Chapter Text
"Here"
Tyler hands the money to the man who didn't even bothered to look at him as he accepted it. Tyler thought he heard a disinterested thank you coming from the man but he didn't acknowledge it as he simply turned around and walked into the dark cold night.
He opens the pack of cigarettes he had just bought and took a cigarette out, putting it between his teeth before grabbing a lighter from his pocket. He rolls the cigarette with his tongue until it's placed carefully between his swollen burned lips and while a hand blocked out the cold wind, the other one lit it up. Tyler puts the pack inside of the left pocket of his long black coat along with the lighter. He sucks in the tobacco before his fingers found their way up to take the cigarette out of his mouth so he could blow off the toxic gray smoke. He continues walking through the empty street, illuminated by the lights of the old lamp posts, until he founds a bench, on which he decides to sit down.
Tyler crosses his legs like a little kid and lets his long coat fall onto the ground as he puffs on his cigarette one more time. He looks ahead but doesn't really know what he's staring at. He observes the smoke coming out of his mouth as it floats on the thin air before it vanishes completely. He takes one more turn.
"That's bad for your health, you know."
Tyler feels someone sit next to him after hearing the masculine voice speak. He puffs on the cigarette again and stays quiet for a few seconds, breathing out the smoke. The lamp above him kept switching off and on. Finally, he turns his head to the side, finding a guy, staring off into space just like he had been previously.
The first thing Tyler notices about him is his messy bright red hair, moving lightly with the breeze. He examines him, taking everything in. The guy is wearing black clothes and clearly worn out combat boots placed securely on the ground, and his left hand was drumming on his knee. The stranger lifts his hand towards his mouth and Tyler ironically sees a half smoked cigarette between his fingers. He chuckles, turning back to the big family house in front of them and raises his own cigarette to his mouth as well and breathes the smoke around the tip before mumbling, "Everything is bad for our health if we don't control it." The guy nods, even though Tyler couldn't see.
"Do you?" He asks dryly.
Tyler chuckles again, shaking his head and looks down at the shiny red tip of his cigarette before tapping lightly on top of it with his index finger, the gray ashes falling down to the ground.
"No, not really."
He stopped controlling it a long time ago.
He glances at the red haired who was still not looking at him and he catches him taking the cigarette out of his mouth. Tyler watches his lips part and smoke come out of his mouth, slowly but firmly. And he thinks all that seemed brought out of a 80's movie or simply the way the man's lips moved looked almost pornographic in a way Tyler couldn't explain.
But then the guy is turning to him too and he was able to see a ring on his nose. Smoke crossed paths on the air, coming from both their mouths and noses.
"Me neither." The stranger agreed, his jaw stiffening but his expression still managing to look the calmer Tyler thinks he's ever seen. "Why?"
The light of the lamp post blinks again, illuminating the stranger's face and red hair as soon as it turned them back to black.
Tyler shrugs, playing with the cigarette on his hand."Got stuff on my mind."
They look at each other and stay in silence.
"I'm Josh." the red head offers him a hand and Tyler shakes it, nodding. Neither of them smile, but they didn't feel any lack of kindness behind their straight faces.
"Tyler."
Josh resumes to look ahead again and Tyler decides to do the same. Josh puts his hands inside the pockets of his sweater after throwing the tip of his cigarette to the ground and stepping on it. Minutes later, Tyler was doing the same.
"My roommate is a pain in the ass." Josh suddenly speaks like Tyler was actually interested, light smoke mixed with his hot breath cutting into the freezing night. "He crashed a party tonight and thought it would be a great idea to bring his one night stand home and fuck her in the kitchen." venom drips from his short laugh "Besides not being able to sleep because of those two screaming like dying fucking rats," he pauses and kicks a couple of small rocks with his feet "I got shit on my mind too." He looks at Tyler when he says this and sends him a quick small smile that Tyler would almost certainly not catch if he hadn't been staring at the way Josh's lips moved when he talked.
"Life sucks, uh" Tyler comments, looking up to Josh's eyes.
"Yeah pretty much." Josh stares back.
And it's scary. The way two strangers simply sit in a confortable silence, staring and looking at each other like they were in love or like neither of them had ever seen someone the same gender before, bonding over unsaid words and tobacco. Tyler feels his stomach twist in anticipation and he suddenly feels a rush of adrenaline and all he wants to do his run away with that man sat by his right side that clamed to be called Josh.
For all he knows he could be lying about that and his name is actually something along the lines of Sebastian.
He doesn't look like a Sebastian though.
"One day we'll all get away from it." Tyler breathes out before he could stop himself.
"When that day comes I wanna be dressed in white so God doesn't see my dick when I change into one of those angel clothes."
Tyler laughs, throwing his head back. And he knows that it hadn't even been funny, he knows that he probably looked crazy or even some kind of psychopath, but he still got tears on his eyes and his cheeks still hurt.
The light had stopped switching, apparently. It was dark now. The moon was there. Full moon. But it was dark.
"I don't think I'm going to heaven though, so might as well be dressed in red." Josh completed himself.
"You already got ahead of yourself with that Mohawk of yours then." Tyler smirks, tilting his head to the side and looking pointedly at Josh.
"Indeed."
The night felt even colder as the time passed but neither of them moved in search of warmth whether on their clothes or on each other. Tyler could feel his hands trembling so he puts them on his pockets.
"The day I die I want to be sit in front of my piano because then I'll be sure the last thing I saw was the only thing that never let me down." Tyler says, fishing another cigarette from his pack of cigarettes.
"I'd say we start a protest against human race and build a whole new world ruled by cats." Josh suggested, looking at the pack on Tyler's hand and Tyler takes one out to give him. "Thanks" he mumbles, putting it on the corner of his mouth and grabbing his lighter from the back pocket of his black skinny jeans, throwing it to the air and catching it before lighting the cigarette up.
"I'd support you" Tyler says quietly, after lighting his own cigarette, putting the pack and the lighter back on his pocket "if it was ruled by dogs."
Josh gasps beside him and Tyler can feel his wide eyes on him.
"Dogs?! No way man. And here I thought you were a cool guy..."
Tyler chuckles, feeling the smoke float inside his mouth and going down his body, obnoxiously intoxicating his lungs. He smirks, raising an eyebrow as he looks at Josh, who's not looking back.
"You can never judge a book by it's cover."
Josh looks at him and shrugs before smirking as well. "Guess not."
And apparently his face is closer to Tyler's than any of them thought because as he talks, smoke escapes through his mouth and hits Tyler's face. Tyler breathes it in, unconsciously.
"I never chose to be like this." Tyler says, his own smoke hitting Josh as well "Take it or leave it."
Josh moves his head away from Tyler's, not much, but enough to don't let the smoke of his cigarette cover his new acquaintance's face. He puffs on his cigarette, looking at Tyler's eyes.
"I'll take it."