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"Here's the latest track I recorded. It's called Tear In My Heart. Any ideas for drums?" Tyler clicked on the file - muffled piano and vocals were heard out of the $20 speakers that Tyler bought in 2013.
Josh hummed contently, following along to the song and absentmindedly tapping his fingers on the desk. He stilled suddenly, coming to an abrupt realisation.
"Ty, is this a love song?" he murmured, a grin inching its way onto his face as the song continued. Tyler quickly went red, hiding his face in his hands.
"Yeah. It's, uh, it's about Jenna, you know? Since we're getting married soon and I haven't even wrote a song about her yet."
Josh quickly stuffed down the sick feeling that emerged from within him and nodded, understanding.
"I mean, I guess I did think it was strange that you hadn't written a song about her yet. Good for you, man," he smiled.
-
"What do you mean? I thought Tear In My Heart was about me!" Josh groaned before breaking out into laughter. Tyler rolled his eyes affectionately and placed his hand on Josh's shoulder while the interviewer looked on.
"Don't worry Josh, it is sometimes about you."
And suddenly, Josh could barely talk, or move at all. Tear In My Heart was sometimes about him.
Sometimes. He would take sometimes over never even if it killed him.
But for now he could only push the feeling back down, suppress, suppress, and then let all his energy out into the crowd at the next show when he could, for just a few minutes, pretend that Tear In My Heart really was written about him.
-
A concert. Josh had been restless all day, pacing around in his concert attire hours before he needed to be. Pretending to be Spooky, because Spooky can funnel all his emotions into drumming until his arms are aching and his soul is quiet again. And Spooky knows how to handle a concert like it's the only thing he does.
Josh was up on stage, waiting for the next song to start - Tear In My Heart. He barely heard what Tyler had said beforehand, so caught up in his own overthinking, and started to drum the pattern to the song he knew so well as if on autopilot.
Until a certain thing made his ears prick up. A lyric change, so subtle -
"He's the tear in my heart," Tyler sang to the crowd, pointing vaguely behind him. "He's a carver!"
Josh's heart stopped. It simply ceased to beat inside his chest, and he was consciously waiting to pass out. It never happened, of course, he kept on drumming as if he had never heard. But then Tyler did it again, and again, and by the end of the concert he felt like he might throw up on stage.
But when they walked off after Trees, Tyler just patted him on the back, gave him a swift hug, whispered, "You did amazing," and left. And that was that. Time to suppress again.
-
"Hey, you haven't put one on the record for Jenna yet, I noticed," Josh said over call one afternoon after refining the drums on Saturday. "Is that gonna happen? Or?"
"Yeah, yeah," Tyler brushed him off. "I'm making it now. I can, uhm, send it to you. If you want, no pressure."
"Sure," the drummer replied, popping another piece of chewing gum into his mouth. "What's it called? How far through are you with it?"
"I'm pretty much done. It's quite... I don't know. You tell me if you like it, I wasn't sure..."
"Tyler, man, if it's about your wife then I'm not gonna reject it. I'm not that mean."
"It's not... uh..."
"Hm?" Josh responded, trying to dissociate slightly as to not hear too much about Tyler's wife. He was never jealous, not unless he heard too much. As long as they kept their love life accessible only through drums.
"Doesn't matter. It's called Formidable, by the way."
-
Thirteen years. Thirteen years, Josh and Tyler had known eachother for, and Josh was starting to wonder if Formidable was really written about Jenna.
"Sorry if I'm an asshole sometimes," Tyler had told him, years ago on a cramped tour bus. "But I do love you."
"I thought you were so harmless when I first met you," Tyler had mumbled across bunks in the middle of the night as they trundled across America sometime during the Bandito tour. "But I'm kind of scared of you now. Don't know why."
"I really look up to you, Josh," Tyler had said earnestly after a wild show. "You really seem to always know what you want and how you're going to get it. I just want to follow you around like a lost dog."
Yeah, maybe it was about Josh. But he could keep dreaming, because the consequences of confronting him could be much worse than the consequences of not.
-
"Josh."
Debby was looking at him with an expression that he just couldn't figure out as she played with Jim's fluffy ears. The drummer met her eyes in recognition.
"You know, if you were bisexual. Or if you needed something that I can't give you. I'd be okay with that."
Shocked at the topic of conversation, Josh slowly nodded his head. He was unsure as to where this conversation was headed.
"Okay."
"And I talked to Jenna, and she is too," Debby added with a small smile.
"Okay? Why is that--"
He suddenly realised what she was talking about.
"Oh."
-
Tyler and Josh had just finished an intense game of Mario Kart, cramped into the tour bus somewhere between Sacramento and Los Angeles.
It was a strange kind of liminal space, the tour bus. They always had an objective - another show, another city, another 600 kilometre journey - yet very little to do between stops at gas stations. It was a weird experience.
Tyler had his head leaning against Josh's shoulder and his side pressed up against Josh's thigh. This was unusual.
Well, it wasn't when they first met, when a lack of space and a lack of physical contact turned the pair to seek comfort within eachother in between the sweaty basement concerts of 2011.
But now, they had at least a little more space to spread out, and they had wives to give them the physical contact that they need, but here they were.
Josh certainly wasn't complaining.
But now Tyler's fingertips were trailing up his arms, leaving goosebumps in their place, and Josh's fourteen years of practice in suppressing his feelings could never have prepared him for the singer's delicate, purposeful touch.
Tyler scratched at his neck.
"Josh..." he started, seeming nervous. Josh placed a supporting hand on Tyler's upper back, urging him to continue.
"What's up?" he said softly.
"I... I think... God. I don't know."
"Is it anything I can help you with?" Josh suggested quietly.
"Well... Yeah, but it's not... I can't just say it."
"Why not?"
The drummer's grip on the other man subtly tightened in consolidation.
"I can only show you," Tyler admitted, head hung low. "Can't say it. Can't ever say it."
"Then show me," Josh pleaded. "I want to help you, Tyler. Nothing you could say or do would change that."
For a moment, Josh wondered if Tyler was going to pull away, but then suddenly --
He was turning towards the drummer, Tyler's hands were resting delicately at the base of his neck and he was leaning in, slowly, inching his way towards Josh's lips. Almost without thinking, Josh closed the distance, mouth locking onto Tyler's as if they were made for eachother.
Time stood still for one second, two, three, before Tyler started moving, kissing the other band member slowly. Cautiously.
Josh tentatively brought his hand up to cup the back of Tyler's head and the singer relaxed into it for a moment before pulling away, a manic look in his eyes.
"Shit, shit. I didn't -- I'm so sorry, Josh, God. God. You didn't want that. I'm so sorry--"
Josh cut him off, firmly guiding Tyler's chin to look at him before speaking.
"Tyler," he started. "I need you."
And suddenly they were crashing back into eachother like waves on a shoreline, and the embers that had been surviving inside Josh's lower chest burst into a roaring fire once again. He didn't think they would ever be able to stop kissing.
"You were," Tyler gasped breathlessly, only pulling back a centimetre or two to speak. "You were the tear in my heart. Always."