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Tyler lets out a loud peal of laughter as soon as the lights come back on, Josh’s hair stuck up in a million places except for one little place on the very back of his scalp. The bare skin is too pale under the hotel lights. Ty can't seem to take his eyes off the spot and he lets out more laughter through his pursed lips. At least he's trying not to laugh, he thinks. Josh turns, his eyes narrow.
“Yeah?”
“Nothing.” Tyler can barely get out, his ribs hurt even as that little tiny skin colored spot turns away from him, then back again in time with Josh's head movements. It’s like a joke that only he can understand. It’s not like he’s glad Josh is losing clumps of hair at an alarming pace, it’s more like he’s just rolling with the punches and this is the newest uppercut. He can’t stop laughing. He even tries to put his hands over his mouth but it only works to muffle the noise. It was all just so sudden, such a surprise that took him off guard he can't stop thinking about it. When he thinks about it he can't help himself if it's just a little ridiculous.
“No, it’s something. Tell me.” Josh’s head swings from side to side, and that spot moves with it and Tyler can swear it’s gleaming just a little tiny bit under the overly bright hotel lights. Josh tries to find his underwear somewhere near the TV stand unsuccessfully. Tyler can see them by the closet door but he can’t really open his mouth to say anything without that laughter coming out instead. So he tries to stay silent instead of helping. “Just tell me already, please.” Josh begs, groping around for his white gym shorts instead. They get stuck under the leg of a desk chair and he almost tumbles over. The idea of Josh on the ground, naked with his gym shorts around his ankle and his bald patch absolutely glowing against the vibrancy of his hair is too much to picture and Tyler breaks down further. Tears rolling from the corners of his eyes as he clutches the blankets to his chest. He doubles over.
“It’s just - it's my favorite part about you.” He is finally able to push out in what sounds like broken English. He wheezes. His chest hurts. He wishes that instead of finding his shorts or underwear Josh could just find a hat instead. Instead his drummer is fighting with one ankle in a leg hole of the gym shorts against the wooden chair leg. He manages to tug them out - finally, the chair rocking in resistance as it surrenders it's stolen pant leg. Tyler feels like he’s having some kind of asthma attack - that or the last of his sanity slipping away.
“My ass is funny?” Josh turns, his eyes back to narrow slits, his mouth twisted to the side in a grimace of frustration as he shimmies into his shorts. His thighs are sweaty and stick to the clingy material. Josh hops from leg to leg trying to force the shorts up his legs with his tongue poking out like a wet pink snake between his lips. Tyler can see the wheels inside his mind turning even as he gives up and lets out a smile, defeated but not beaten. He crashes back onto the bed backwards with the shorts clinging for dear life to his muscular thighs.
“You’re gonna get sweat all over my side.” Tyler manages to get out, not so funny to be sleeping on gross sheets. He’d rather strip the whole bed than lay in a puddle of Josh Dun sweat. It always smells like hair dye and coffee - as if he were made of those two essential fluids instead of water and blood. He always gets the right side, which is where Josh is currently rolling around, his pink hair still standing upright in most spots, if anything the sweat and the friction of his rolling on Best Western sheets forces it up and out in most spots. He looks like a dog, just laying there with that innocent happy look on his face, nothing like Tyler’s resting bitch face. Josh almost always just looks content. Tyler’s still chuckling, unable to force it to a full stop.
“Well that’s what you get for laughing at my ass.” He smiles, his face scrunches up in all the right places. His lips and eyes and nose crinkle up and Tyler smiles back because he can’t help it. It's one of those infectious kind of smiles, like the flu. Josh rolls around one more time, rolling his neck and shoulders against the sheets for good measure. Tyler sinks lower into the bed so he’s laying down, shoulder to shoulder with the pink haired man next to him.
“It’s not your ass.”
“My ass isn’t your favorite?” Josh sits up, propping himself on his elbows and he almost looks hurt, almost offended. He bites his lip and the wheels turn again inside his mind before he decides to ask. “Okay. What is it then?” He turns to face Tyler forcing that patch back into hiding.
“Your bald spot.” At that Josh does hop out of bed and approaches the mirror above the desk the room provided, as if anyone in the history of the world has actually used those desks for anything they were intended for. He leans against the cheap wood and tilts his head to one side then another scanning his head for the spot. His fingers comb through the dyed strands. He manages to just barely miss the spot every time. His fingertips come back to his face and he examines them as if they were troops he’d send to battle and were going to give him a report. Either the fingers arn’t talking or Josh isn’t convinced because he turns back to the bed.
“Don't have one.” Josh mumbles before getting back on top of the covers, giving up on finding the spot. He turns onto his stomach and digs his face into Tyler’s outspread arm. His lips are wet and soft against Tyler’s bicep. It’s a nice feeling, something Josh does almost every night. It’s a sort of comfort thing, Tyler thinks although he’s not sure who it’s more comforting to anymore. Tyler shivers at the sensation, letting his body melt into the covers. He counts all of Josh's inhales and exhales, can feel them vibrating against his skin.
“Yeah you do. I like it though, it’s a symbol of my own mortality.” Tyler reaches out, his fingertips almost make contact with the spot but he can’t find it if he’s not looking. He just knows that it’s close by the way you can tell if your friend is close, or the waiter is coming to your table next.
Josh huffs a reply into Tyler’s arm that Tyler can’t really understand but can only feel as warm breaths against him. Josh bites into the muscle under his lips gently, Tyler just shakes his arm a little until his wild dog releases him. It didn’t hurt, but he knows if he doesn’t stop this now there will be a round two and he won’t get any sleep tonight and he won’t be able to walk across the stage straight in less than twenty four hours.
“Seriously though. I wish you would go back to dark hair, you look the best when it’s just all curly and natural.” His fingers twirl into the pink strands that look and feel as thin as cotton candy strands and catch on a loose knot. He works on it as Josh sighs and makes another attempt at a response into the space above Tyler’s forearm. Tyler untangles his fingers. The knot stays in place. He doesn’t try too hard, he knows if he fought it the whole chunk would come out. It’s happened before and Josh doesn’t even feel it. Then Ty's stuck with his fingers wrapped around pink floss and he's made another half inch bald spot to laugh at.
“If you turn over I could hear you better.” Josh flops onto his back, slamming his head against Tyler’s arm more forcefully than needed, his feet dangle off the side of the bed as he gets into a more comfortable position, it’s Tyler’s turn to sigh as he feels sweat begin to coat his arm in the thin film. "Ouch." He says, but really wants to say something more along the lines of gross.
“In another universe it’s still brown.” He says again, as if it takes so much effort to repeat himself. His fingers trace his own abdominal muscles, just the fingertips against his skin. He makes little lines up and down and side to side, his pale fingers against the pale skin. Tyler can hear the movement, feel the movement against his arm.
“In another universe?”
“Yeah, like multiverse.”
“Multi-what?”
“Multiverse. You know, multiple universes. String theory?”
“I don’t really know. You could explain though. I love when you talk nerdy.” Josh’s eye roll is audible and Tyler tries not to laugh anymore. He really does love when Josh starts talking about weird things like space and black holes and planetary collisions. It’s like a G rated bedroom talk. Maybe there will be a round two tonight, Tyler thinks.
Josh sighs and turns to his side, his face pressing against Tyler’s chest, his lips blow puffs of hot air against the exposed skin before he sits up on the edge of the bed unable to sit still to perform a proper explanation. He pulls the edge of his shorts up to rest low on his hips. Tyler only half pretends to be disappointed. The other half is real disappointment.
“I thought you were the smart one in school.”
“No, J. I was a jock. Jocks aren't really known for their intelligence. I passed algebra two because the teacher wanted us to win championship that year with basketball and if I didn’t get at least a C I wasn’t going to play. You’re the late bloomer here.”
Josh sighs again sitting back down on the bed. First he lays on his back, then twisting on his side, trying to get into a comfortable position and failing. Instead returning to his first spot with his face pressing against Tyler’s chest, skin to skin contact soothing him for a moment before he starts. Tyler can feel his jawbone moving against his heartbeat.
“Didn’t you ever wonder what would happen if you made a different choice?”
“What choice? Like if I still worked at the Pavilion instead of doing this? Or like you?”
“Well yeah, but other stuff too,” Josh stands, his toes getting caught in the edge of the rumpled bed spread, tripping for a half second, he catches himself against the desk and the chair that tried to steal his clothes before he rights himself. “Like every single choice you’ve ever made in your entire life. How every single choice affects your life now. Not just work but everything from like if you bought white bread or rye last week at Wal-Mart or if you set up your Netflix for auto-renewal or not. Or if you read To Kill a Mockingbird in high school or not. Or if you worked at Olive Garden instead of Red Lobster for that one week back in sophomore year. If you jumped off the roof at your parent’s house or not. If you took AP Chem or not. If you sang Car Radio tonight or you skipped it.”
Tyler just watches as Josh paces the small room, his steps getting larger as his explanation takes on more passion, his eyes widen, his mouth struggles to form the words as quickly as they pop into his head. Tyler worms his way up in the bed, his back against the ten thousand pillows that every “five star” hotel seems to give you. The back of his legs still feels sticky. He hopes he’s getting semi-dry cum all over Josh’s sheets, revenge for the sweaty pillows he’ll have to flip over later. Josh makes at least ten laps from the window on one wall of the room to the door on the other side of the room and back.
“Yeah but how does that change my universe?”
“Everything acts on you. There is no effect without a cause. All those things you did, that’s what put you here right now. If you changed a single one of those things everything would be different. Because just maybe since you picked Count Chocula over Boo Berry when you were ten is why we just fucked.”
Tyler squints against the blinding lights of the room, his mind struggling to keep up. Half of what his mad dog is saying sounds like nonsense.
“Joshua, really I doubt that my choice in cereal before I knew how to shave didn’t lead up to what just happened.” Tyler smiles. “I mean it was magnificent so if it did I need to go out and buy some Count Chocula to celebrate.” Josh either doesn’t pick up on the joke or ignores it and plows on instead.
“No but it did. You didn’t know it then and you still don’t know but if you picked anything else, Captain Crunch or Frosted Flakes or...or even Wheaties then who knows what could have happened?” Josh’s staring at his fingers, he looks almost crazed. No, Ty thinks, he does look crazy.
“You’re telling me I never would have met you if I preferred oatmeal to cereal?”
“Possibly. That’s the thing, every single choice you are given and make there are a million universes that stem from that one moment where you make a different choice and things are so wildly different in those worlds that who knows what else you could have picked.” Josh shakes his head. “It starts with picking a different cereal but because of that choice now your parents have to spend more money at the grocery store, so you can’t afford a new gameboy for Christmas and instead of teasing people at school now you’re the one who’s getting teased and then - “
“So in another universe we’re married?” Tyler cuts in. He chews his lip noisily from his post at the top of the bed. He grinds his damp ass into the sheets again. In this universe Josh will sleep on the grosser side tonight even if it kills him.
“Yes. Probably in some universe we’ve done that. But in a million universes we’ve never met. Or you hate me. Or you kill me. Or you get married to somebody else and you travel like a million miles away. Or you - “
“Or you hate me.” Tyler says, stopping his motions, instead just watching Josh finally stall. He stops in his tracks, Ty gives him a sad smile.
“I could never hate you. Not in any universe”
“But you just said that things could be different. In some other universe I’m not me, I’m Tyler the guy who builds bicycles and hit your cat when we were sixteen and now you want me dead.”
“No, not even there. I couldn’t hate you.” Josh says, seriously and his eyes unable to look away from Tyler’s face. He’s so damn honest about this that the emotions pull angrily on Tyler’s worn down heartstrings. Josh starts to pace again.
Tyler laughs one more time, the combination between the ridiculous conversation, the light shining off the back of Josh’s head, the pink strands still standing up all over the place, the cold feeling of the AC finally kicking on, it all adds to make things seems surreal. He curls up inside the covers, he tugs them up to his chin.
“My ass or my bald spot?” Josh manages, whipping himself around so quickly Tyler stops all sound coming from him.
“Just you. You’re dumb.” Josh just stands there, his fingers clutching each other tightly, his eyes on Tyler’s face searching for something more, something deeper. He always looks like he’s waiting for the other foot to drop and for the news to finally be delivered that yes, this is the universe where Tyler fucks up his heart so badly and leaves and never looks back. Instead Tyler leaves his safe, warm, albeit a little moist blanket nest and instead crawls to the end of the bed, taking Josh’s twisted up fingers in his own. The cold air hits his legs and he shudders.
“I would find you in any universe there is. Any single one. We will always meet up one way or another. We’ll find each other okay? Always.”
Josh melts, his shoulder relax and roll forward, he lets out the air he had been holding in, he sits down on the edge of the bed. Tyler inches himself backwards toward the covers, pulling them down around his bare shoulders.
“Now since we’re in a universe where I still have your cum all over my ass and you are still a sweaty absolutely disgusting mess what do you say we take a shower, baldy?” Tyler’s fingers wrap around Josh’s neck, he leans into the motion for a second, letting Josh’s radiating sun body help heat him up in the cool room. He presses his lips against Josh's bare chest and his body is so damn hot in just about every way that word could be used.
In some other world Josh says no, in some other world they both collapse back on the bed for a second round, in a completely different world Tyler showers alone, in one Josh walks away offended, somewhere in a million universes they’re both evacuated because of a fire alarm, in one world Josh’s phone rings and in another it’s Tyler’s turn to get a call, somewhere they’re interrupted by the turn down service, in one the water doesn’t work, but in this world they both get up and head into the small shower stall and Tyler thinks this world is just about as perfect as it can get.