Chapter Text
Tyler was okay.
He was so okay, in fact, that it started making him not okay.
Because it never really lasted, right?
He did something he could be proud of, he fucked something else up. He had some luck, only to be met with the most dogshit of coincidences a few days later. He made friends, and they stopped talking to him in around half a year.
Honestly, it was a miracle that Mark had stuck around as long as he had. Sometimes, Tyler still waited with bated breath on the day Mark would sit him down and say “hey, sorry, I can't really deal with you anymore”. He tried to accept the fact that Mark would stay, he had been with him even when the rest of their friends had strayed away from him, and through the mental low that came with that. He’d stayed when Tyler lashed out, pushed and kicked in an effort to make the inevitable abandonment hurt less. He couldn’t be kicked to the curb if he did it first, after all.
Now, he was trying to build some sense of security in his friendship with Mark, because if he hadn’t left even during all of that, then was there anything that could make him leave? But he was scared that if he accepted that Mark would stay by his side, lost his vigilance, it would come to bite him in the ass.
And Josh.
Oh, he needed to keep Josh around. It had been ages since he last felt this good in general. Sure, the ups and downs were still there, he’d be up shaking in his bed in the middle of the night, because if he allowed his body any more movement, it would lead him back into a cycle he’d worked so hard to get out of. There’d be weeks where he wouldn’t cut his nails, just so that they dug deeper into his skin when he needed them to. But it was fine, it was so much more fine than it used to be, so there wasn’t a reason to worry.
And he was fine thanks to Josh. Amazing, warm, kind, wonderful Josh, who didn’t flinch when Tyler talked about his problems, who didn’t look around in embarrassment when shook his hands out of of excitement, who didn’t say anything, anything at all when Tyler got affectionate with him.
And boy oh boy was Tyler getting affectionate with him.
It scared him, sometimes—okay, he’ll admit it, often—how much he cared for a friend. A friend, because that’s what they were, friends.
And look, Tyler knew he wasn’t allowing himself to see the full truth right now, okay? But it was still progress. Weeks ago, he wouldn’t have even been able to recognise that he was hiding something from himself, let alone admit it.
Now he just needed to carefully peel back the layers, like unwrapping a bandage, in order not to disturb the inflamed skin underneath. If he ripped the bandaid off, skin would come with it, and he’d be bare, exposed, uncomfortable, and panicked, and it would just reverse all the progress he knew he was making.
There was something interesting about keeping secrets from your own brain, Tyler thought, something interesting and incredibly fucked up. When had he become this broken, this fragile, huh? He was playing tug of war with his mind, and even though it was him on both sides, he was somehow still losing.
But he was still digging in his heels, and that had to count for something.
Sunday had definitely been one of those days where his feet were torn apart by the ground, but he pushed through it. It had been a game of balance on a knife’s edge, thinking about the kiss. That he had initiated, yes.
On one hand, he was giddy with it. The physical and emotional closeness was like none other, and he had looked at the photo strip more times than he could count. He still had Josh’s somewhere, but he was a little scared to give it to him, worried that Josh would realise that it actually happened, and that there was proof, and that that was gay, Tyler, why did you do that?
Why did he do that?
He wanted to show Josh his appreciation. He was happy with Josh, Josh made him happy, and the joy from their still-fairly-new friendship was something Tyler hoped would never fade. In Josh’s arms, the thoughts that normally ricocheted off of the walls of his skull grounded themselves, like currents from lightning bolts—something so dangerous, so deadly, neutralised simply by the touch of the Earth. Josh was Tyler’s Earth, he thought. Mark was great, but they were much more dude-bros than deep-conversations-about-feelings kind of friends.
Not that he didn’t trust Mark, he just didn’t want to bother him with it.
Not that he wanted to bother Josh with it, but Josh really made it seem like he was interested, and there was something comforting about his presence. Mark seemed like he had everything together, at least more or less—with Josh, it was clear that they were in the same harbour, if not in the same boat.
And then there was the other part of it, the “that was gay, Tyler” part of it. He didn’t know how to fight that part, he just knew that he needed to fight it. “So what” was the first idea, but he couldn’t fool himself, even with his years of expertise.
“So what” didn’t cover the years he spent in church, younger, still hopeful, still naïve, being told that it was a sin. It didn’t cover the classmate he had in seventh grade who had once looked at a boy for too long and gotten his glasses flushed. It didn’t cover the death threats and comments he saw online.
It left him paralysed, unable to throw a punch. So, he tiptoed precariously in between the two extremes—never quite letting himself fully enjoy what had happened, because he couldn’t afford to lose Tyler, but using it to bring himself back when he was tilting dangerously to the other side.
He felt like he was doing a fairly good job, all things considered.
Maybe he could ease himself into processing everything.
—- ☕︎ -—
Turns out, easing oneself into processing isn’t as easy as Tyler thought.
Because Tyler, being Tyler, couldn’t just process a part of something and leave the rest for later, no, he would try to pick at a small part of the problem, and inevitably spiral into a detailed mental analysis of the world ending because he said one wrong word.
It would be comical, if it weren’t actively affecting his ability to function.
His nails were getting longer again, but he kept forgetting to cut them. The crescent moons on his forearms and the backs of his hands all faded within minutes, so it wasn’t anything to worry about. He was fairly sure the rubber bands he had been sold were faulty, because they stretched out way too fast, even though he barely used them.
He’d be seeing Josh on Tuesday, he needed to remember to take it off. As easy as Josh was to talk to, he didn’t want Josh to worry, especially since it wasn’t even really a huge problem. He’d definitely have to hold out on giving him the photo strip, though.
Tyler wasn’t even properly sure what had set him off. There was just so much to look at, in the messed-up gallery that was his brain. Pulled apart and spread out over multiple pictures were his thoughts, covering each other up, connected with red strings and arrows, and he didn’t know where to start. A maze with no beginning, no end, just the journey.
“The friends we made along the way”, or something.
He needed to pull himself together. Break would come soon, and he’d be spending it at home, with his family. That could be rough on good days, he shuddered to think what it would be like on bad days.
He loved his family, of course he did. But they could be… difficult. Sometimes.
It felt like they were watching over his every move. They didn’t really say much about what he did—whether that be for better or worse was still undecided—but they were kind of controlling about it. Basketball was the prime example of that.
It felt a little like that tingling feeling people get when they are being watched. There’s no real input from the watcher, but one still becomes hyper-aware of every movement, every thought. So Tyler just did what they wanted him to—after all, they knew better than he did what life was truly about—and did it to the best of his abilities. To the brink of exhaustion, to the gold medal, to the point he needed outlets for what were supposed to be his outlets in the first place.
No one cared about those, though. He used to be sad about it, but now he told himself it was something he did for himself, something private that he didn’t need to share with anyone. Something sacred.
It helped.
And when he got that first place, he moved on to something else. Once again, basketball was a great example.
That was why he didn’t want to make music his chosen path at university. If he studied it, wouldn’t it just become a chore like everything else had? Wouldn’t his parents turn it into a challenge, until he could only feel dread in the place where relief used to be? He couldn’t let that happen.
So, he had picked something close enough. Literature had words, it had metaphors. It had poetry, to which he could privately add melodies to, and create something more out of it, as a hobby.
Still, even through all of that, it was just a matter of having to tell them he was no longer interested in basketball. He knew that if he ever said it wasn’t making him happy anymore, they’d let it go immediately. He just felt bad about it, because basketball had always been “his thing”, in their eyes. But he knew he had to do it.
Safe to say, family get-togethers were something that maybe wasn’t as natural as it should be. But they were still nice. Mostly.
He could do without being forced to go to church though. Especially given the latest… circumstances. But whatever. He could deal.
Huh. When did it get so late?
—- ☕︎ -—
Tuesday went okay, at least as far as Tyler was concerned.
He was calm and collected and not at all panicking about sitting next to Josh. Even so, it was nice to see him, and Tyler was happy that everything had stayed the same. It would be hell if Josh wanted to talk about the thing that Tyler did, Tyler would have probably died on the spot. He didn’t even want to think about what would have happened if Josh had said “oh, sorry, I can’t do this, Tyler. You’re too weird, no offence”. He’d probably just kill himself, or something.
Or something.
Tyler shook his head to clear it. He did not need to be thinking like that right now, or any time, honestly. He was okay, and he would keep being okay. He had three days to sort himself out before he saw Josh again, and he’d sooner kick a puppy than risk losing Josh because of his fucked up brain.
He liked cats better, anyway.
Wait, did he sound like a psychopath? Oh, he totally sounded like a psychopath. Who else would be willing to kick a puppy? Shit!
Completely side-stepping that…
Back to business; he had kissed Josh.
Honestly, it was basically the only natural progression, right? They had cuddled and then held hands, what else was there to do than kiss Josh? And girls did it all the time, they kissed their friends, so why couldn’t Tyler do that? Fuck toxic masculinity! He would kiss his homies goodnight whenever he wanted to!
And he wanted to. He hoped he’d be able to spend the night with Josh at some point. Whenever they cuddled, Tyler dozed off so easily. Sleep didn’t come easy to him, but being around Josh just fixed that somehow. Tyler could focus on syncing up their breaths, on the way he could feel Josh’s heartbeat if he really tried. It worked wonders, and he wondered what a full night’s sleep would be like. Would he wake up rested for once?
He could invite him over next week… for science.
Whatever, he could think about that later.
For now he pressed Mister Snugglefluff close to himself and tried to imagine that it wasn’t a stuffed toy he was holding, but a certain blue-haired boy instead.
He pressed a kiss to his forehead and snuggled closer for good measure, deciding that homework could wait.
—- ☕︎ -—
Okay, so. Tyler might not have been great at the thinking and getting himself together parts of his plan. Which were basically the only parts of his plan.
Oops.
It was already Thursday, and tomorrow he’d be seeing Josh again. He had already decided that he would give Josh the photo strip tomorrow, so that was a great conversation starter. Except, the conversation was one he didn’t really want to have.
If he could have it his way, they just wouldn’t talk about it, ever. It would just become a fact of their friendship, and that would be it. Nothing to talk or potentially freak out about. Perfect.
Unfortunately, people didn’t work like that, probably.
But even thinking about thinking about it made him mildly nauseous, so he decided to just… not.
Yeah, yeah, he just threw all his talk about “sorting himself out” out of the window headfirst, and he was a coward, but who cared. Now he could focus on finding the perfect thing to do with Josh before he invited him over to execute his evil masterplan S.L.E.E.P., which was short for sleeping lazily enveloped e-by (sue him, it just didn’t fit) person.
So he started scrolling through possible locations to go to. Josh had suggested the fair, which had been absolutely amazing, so Tyler couldn’t just do a different coffee shop and call it a day.
Then, a lightbulb moment; He couldn’t do normal coffee shops, sure, but coffee shops with something extra weren’t a bad idea.
And thanks to this stroke of genius, he was now scouring the internet for all nearby cat cafés and comparing the reviews like a man trying to solve the murder, looking for clues in alibis.
There were multiple good ones, and as always, he just couldn’t reach a decision.
Pros and cons it was, then.
He pulled out a scrap paper and started scribbling.
Candidate number one:
- Furthest away
- Smaller cats-to-space ratio -> less likely to be close to one
+ Cheapest
+ Biggest menu -> most drink choices
Candidate number two:
- Least choice available (side note: Josh usually orders a cappuccino, so it might not be the worst thing)
- A little more expensive. Not the worst thing, still affordable, but it’s something to consider.
- Desserts and so on not that amazing
+ Lots of cats, apparently very friendly too
+ Gaming zone!
Candidate number three:
- Cats very prone to eating your food
- Most expensive (but Josh paid for my carnival games…)
+ Amazing desserts (maybe the cats are onto something)
+ Friendly staff, including cats
+ Pay for entry, not for time spent
It should be pretty obvious now. Candidate number three was winning 3-2 on the list, but there was just something about Candidate number two. It was obviously losing, though, so he didn’t know why he kept coming back to it.
Okay, that was a lie. He knew very well. It was the gaming zone.
He was easy and he knew it, but from Josh’s love of video game soundtracks, Tyler was fairly confident that he’d appreciate it too. Who knows, maybe they’d have Mario Kart, or something. That would be amazing, Josh wouldn’t know what he was up against and Tyler could finally be good at something, even if it was as trivial as a video games.
He called to make a reservation for two, on Wednesday next week, and saved it into his calendar with a reasonable amount of exclamation marks (five).
It would also be the perfect distraction from the phot strip once he gave it to Josh. “Oh yeah, here’s the picture of us kissing. By the way! Surprise hangout on Wednesday! Yay! We should totally talk about that instead!”
Well, maybe not with those exact words. But the idea was there…
—- ☕︎ -—
Comms class had been fun, really. Josh accepted the photo strip with no weird looks, or even a single second of hesitation. Well, everything was great, except for Tyler’s breakfast, apparently, because his stomach was doing funny stuff the entire time. Josh confirmed he was free on Wednesday, and Tyler had something to look forward to.
Which made it all the less understandable when he woke up feeling like absolute and utter shit on Saturday.
Genuinely, where had he gone wrong?
It was one pm already, and he had been awake for an hour, maybe even two, and he couldn’t move. He couldn’t fucking move. Not even just to reach for his phone, so that he could at least scroll while he thought about how useless he was being, but no, too much energy. He was already getting a little hungry, but it was fine, better than the bone-crushing tiredness. Maybe it would force him out of bed if he thought about it for long enough.
It was almost ironic, the way he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep on a normal day, and yet the one time he manages to sleep longer, he doesn’t even get enough strength from it to get up. It was like he was destined to lose, or something.
Eventually, after an unspecified amount of time had passed, Tyler’s hunger took over. He counted it as a win, honestly, that at least something had managed to force him out of bed. Not that he was willing to dedicate much of his non-existent energy to the food, mind you, but still.
He ended up fixing himself a bowl of cereal. Dry, because opening the fridge for milk sounded like too much effort. What was wrong with him?
The worst part was, there wasn’t even anything that could’ve set this off. He tried to think of something, there wasn’t much else to do while stuck motionless in bed, but he couldn’t find anything.
He was stressed about some assignments, sure, but with break coming soon, many teachers had decided that the due dates would be once they were back to school, so that everyone could have “more time to work on it during the break”.
Psh, as if.
Which meant that in the grand scheme of things, he was more on top of everything than he had been since he got here. So it wasn’t stress.
He had had a great time with Josh in comms, completely ignoring the lesson and playing battleships with a comically large grid. So it wasn’t loneliness this time.
He hadn’t had any more coffee than his usual, all too aware of what could happen. So it wasn’t caffeine.
So what was wrong with him?
Tyler must just be fucked up. There was no other explanation other than that he was born wrong and probably dropped as a baby. The brain got knocked around in his head a little, and these were just the consequences. It would make the most sense, anyway.
Still absent-mindedly “eating” his “cereal”, only occasionally missing his mouth because he was too focused on staring straight ahead, he heard his phone vibrate. Huh.
And there, right there, at the top, stood a text from Josh. And under any other circumstances, he’d be overjoyed, scrambling to write something back.
As it was, he was throwing the phone halfway across the room onto his bed, because he could not talk to Josh like this. He was pretty good at pretending things were fine, brushing everything off like it was nothing and adding an extra layer of sarcasm when needed, but that didn’t mean he liked doing it.
A few seconds later, though, curiosity got the better of him. He reached for his phone, and it was as if Josh was a mind reader.
Hey, how are you? :D
17:51
What the fuck? How was it this late already?
Ignoring that, Tyler started planning a response.
Pretty terrible right now, actually :(, he typed out. This was Josh, Josh wouldn’t mind it if he was honest about this once. But knowing himself, he’d do it again, and again, and again, and again, and eventually Josh would mind. “Sorry Tyler,” he’d say, even though he’d be more relieved to end things than actually sorry, “I can’t do this anymore. You’re just such a downer sometimes, and I can't really deal with that. I’m too good for you, I’m the Sun and ice cream on a hot day and hot cocoa on a cold one, and you… you’re you, y’know?”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, no, stop,” he hit the heels of his palms against his head to get the words through. “He wouldn’t—He doesn’t—He isn’t like that. Josh isn’t like that, shut up, shut up shut up… please, please, shut up…” Tyler felt sobs tear through his body, hindering any other words that he might have said. He would end up only repeating himself more and more frantically, so maybe it was for the better.
The only thing he knew was that there wasn’t much to do about this situation, because if this was his reaction to Josh, than he was completely screwed. From experience, he should be okay-ish tomorrow, hopefully.
Everyone had their bad days. It was fine.
He was fine.
—- ☕︎ -—
It was, actually, fine.
Shockingly, of all days, on Sunday he felt better.
He got up and made himself a nice, good breakfast. Yesterday, all he had eaten was that bowl of dry cereal, and maybe some salted peanuts, but it was a little fuzzy.
And maybe he had lied a little about the due dates. Some teachers were still assholes, like Nico, so he had to do math anyway. Luckily, Josh had kinda explained what was happening the last time they met for studying, which happened once every two weeks or so. Tyler really liked those study sessions. Being next to someone as smart as Josh was motivating as hell. He was even actually working during those study sessions, just because he wanted to impress the blue-haired boy.
And people said that body doubling couldn’t work, that it would only be a distraction. Though Tyler often found himself marvelling at his own resolve, because who wanted to stare at a computer screen with assignments when Joshua William Dun was right there.
Yeah, Tyler really was just That Good.
On the topic of Josh, Tyler had probably left him on read, oh fuckity fuck.
He tripped over his own feet trying to reach where his phone was plugged in to charge, opening up his messages as quickly as possible.
Sorry, must’ve accidentally opened the message without seeing it.
11:53
I’m good, what about you?
11:53
There, crisis hopefully averted. It wasn’t lying about his feelings if he did feel fine now.
But back to math; Tyler had started understanding a little better, and lo and behold, he was even able to finish some assignments alone now. Josh must be magical, or something, to be able to explain math to Tyler.
It certainly helped with his motivation too, and now he didn’t dread doing his assignments as much as he used to. He still hated it out of principle—worry not, he wasn’t a changed man—but at least he didn’t dread it.
So he sat down, put on some tunes, and got to work.
And if he doodled an eye that resembled Josh’s onto the corner of the paper... well. That was no one else’s business but his own.