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The thing is, Tyler doesn’t write love songs. He writes angsty introspective streams of consciousness, fear songs, all bundled up in poetic metaphors (thanks, Pete), just vague enough that sometimes he could take off a mask and show them to the world. When he felt good enough to even do that.
Tyler doesn’t write love songs because he doesn’t know shit about love. All he knows was what he read or listened to, or what he was told. “It’s like a breath of fresh air after a life of dust and fire.” (Joe. Granted, he was probably high. Ironic.) and “It’s all in the hips” (Pete).
He doesn’t write love songs.
But he tries.
Tyler doesn’t write love songs, but what are the papers spread about his bunk? Headphones in, uke laying beside him, curtains drawn closed. It doesn’t really let in fresh air, and he’s avoiding hips. He sees enough, too much of hips curling out, flipping off his piano. It doesn’t help that Josh walks around everywhere shirtless, showing off skin and ink and muscle and tattooed toned drummer’s arms and those hips. If Pete is right, which he probably isn’t, Tyler would just write love songs to Josh’s hips.
Except Tyler doesn’t write love songs.
Except Tyler is totally trying to write a love song.
It seemed easier, when he started, to put it in words and a tune and a beat, but Tyler is totally doubting himself now. Everything sounds cliché and off and not right. For Josh, it should be right.
Tyler leans his head against the wall of the bunk in frustration. He just sits there, tapping out a rhythm on his knee with the useless pen in his hand. Tap tap taptap tap taptaptap tap.
Tap tap taptap tap taptaptap tap.
Tap tap taptap tap taptaptap tap.
Tap tap tap-
The curtain opens.
"Hey, Ty, what’re you working on?" and Tyler does not need shirtless-on-the-bus Josh with his cute curly hair and bright inquisitive eyes and fuck.
"It’s just, uh, It’s a song I’m working on. It’s nothing."
Josh takes the ukulele and pushes it into Tyler’s hands. He opens the curtain wider and sits in one of the tech’s bunks against the opposite wall, smiling with his head cocked to the side in a silent “play for me?”.
"It’s, um, not done yet."
"When has that stopped you?"
Tyler doesn’t really need to ponder that one, Josh always wanted Tyler to show him new musical insights to his twisted little psyche. Tyler always played them.
"It hasn’t, but uh. It is now."
Josh stops smiling, concerned now. “Ty, what’s going on? You okay, bro?”
"It’s fine. I’ll be fine." Tyler goes to close the curtain, but is stopped. Josh’s hands brush over Tyler’s and he jerks back, blushes.
Josh is looking straight into Tyler’s eyes. Tyler looks back, not exactly into Josh’s, as though he could feel Josh finding the reason for all this deep in his pupils.
"You know you can tell me anything, right?" Josh put a hand over Tyler’s shoulder and he’s still not wearing a shirt. Seriously. That did not help. Josh’s fingers are tough and callused, but warm and gentle through Tyler’s t-shirt.
Tyler wants him to stay. Wants to put an arm around his shoulder and have him lean into the touch and he wants that hand to stay there, or maybe find his neck or the small of his back. Tyler wants to curl up in Josh, crawl into his skin and stay there. He wants to kiss his lips and throat and chest and hips and.
And.
Tyler wants to write him a love song.
"Dude, you okay?" Josh had taken away his hand, and Tyler opens his eyes (they must have closed at some point), startled.
"Yeah. I think I’ll just…" Tyler gestures vaguely to the papers on the bunk.
"Okay, you do that." And Josh starts heading to the front lounge.
—-
The thing is, Tyler doesn’t hide things. He doesn’t. Not from Josh, at least. No matter how broken, how twisted, Tyler always told Josh.
But he hears, from the bunk in the back, the strum of Tyler’s ukulele, mumbled words, the faintest scratching of pen on paper.
Josh puts in headphones, and turns up the music loud enough to drown out his own thoughts, let alone thewriting that Tyler was doing. A slow song, a yawn, then Josh was asleep.
—-
He wakes up with headphones still on, a little more than an hour later, with crashing drums and heavy guitars, probably some early My Chem or something. It’s pitch black out the bus window, and there aren’t any more noises coming from the bunks. Tyler, Josh expects, is asleep.
Josh walks back to the bunk area and sees the crumpled paper on the floor and he shouldn’t, he shouldn’t,but he picks it up anyways. The words were eyes and smiles and kisses and heartbeats. Love songs. But Tyler didn’t write love songs. Not that Josh knew of.
Josh reads over the page again, something white-hot and ugly rearing up in his chest. He thinks, at first, that it’s because Tyler didn’t, wouldn’t tell him.
He reads it over again.
Again.
The thing bares it’s fangs. It doesn’t want to hurt Tyler, never, but maybe-
It wants to rip apart whoever it’s written for. Wants to write “HANDS OFF” in big letters across Tyler’s forehead and maybe also “PROPERTY OF JOSH DUN”.
Oh yeah, maybe the thing was jealousy.
Shit.
It takes Josh another hour to fall back asleep.
—-
The thing is, Tyler needs to write a love song. Like, there’s this pounding ache made up of chords and melodies and words building up in his mind. It starts with hips, maybe. Then drum beats pumping blood, to fingers and faces where there are shy smiles. Then, okay, Taco Bell. Then roses because Tyler’s still a romantic no matter how hopeless. Then-
Everything. He writes down everything. Tyler knows he’ll sift through it later, but now he’s just writing.
—-
Josh wakes up to the sound of a ukulele. Not uncommon, but it right now it kind of hurts. Tyler is singing too, in a way that could easily be described as a croon. It’s kind of obnoxious but also kind of wonderful so Josh pretends to still be asleep and curls into his blankets.
"…love…”
And that fucking word. Fuck. Fuuuck.
Josh wanted to kiss whoever the song was about off of Tyler’s crooning lips and out of his mind. Josh puts his pillow over his head and tries to drown it out. He almost succeeds.
—-
The thing is, Josh is not avoiding Tyler. He just. Needs to think. So he stays in his bunk a lot. Or in the front lounge when Tyler’s in the bunk below. Or whatever place Tyler isn’t.
Josh is not avoiding Tyler.
See, Tyler’s coming with lunch. He sits down in the lounge. Josh is still there. Not avoiding. Tyler hands Josh a bag and they eat in silence.
—-
One week in, and Tyler hates every second of it. There’s the usual dull throbbing of being sort of really in love with his best friend, but now there’s this stabbing ache whenever he looks away and he doesn’t even know why-
Shit. Fucking shit, he read the lyrics. He saw them and now he’s freaking out because his best friend has a creepy pervy crush on him. Fuck. Fuuuck.
But it’s finished now, the song, and Tyler is sitting on his bed in his bunk playing it over and over and over until it’s all he can think about. It’s good. It’s really good. Tyler thinks about putting it on the next album, but scraps the thought, because he’d actually have to play the song for Josh.
Which, now that he already hates Tyler, probably wouldn’t be too bad. Maybe he could explain it or something.
That- that might work.
—-
"Hey, come over," Josh hears from the front lounge, "I wanna show you that song I was working on."
Tyler is sitting on the sofa in the lounge, eyes on the single loose sheet in front of him. His shoulders are tense.
"So, um, yeah. The other day I was writing that song and I didn’t show you and maybe that’s why you haven’t talked to me?" Tyler cringes at the lie. That’s not why, he knows. "So this is that song."
Tyler strums the ukulele. Josh listens. Tyler is still visibly fidgety. His voice cracks on two occasions within the song, and he’s guarded.
The lyrics, the new, final lyrics to Tyler’s love song are really good.
And it takes Josh a good minute and a half to realize why he was shaking.
The thing, the ugly thing, y’know, the one in Josh’s chest? It was purring. Loudly.
This is Tyler totally throwing his heart out on a line here and Josh just wishes he had done it sooner. The lyrics, he had realized, the crooning melody, the wide eyes and voice cracks are all for him.
Tyler wrote Josh a love song.
Tyler plays the last note and his hands fall in his lap. His eyes are looking down again, as if they ever quite made contact with Josh’s while he was singing. “So, um, yeah, that was the song. I’m just gonna-“
Tyler gets up and starts to walk to the bunks. Josh gets up too, a similar uncertain air in his action to Tyler’s, but he stands taller. Before Tyler reaches his destination, Josh grabs his arm, holding him in place.
"Don’t hate me I just, I-"
And then Josh kisses Tyler.
Tyler freezes. His eyes are open wide and Josh puts a hand on his jaw, pulls him in until he responds. And he does. Tyler puts a hand on Josh’s hip, reverently almost, like he’s not sure this could be real. Then Josh licks at his bottom lip and it’s so, so real. Both of their mouths are open now, Tyler’s tongue giving little kitten licks to Josh’s and he really hopes this isn’t going to fuck things up. Well, even if it did, Tyler could never really resist Josh anyway. Josh scrapes his teeth against Tyler’s lower lip and Tyler moans. He can feel Josh grinning against his lips. He’s shaking a little. Holding in laughter, Tyler realizes.
This isn’t a joke to him, please, it can’t be, is all Tyler can think. He’s stiff again. Josh notices and pulls back, his hand still resting at Tyler’s cheek.
"Hey, what’s wrong?"
"Why were you laughing? I poured my heart out, please don’t let this be a joke, please," and he didn’t mean to sound that desperate, but he is, so it made sense.
"Ty, no, it was just funny what it took to get here?"
"Oh," Tyler’s cheeks flush in embarrassment.
"We have a couple of options here, we can forget this ever happened or-"
Tyler kisses Josh this time, the next choice silenced by another mouth on his. Tyler grins, chuckles.
"I hope that was my other option."
Josh is grinning too. “It was. My favorite option too.”
—-
The thing is, Tyler totally wrote a love song. He’s humming it as Josh’s head rests softly on his chest, his fingers carding through soft blue hair. Josh’s eyes are closed until he points at the dark purplish mark on his neck. They shoot open and Josh glares at him. Tyler chuckles and pokes at the hickey again. Josh smiles too. Tyler presses a kiss to the top of Josh’s head, still humming.
The thing is, Tyler wrote a love song, and he thinks it worked out pretty well for him.