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He was picking at a scab.
Tyler winced as he peeled it back, both of them watching as blood bubbled to the surface. Josh was almost transfixed. There was something about watching somebody destroy themselves, watching them hurt themselves enough to leave scars. Josh thought that this might have been the third time that Tyler had ripped a scab from his skin in the same spot.
“It’s not gonna heal,” Josh said finally but he wasn’t referring to the cut. He didn’t have to stretch to see what Tyler was doing on his phone. He was scrolling through instagram. The face he was looking at was familiar to Josh, not that they had ever met.
It was an ex, he was sure of it. Tyler had made it a habit almost, scrolling through his instagram, careful not to like him. He’d had to make a second account.
“He blocked me on the first,” Tyler confessed as he logged out and logged back into his secondary account, the one that was only for looking through one person's feed.
Josh humored himself into thinking that that’s how Tyler got the cut on his knee. He said it was skateboarding but Josh never fell forwards. He fell to the side but maybe he was special. Josh thought that Tyler tripped, scraped his knee, thought that Tyler was distracted by this boy's face.
He picked at his knee as he scrolled through photos he’d seen a million times before.
“It’ll heal eventually,” Tyler said, flattening his hand over the cut and hissing when it stung. He pulled his hand away and there was blood smeared over his skin. Josh was almost sure that Tyler wasn’t talking about the cut, either.
“Why do you do that? Don’t you know that wounds can’t heal if you keep touching them?” He asked, frowning as he looked away from Tyler’s phone, his knee, the face that haunted both of them. Josh had that sinking feeling when they first met that he wouldn’t ever completely have Tyler’s heart. He had that feeling that Tyler may be in his bed, may curl up with him at night, may promise his life, but Tyler was never really his.
Even so, Tyler leaned over and he kissed Josh like he was in love and Josh found it hard to think beyond ‘wow.’
“It’s just slow,” he said and Josh frowned.
The next day they had sex. Josh was stuck in a post orgasmic haze, lying between Tyler’s legs with his head on Tyler’s hip. He didn’t hardly noticed the softening cock that was in his face. He had his eyes closed and a smile on his face.
Josh was jostled when Tyler moved, lifting a knee and resting a hand on his knee. He was picking at the scab again and Josh didn’t have to lift his head to know Tyler was on his phone.