Work Text:
Tyler likes heights. Okay...so maybe its more of an obsession. He can't walk away from a chance to see the world from the highest of points.
Tyler can barely remember when he had taken an extreme liking to high up places. He does remember the tree house though, which was one of his first ever muses. It was this dusty old thing far up in the trees deep into the large oaks that separated his neighborhood from the large industrial factories on the very edge of town. He was 7 years old and Zack wouldn't let him hangout with him or his friends. He didn't really have any of his own so he went wandering in the woods. He tromps through the dry leaves laughing loudly to himself. He tells himself jokes and runs his fingertips over the rough bark of the surrounding spruces and aspens. He doesn't hold back, he talks to himself and has conversations with the forest, shaking hands with branches and tripping over damp rocks. He keeps a mental log of good places to play pretend with Zack.
He is tapping two rocks he found, together when he sees something. He approaches a tall tree and runs the tips of his fingers over an old run down board nailed deep into the side of the tree. He pushes down to see if its sturdy then wraps his hands around both sides. He looks up and can just see the very bottom outline of a tree house. Hes always wanted a tree house.
Tyler climbs quickly, the boards support his weight the whole way up. When he finally crawls through the door on the floor, hes out of breath. He wipes his muddy palms onto the front of his jeans and looks around the medium sized room. Its larger than it looked from the ground. He can stand up fully with a foot, maybe more, of extra space above his head.
The room is dusty and slightly damp. Tyler takes his shirt off and wipes down the walls and surfaces. One of the walls is covered in magazine clippings, newspaper clippings, and photos. The dates are old, 1970's. Tyler skims through the articles. He sees initials carved into the wall right below a picture of two boys around his age smiling with their arms around each other's shoulders. They look familiar to him somehow. He doesn't linger too long on the photo, instead feeling the carved wood.
'N.S and O.A'
He doesn't know anyone with these initials, at least he doesnt think he does. He looks around the room again, admiring the love that went into this place. He takes his time cleaning up. First he removes all leaves and twigs. Hes careful and precise. He straightens out the furniture (a couple chairs, three small tables in various positions, a medium sized trunk). He saves the trunk for last. He opens it slowly, he feels nervous and jittery. Inside is a variety of things. A deck of cards, some bad magazines that make him want to go to church (he keeps them anyway), two flip lighters, a pocketknife, a couple bottles of alcohol which he crinkles his nose at and puts back into the trunk. He uses the knife to carve his own initials right next to the previous owners. He looks out of the window, at the warm sunlight filtering through the rustling tree tops, and wonders who these other owners were. If they are still alive, if they lived where he lives now, if he knows them.
He looks down at the mossy ground of the forest and smiles. He has never been this high up before. He feels his heart skip a beat. He has never felt more alive. Thus began an obsession with heights.
When he grew into a teenager he continued visiting the tree house, taking the time to make it his own, adding his own photos and clippings. He doesn't tell anyone about it. They don't ask. He writes and writes and writes. About all the fear and doubt hes starting to feel about religion, his sexuality, and his aspirations. He writes about death and he writes about trees. He stands on edges and teeters on suicidal. He likes the feeling of being up high, it reminds him he's alive and he more than once has to check he's alive. His mind blurs the days and nights. Hes numb to his own heartbeat and he's not really sure what went wrong.
Everyone eventually catches on, they start seeing him. They see him climb, climb,climb anything everything. His mom demands he stops, she's afraid for him. But he can't and he won't, he /has/ to. By the time he is 17 he has climbed to the top of the water tower, the roof of his high school, and every building above 4 floors downtown. He starts to think maybe its because if he falls then he would be dead which isn't necessarily something he wants but is also something that if it happened he doesn't think he would mind.
His greatest accomplishment is the Rhodes State Office Tower standing at 41 floors and 191.72 meters tall. He has to sneak past people and break into the roof entrance but he does it and he takes photo after photo of the view of the city, he sometimes forgets how big the town is. He ends up being escorted home by the police and he doesn't even feel guilty when his mom cries and begs to know what shes doing wrong. He just shakes his head and goes out to his tree house. He tells the stars and moon of his adventures and pretends to be unfazed by how comfortable hes gotten talking to himself. His parents stop asking. His mom stops crying.
His climbing carries through to his career, when he finally gets going on singing about his feelings. His crew let's him jump around and climb, not that there is much to climb in the begging. But, his band gets bigger and bigger and soon they are playing in venus so big he can't tell whos is who in the crowd. He climbs up the scaffolding and hold loosely with one hand. He feels alive. Josh doesn't really ask about it. Which Tyler notices. Josh doesn't really ask about anything. He tiptoes around every subject that could possible rile Tyler up. He doesn't want to stir the pot. Tyler doesnt bring it up. He just keeps climbing, and even after all this time, hes still not sure he would mind falling