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Josh’s gone for so long that Tyler starts to think maybe this is it, maybe this time, he actually didn’t make it back.
The house doesn’t feel wrong exactly. It just feels empty in a way that keeps getting louder the longer it sits untouched. The pillow on Josh’s side stays cold. Its shape holds, but nothing else does. Even the faint trace of him, the smell that used to linger in the fabric, in the edges of things, has long since faded into nothing.
The bathroom tells the same story. No half-finished routines. No scattered toiletries left where they shouldn’t be. No small, careless evidence that someone has been moving through the space beside him. Just absence, repeating itself in different forms until it becomes hard to argue with.
Tyler tries to rationalise it at first. Tries to tell himself it’s just timing. Just space. Just something explainable.
But the longer it goes on, the harder that becomes to believe.
And for the first time, not as a passing thought, not as a flicker of anxiety, but as something solid and heavy in his chest, Tyler is afraid.
Not of what might have happened.
Of what it would mean if nothing has.
“I thought you were dead,” Tyler says.
He tries to shape the words into something sharp, something that could pass for anger if you weren’t listening too closely. He squares his shoulders, forces his stance into something harder, more controlled, like posture alone might convince the room he hasn’t been unraveling for weeks.
But it doesn’t land that way. The sentence comes out stripped of its edge, worn thin by exhaustion. Not hostile, just hollow. Tired in a way that seems to settle in his bones as soon as it leaves his mouth, like his body has been carrying the weight of it long before he ever spoke.
He hates that it sounds like that. Hates even more that it’s true.
Any other words Tyler wanted to say die in his throat, choking on a sharp gasp as Josh steps into the light and reveals the state he’s in; blood slipping steadily from just above his left eyebrow, tracking down his temple, while a bruise is already blooming across the same cheek in dark, ugly tones.
Tyler’s chest tightens at the sight of it. Not just at what he’s seeing, but at what it means. At what it must have taken to get him here like this.
For a moment, he just stands there, frozen between instinct and disbelief, as if moving might make it more real.
Then he steps aside.
He lets Josh in.
And it’s only when Josh crosses the threshold that Tyler notices the way he’s favouring his left side, every movement guarded and uneven, like even walking is something he has to negotiate with pain first.
“Can we fight later? I’m fucking tired and I need to get this shit cleaned up.”
Josh’s voice carries that edge, sharp, controlled, the kind of tone that never fully leaves someone who’s had to survive on instinct. It isn’t just irritation. It’s warning. Muscle memory. A mentality that hasn’t quite been switched off.
Tyler hears it immediately.
He knows that sound. Knows what it costs.
And he knows better than to push it.
So he doesn’t respond. Not properly. Not with anything that could be mistaken for challenge.
Instead, he stays in Josh’s line of sight, deliberate about it, as he moves through the house to retrieve the first aid kit. Every step is made a little louder than necessary, every action a little more obvious, cupboards opening, drawers sliding, the quiet insistence of presence without intrusion.
He heads into the bathroom and makes sure Josh can hear him there too, the tap running, the kit being set down on the basin. Nothing sudden. Nothing that could be read as threat.
He keeps his distance on purpose.
Doesn’t close it.
Not until Josh chooses to.
And Josh doesn’t.
Not today.
So Tyler stays where he is, careful and measured, watching from just enough space away as Josh works at cleaning his own wounds. His eyes don’t leave him for long, not in a way that feels invasive, just… alert. Waiting. Reading every shift in posture, every flicker of pain that Josh tries not to show.
“I’m going to bed, okay?” Tyler says carefully.
His voice is quiet,measured, almost cautious, but it still slices through the silence of the room sharper than he intends.
Josh startles anyway.
It’s small, but immediate. A tight flinch through his shoulders, a sudden break in focus that makes the bottle of antiseptic slip in his hand. It tips too fast, too clumsy, and spills across the table in a sharp, chemical splash.
A curse follows, low and immediate, more frustration than anger.
For a moment, Josh just stares at the mess like it’s betrayed him.
Tyler doesn’t move closer. Doesn’t correct it. Doesn’t make it worse.
He just watches, steady and quiet, as the tension in the room tightens again, not loud, not explosive, just that thin, dangerous kind of silence that comes when someone is still deciding whether they’re safe enough to relax.
“Fuck, fine,” Josh mutters, the edge in his voice softening just enough to sound like himself again.
Tyler doesn’t realise he’s been holding his breath until it leaves him all at once, subtle, involuntary. The tension in his shoulders eases in a way he can’t quite hide.
Josh notices. Of course he does.
There’s a quiet sigh from him, almost annoyed, almost fond, as he catches that small collapse in Tyler’s posture. Then, with a kind of reluctant gentleness, he shifts closer and holds out his left arm, not fully, not without thought, but enough. An invitation, wordless and deliberate.
Tyler takes it like it’s something fragile.
Josh leans in and presses a quick kiss to his temple.
It’s brief. Familiar. Grounding in a way neither of them name out loud.
Tyler exhales again, slower this time, and the last of the tightness in his face loosens as he leans into the contact without meaning to stop himself.
“I’ll be through in a little while,” Josh adds quietly, already pulling back just enough to reassemble his distance. “I’ve got some stuff to sort.”
Tyler nods once, like it’s enough to hold everything in place, and slips away into the rhythm of his nightly routine.
The house quiets around him in pieces, the soft click of a door, the low hum of water, the familiar motions he could do half-asleep. It’s almost automatic now, the way he moves through it, like repetition can stand in for peace.
When he finally makes it to the bed, he doesn’t take up much space.
He curls carefully onto his own side, controlled in the way people get when they’ve learned how to occupy a room without demanding anything from it. The mattress dips slightly under him, familiar and unchanged, but tonight it feels a little too open, a little too quiet.
His hand reaches for Josh’s pillow without thinking.
He sets it back into place on the other side of the bed, smoothing it once, then again, like the action itself carries meaning he can’t quite articulate.
The scent is faint now, faded, worn thin by time and use, but still enough. Something familiar. Something anchoring. Not really Josh, not fully, but close enough that Tyler’s mind files it under safe anyway.
It’s become a habit over time. A quiet ritual. A small, stubborn reminder that Josh comes back here. That he always does.
He lies still for a while, staring into the dim shape of the room as though sleep might eventually decide to meet him halfway.
For a long time, it doesn’t feel like it will.
His body is tired, heavy in that way that should make rest easy, but his mind refuses to follow. It keeps circling back on itself, replaying fragments, gaps, the moments he can’t fully close off.
He thinks, not for the first time, that tonight might be another one of those nights. The kind where sleep stays just out of reach, no matter how still he lies.
But then there’s a sound. The quiet movement of Josh in the kitchen, soft steps, the gentle clink of something being set down, the low, absent rhythm of someone who is still here, still moving through the house like he belongs to it.
It isn’t loud enough to demand attention. It doesn’t need to be.
And somehow, that’s what does it.
Something in Tyler finally unclenches, slow and reluctant, like a knot being eased without permission. The tension he’s been holding all day loosens at the edges, then deeper, until it’s no longer something he has to actively carry.
Relief settles in.
Josh is here. He’s safe enough in this moment. Close enough that Tyler doesn’t have to keep waiting for the worst.
And for the first time that night, sleep doesn’t feel like something he has to fight for.
It finds him instead.