meaning behind them.
"I should get some sleep," Josh said. "I think I have to work at Guitar Center in the morning."
"That sucks."
"Yeah. Sleep. I’ll... I’ll see you soon."
"Good night, Josh."
The line went dead. Tyler slowly lowered the flip phone and closed it with a sharp clack.
And with the silence came the realization.
This is where the grueling work began.
"I'm serious, Tyler, what's wrong with you lately?"
"It's nothing," Tyler responded, his fingers idly fiddling with the keys of his electric piano.
"No, it's definitely something. You seem so… distant lately," Nick said, setting his bass guitar aside on the floor of the basement with a dull thud. He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead, looking at Tyler with a strange expression of the earnest concern that made Tyler’s stomach do a slow, guilty somersault.
"I might be coming down with something," Tyler answered lamely.
It wasn't entirely a lie; his head felt like it was packed with cotton wool, and his heart kept skipping beats every time he remembered he didn't have a smartphone to check the time.
Chris narrowed his eyes suspiciously, leaning back on his stool. He twirled a stick between his fingers, the rhythmic clack-clack-clack grating on Tyler’s raw nerves. Chris didn't say anything, but the silence was loud with the things he was noticing.
Tyler felt like an impostor in his own skin.
They continued with their practice. Tyler struggled, slipping up on a few lyrics. He definitely needed to learn them a bit more now that he was back to his roots.
And after the practice, came the time for his old job.
That night at the restaurant was a special kind of hell.
Tyler moved through his shift, stumbling in his step on every corner. He brought extra napkins to tables that didn't ask, forgot the dipping sauce for the third time in an hour, and stared blankly at the POS system as if it were written in ancient Greek.
"Tyler! Table four needs their check!" he heard the manager shouting through the window in the wall.
"Right. Sorry," Tyler muttered.
By the time he trudged back home at five a.m., the sky was a vibrant splatter of purple-grey.
He felt like dying as he trudged to his bedroom.
He collapsed onto his bed without even taking off his shoes, a stale smell of the frying oil clinging to his clothes and hair like a nasty second skin. He needed to shower, but he couldn't move a muscle.
And to think he was used to doing this every day.
It was easy for the exhaustion to take him away to a heavy, dreamless sleep when the jarring ringtone cut through the silence and pierced right through the haze.
He fumbled for it, flipping it open with a shaky hand.
"Hello?"
"Hi. Sorry, did I wake you up?"
It was Josh.
Tyler cleared his throat, looking back at the tiny screen to see the time.
He slept until midday.
"Do you want to meet up for a band meeting?" finally asked Josh.
Tyler had never said "yes" faster to anything in his life.
Before he knew it, he was sneaking out of the house like a teenager who's up to no good, to go out and meet up with Josh. Tyler didn't bother checking if anyone was awake. He swiftly slipped out of the door and climbed into the van, cranking up the engine. It sputtered to life with a groan that rattled everything inside.
The drive to the Guitar Center was a blur of hazy Ohio suburbs. When he finally pulled into the lot, his depth perception, still tuned to a more modern vehicle with a rearview camera, betrayed him. The front bumper met the curb with a nasty thud that vibrated through the steering column. Tyler didn't even flinch. He just cut the engine, shoved the keys into his pocket, and hopped out.
The bell above the door gave a lonely chime as he stepped into the air-conditioned dimness. He followed the sound of a distant tapping - a syncopated rhythm of someone chasing their boredom away by drumming with their fingers on the hard surface.
The sound that could only belong to one person.
Josh was perched on a stool behind a counter, leaning over his flip phone and staring at it blankly. He looked up as Tyler approached, his face lighting up with a relief so sharp it was almost painful to see.
Josh met him halfway in the middle of the floor, surrounded by rows of gleaming Stratocasters.
"Hey," Tyler said, his voice echoing slightly in the high-ceilinged room.
"Hey," Josh replied, his eyes searching Tyler’s face. He tilted his head, a playful glint returning to his gaze. "What can I help you with today?"
Tyler leaned against a display case, a small, genuine smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"I dunno. I'm looking for a drummer, but I can't seem to find him."
Josh’s grin widened.
"I might know a guy. He’s a bit of a diva, though."
"I think I can handle a diva," Tyler muttered.
They drifted toward the back of the store, wandering into the pro-audio section. Tyler ran a hand over a row of wired microphones - heavy, silver, outdated things that were considered top-of-the-line for two thousand and eleven. They chatted aimlessly, walking across the space, as if nothing was wrong.
Tyler’s eyes snagged on a small, wooden instrument hanging on a pegboard nearby. A ukulele. It looked cheap, almost like a toy, but something about its inconspicuousness on the wall made him stop in his tracks.
"Can I have this one?" he asked, gesturing toward it.
Josh’s eyes seemed to sparkle at the sight.
"Sure."
Tyler carefully lifted it off the display and gave it an experimental strum. The tuning was off, so he had to adjust a few strings.
Without a word, Josh guided him toward the drum department. He stepped behind a standard kit, adjusting the snares with a quick, practiced flick of his wrist and pulling a fresh pair of the display behind.
"What's your favorite song right now, Joshua?" Tyler asked, a challenge dancing in his eyes.
Josh leaned back, clicking his sticks together twice.
"Tough question. I liked the one they played in the car that time in Mexico."
Tyler looked unimpressed.
"Choose something else."
Josh tapped a quick roll on the floor tom.
"Fine. Master of Puppets by Metallica."
Tyler looked down at the four-stringed wooden instrument in his hands, then back at Josh’s expectant face.
"I might need to change this to a bass," he deadpanned.
They both cracked up, the sound of their shared laughter bouncing off the acoustic foam on the walls. Tyler swapped the ukulele for a heavy precision bass, hooked it up to a floor pedal, and suddenly the room wasn't a Guitar Center anymore.
They tore through the opening riff of Master of Puppets, Tyler’s fingers picking over the thick strings with muscle memory. They played more Metallica songs, then veered sharply into an Underoath track, the drums becoming a thundering wall of sound that vibrated in Tyler’s chest.
It turned into a competition - Tyler throwing out a ridiculous, distorted riff and Josh answering with a fill so complex it shouldn't have been possible on a floor model kit.
The spell was broken by the front door chime and the heavy tread of work boots.
"Wow, guys, you sound so cool together," a man in a flannel shirt said, standing by the drum riser with an impressed look on his face.
Josh practically jumped out of his skin. He dropped a stick, and it rolled all the way to the man's feet in front of them. It was enough to remind both of them that Josh actually worked here.
"Oh! Uh, thanks. Sorry. Did you... did you need help with something?"
The man started listing off a series of cables and drum heads he needed. Tyler watched as Josh disappeared around the displays, his shoulders hunched in that familiar, polite way, leaving Tyler alone with the guitar in his hands.
In the end, they had to say goodbye to each other.
Josh gestured to his phone over the distance of the room.
Call me, he mouthed.
That night, as Tyler drove the van back to the house, he hummed a melody under his breath. He realized he wasn't dreading the work ahead anymore. He was ready for it.
This light, uplifted feeling didn't last, though.
When he stepped over the threshold of the house, he saw Nick and Chris sitting at the table in the kitchen, illuminated by the harsh, flickering overhead light. Their lighthearted chat seemingly died down as they spotted Tyler.
Silence dawned on them, heavy and accusatory.
"I'm… I'm going to my room," Tyler muttered, his eyes fixed on the base of the stairs.
Chris frowned, leaning his elbow on the table.
"Tyler? Seriously, what's up, man?" Chris said, his voice laced with a frustration that had been brewing for days.
"We saved you some Taco Bell!" Nick added, gesturing to a crumpled paper bag. "It’s still kind of warm."
"Not in the mood, sorry," Tyler said back, already halfway up the first flight.
"It's about Josh, right?" Chris asked. The name hit the conversation like a thunderstorm. "You went to see him today. Mark said he saw the van at the mall."
Tyler stopped dead at the staircase.
He knew this friendship was fraying, and he could do zero things about it. He found himself thinking about it during their practices, focused on getting the un-updated lyrics right - the more he spent time with Chris and Nick, the longer the silence stretched between them. He just couldn't find a thing to talk about with them anymore.
They might as well be strangers at this point. And it scared him shitless, so he ran away from confrontation.
Nothing was the same. But as long as they didn't acknowledge it, it won't bite him. He could just pretend that it wasn't real. This approach worked with Josh for all of those years, after all. He dealt with things by not dealing with them.
"Yeah," Tyler said, turning to face Chris, his grip tightening on the banister. "I was with Josh. What about it?"
Nick looked surprised, his brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
"Since when are you guys hanging out? I thought you just met the guy."
"I'm sorry I didn't tell you," Tyler treaded carefully around the topic.
"Are you… Are you gay?" asked Chris.
The question felt like the last nail in the coffin.
Silence stretched thin.
Tyler had no idea what to say to that.
He had spent way too much time hiding his relationship with Josh, then its aftermath, then pretending that nothing ever happened, to actually have a clue how his high school friends would react to anything he was about to say.
Tyler laughed dryly, his smile feeling like plastic on his face, brittle and fake.
"Why do you ask, man?"
Nick laughed with him, awkwardly, the pressure building between the three of them. He shifted in his seat, looking anywhere but at Tyler.
"You act so different and I can't put my finger on it," Chris continued, his gaze unwavering. "Ever since our last festival, you have been acting like… this. Like you're somewhere else. Are you dating Josh?"
"I'm not," Tyler answered instantly, the reflex cultivated by the years of denial kicking in. "Why would you think that? We’ve known each other for like two days."
"Ugh, I didn't mean it as an insult. It's just strange, is what I'm saying!" Chris threw his hands into the air. "You've never been so interested in anyone."
Tyler stood frozen at the staircase, staring at the scratched-up paint on the wall.
"Josh is different," he heard himself say. "I feel like I haven't met anyone quite like him before. He just gets me, you know?"
It was ironic how he believed in each word escaping past his lips.
"It's like I've known him for my whole life."
He couldn't sleep that night, tossing and turning in his bed.
His thoughts crawled in his mind, like parasites, infesting his thinking. There was a slight pang in the back of his head, a feeling he grew to know best - the beginnings of a migraine.
It felt like drowning.
It felt like he had no control over his own body.
While Chris and Nick were gone, both of them leaving for their respective jobs, Tyler stood in the basement, in his old studio, looking at his piano.
There was something so nostalgic, as he pressed the keys in rapid succession, in the way he could feel music underneath his fingertips.
Tyler flipped open his journal, where he kept all of his lyrics - this same book was doubled in size in the future - he constantly crossed out the old stuff and glued on the additional pages because his stupid brain couldn't rationalize the space that he needed correctly. He never got to the digitalizing it too.
He stared at one of the entries a little longer than at the other.
It just hit me as I lay my head down
No one around in the dark cold night, I hear a sound
In my head repeat track of everything you've ever said
Must be something, but it's nothing, so I just go back to bed
He picked up the pen, flipped to a blank new page, and began to write.
That night, he called Josh again.
He was getting ready with his thoughts to push on through the night of hell working in a restaurant, and found himself thinking about Josh, wondering how his shift went.
Josh chatted on the phone speaker, pressed against his ear, as he buttoned up his polo shirt.
"Chris actually asked me if we were dating," he blurted, picking up his bag.
"Oh."
"Yeah. I freaked out."
"What did you say?"
"What would you want me to say?"
Josh was silent for a moment. And then, his distorted voice came through again.
"The truth."
"Well," said Tyler. "I did tell him the truth."
"Good."
"…"
He knew better than to bring this topic again.
Tyler was already too deep in this mess.
"Do you regret dating me?" finally asked Josh. It was like he took the hammer and slammed it down on his head.
Tyler thought about his answer, but he already knew the truth.
"I did. I don't think I do anymore."
Josh was the only constant in his life, orbiting him, no matter the distance they put in between each other.
The more he thought about what all of this situation with time travel meant for him, the more he realized that there was no point in holding on to the past.
He spent hours lying in this bed, sleepless, spiraling ideas making their way into his old ways.
He had it all in front of him.
This time, he thought that he was ready to let it go. Everything, really - the history they built, the legacy that their band once was, the ghosts of the unattainable future that once was paved at his feet.
Even when it seemed like everything was crumbling to the ground. So what if he wasn't in control? He never really was in control in the first place.
He was ready to make it better.
And do it all over again.