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The straw that broke the camel’s back was the fact that Josh couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking enough to properly ignite the flame of his lighter. The smiley face stickers he had adorned on the side seemed to mock him when he looked at them desperately, and his back was aching because he got the shit whipped out of it, and he was wet and cold and freezing because winter in Ohio is a bitch and he had to take the bus because he was too poor for a car and he was late on rent and he was still working at Target even though everyone in his life gave him shit for it, and he wanted the head high from the cigarette so bad it was like he couldn’t breathe, but he couldn’t get it because of his stupid fucking hands that can’t stop shaking and then he thought to himself, genuinely and sincerely, Why the fuck am I alive? I should fucking kill myself, I have nothing and no one to live for.
Which was a statement that he thought to himself semi-often because, well. His life fucking sucked. Except he meant it this time, and just the mere idea of it, being dead on the bathroom floor with no more worries and no more bills and no one else to disappoint, felt like a kiss. More than that, it felt like hope. It felt like…
“You need help, dude,” a voice from beside Josh said. Even though there wasn’t a person there a second ago. Josh turned to the source of the voice, ready to tell them to go bother someone else, but his eyes widened at the sight in front of him instead. The man there, wearing an oversized blue coat, had a halo. Which could’ve only meant one thing.
“I…”
Josh didn’t know what to say to his newfound savior.
The angel’s halo, colored hot pink and purple and yellow just like the Taco Bell sign, buzzed and crackled. When his angel smiled at him, he had slightly crooked teeth, and he had a few spots of acne on his face that made him look so fucking human that Josh almost could have written off the halo. Almost.
“Give me that,” the angel said, pointing to Josh’s lighter. Josh gave it to him wordlessly because he didn’t know what else to do. Countless thoughts ran through his head. The angel was going to throw it away, the angel was going to lecture him about living, the angel was going to make Josh toss away his cigarettes and his alcohol and his vibrating dildo and the only things in his life that brought him joy .
Fucking hell, he was going to have to be religious now.
The angel lit Josh’s cigarette for him. Then, with Josh’s lighter still in hand, he reached into the pocket of his coat and pulled out his own pack. He had these yellow bandages on his fingers and Josh couldn’t stop staring at the dirt underneath his fingernails.
He lit his own cigarette, guarding the flame, and when he handed the lighter back to Josh, Josh could’ve sworn he felt that fire's warmth.
“I’m Tyler,” the angel said. A cloud of smoke came with his voice. “I’m here to save your life.”
The angel did a few things first when they both got off the bus and walked the block back to Josh’s apartment. First, the angel pulled ingredients out of Josh’s cabinets that weren’t there before and he began to make a concoction on the stove. Secondly, the angel rifled through Josh’s small vinyl collection and put on Recovery by Eminem. Finally, the angel ordered Josh to take off his shirt.
So now, they’re here.
“I don’t want to take off my shirt,” Josh says. He knows what’s underneath his shirt and he doesn’t want to hear what Tyler has to say about it. Because his angel can smoke cigarettes, and his angel can dance around to Eminem rapping about getting his dick sucked, and his angel can curse like a sailor when he accidentally drops a pot on his toe, but there’s no way that his angel would condone this.
Tyler’s still cooking on the stove, but he turns around to give Josh a look when he says no.
“Why not?” Tyler asks. “You don’t want to show me what’s underneath? I know what’s there. That’s what this medicine is for, dumbass.”
Josh flinches at the insult.
Tyler grimaces at himself.
“Shit, sorry,” Tyler wipes his hands on his sweatpants. “Listen, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to call you that, it’s just– I mean, I’m your guardian angel, you know? I’ve watched you be a danger to yourself. Now that I get the chance to do something about it, I’m a little eager.”
Josh’s fingers twitch. He stares at Tyler’s halo when Tyler turns back to the stove and he forces himself to close his eyes. Tyler’s right – he's been destroying himself for some time now. So what does he have to prove now? Tyler manifested himself to Josh at Josh’s lowest fucking point, they both know that, that’s the only reason why he’s here.
“It’s bad,” Josh warns Tyler. “My back, I mean.”
“So why didn’t you safeword out?” Tyler asks, like he’s just asking about the weather or something. “I know you wanted to. I heard you crying, Joshua.”
He was crying. He was hurting so bad his vision turned white. But he didn’t want it to stop. He wanted the Dom to keep hitting him until he was beat to a pulp, until he was nothing anymore. He just wanted to feel something. But now he’s so full of shame and he can’t believe Tyler can’t see it, can’t shut the fuck about it because he’s making this worse.
“I know what I was doing, you don’t have to remind me. Dude, like…? I don’t even know why you’re here, you’re not even helping,” Josh argues. “I thought your guardian angel was supposed to be nice to you.”
Josh has heard stories; he sometimes found himself on the Guardian Angel subreddit when he was feeling particularly hopeless. He knew that guardian angels were supposed to protect you, they were supposed to lovingly make you see what was already in front of you. At the very least, they were supposed to be reassuring when you were at your lowest point.
So far, all Tyler has done has indulged Josh’s nicotine addiction and pissed off his neighbors with all of the loud music he’s blasting.
“I am being nice to you,” Tyler argues back over his boiling pot. “I’m making you something for your infected back, I’m–”
“My back isn’t infected,” Josh shifts uncomfortably. Now that Tyler has brought it up, his back does hurt in a deep in my bones way. But he won’t admit that. “The guy just broke skin, it happens sometimes…”
“Newsflash, Joshua,” Tyler turns around for this part, just to emphasize his point. The colors in his halo flicker like mad and there’s a bit of lavender in his eyes. “Your basement BDSM club doesn’t disinfect their whips. So, yeah, your back is infected. Take off your fucking shirt and let me fix you. Stop being stubborn about things you have no idea about.”
“You don’t know me!” Josh shouts at him. “You don’t even know that I hate being called Joshua. You’re a– fuck, you’re a stranger and I want you to go away!”
Tyler shrugs. “Can’t do that now that I’ve been assigned to intervene. You’re stuck with me, Josh.”
“Fine,” Josh stands up. “Then I’m going away from you!”
Josh’s apartment is about the size of a walk-in closet. There’s no real place to escape. Still, that doesn’t stop him from locking himself in his bathroom. He catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he heats the water for his shower and holy shit, he looks fucked. No wonder his angel decided he was needed. There’s blood across his back in the shape of lashes and he can’t help the desperate sound that makes its way out of his throat when he realizes that he might actually need Tyler’s help to fix this. And to fix his fucking life.
“No,” Josh repeats to himself as he paces in the tiny space between the toilet and the wall. “No, no, no, no. You got this. You got this, man, you can do it on your own, you–”
“You don’t,” Tyler calls out to him. It probably wasn’t hard for him to hear Josh’s half-hearted pep talk— the kitchen is only a few steps away. “And you can’t. Your water is getting cold, by the way.”
Josh scowls at the sound of Tyler’s voice. And then he gets in the shower because he doesn’t want the water to freeze.
So his guardian angel is good for one thing. A thermometer could do his job, though, so Josh doesn’t count it.
Josh finds Tyler on his bed when he comes out of the shower. This would be a little suggestive, but Josh’s apartment is a studio and there’s nowhere else for anyone to go. Tyler’s playing an episode of Sex and the City on Josh’s phone that he’s propped up to be a makeshift television and when Josh raises his eyebrows at the choice, Tyler shrugs. “I couldn’t find anything else that looked interesting. You want me to get your back for you?”
Josh nods. His back was bleeding in the shower, red puddles around his feet that made him feel nauseous, and infected back or not Josh has work in the morning. So, fine. He’ll make Tyler work.
“Alright,” Tyler stands. “You can lie on your stomach, I’ll grab my stuff. Stop freaking out.”
“You know me, don’t you?” Josh asks. “You know freaking out is sort of the only thing I know how to do.”
“Besides masturbating,” Tyler tries to joke. “You do that a lot.”
Josh stares at him.
Tyler ducks his head and curses under his breath. And when he turns back from the cabinets, Josh is in position. Josh hears his sharp inhale and he knows that Tyler is finally seeing what Josh saw for himself in the mirror. The fucking product of all of his self hatred, right here laid out for him.
“I thought you were mad at me?” Tyler asks as he uncaps his container of magic lotion, or whatever he was making earlier. An hour ago, Josh would’ve asked what it was, but now he’s feening to be touched. Usually, he comes down alone from his messy headspace alone… this is a nice change of pace.
“Not that I want you to be mad at me,” Tyler continues. “But I thought you were mad.”
“What do I have to be mad about?” Josh asks. He speaks into his bare arms. “I did this to myself, there’s nothing I can do about it now.”
He pauses. “If I’m honest, I kind of thought I didn’t have an angel watching over me. I didn’t know how much worse it had to get before the universe sent me a sign. It’s been bad for so long, I just… yeah.”
Tyler’s touch on his back hurts like hell and it makes his stomach feel warm. He almost wants to moan. His eyes flutter close and he tries to lose himself to the feeling of this. No one has touched him like this in so long… so tenderly, like he actually mattered, like he was deserving of it.
“Make all the sounds you want,” Tyler murmurs to him. His voice is the color of his halo, the sunset. “I can hear them in your head anyway, you know.”
And this might just be in his head too, but it’s like he can actually feel the antibacterial magical whatever-the-fuck healing him. Tyler continues his episode of Sex and the City, and by the time it’s done, Josh’s back is finished too.
“All done,” Tyler says, wiping his hands on Josh’s comforter. “I’ll be watching to make sure you don’t roll over onto your back tonight, so you don’t have to worry about it.”
“Thank you,” Josh says, his eyes wide and almost teary when he looks at Tyler. Tyler’s halo is bright and solid in its color, nothing like how it was earlier, and suddenly, Josh is full of questions. “I feel like I should be paying you. Even though you’re, like. Not real and also sent for me.”
“That’s okay,” Tyler smiles.
Josh stares at him.
Tyler stares back.
“That’s it?” Josh asks. “I thought you were going to make a dumb joke again or insult me or be a dick like you were earlier.”
“You’re—” There’s a flash in Tyler’s halo, a moment where the gorgeous color breaks and it’s just white like pure fire, before it goes back to how it normally looks. Frustration, then, Josh considers. The colors change and flicker and move with Tyler’s emotions. “You didn’t like any of that. You were right before, I’m not doing a good job as your guardian angel. So I’m going to keep my comments to myself.”
“No…” Josh frowns. “Um. Can you be yourself again? This is even stranger.”
In a second, Tyler’s posture loosens out. “Okay... if you say so. Anything else you want tonight? Once I’m relaxing, I don’t like to be bothered so you might as well tell me now.”
Josh can’t help his smile. His first one all night.
Tyler’s wings are huge and white and fluffy. They look like a kindergartener’s interpretation of what angel wings would look like, outrageously simple and standard but there’s something special there. There’s a glint to them, almost — kinda Cullen-esque.
“Woah,” Josh says when he comes out of the bathroom, dressed and ready to go to work, and is greeted to the sight of the wings the next morning. Tyler’s got Josh’s AirPods in, though Josh can still hear the Eminem that he’s playing, and he’s spreading cigarette ash all over the floor and kitchen mat. “Good morning, wow.”
Tyler looks over to Josh and then his wings retract into his back. He pulls the AirPods out of his ears and he looks inconvenienced to have to interrupt his listening session. “Hey.”
Tyler’s also shirtless. Once the wings are gone, that’s the main thing that Josh focuses on. Because Tyler’s pretty hot. And he’s got tattoos. He didn’t know that dudes with tattoos get into Heaven, but now that he’s looking closer, he understands why. Tyler’s covered in crosses. Where Josh’s tattoos are colorful and vibrant, actual art, Tyler’s are… serious looking. There are lines around his wrists and his forearm and Josh wants to know what it is and what it means.
“Hey,” Josh says instead. “Why’d you get rid of your wings? They’re pretty. I don’t mind them.”
“I mind them,” Tyler grumbles. He flicks his cigarette ash on the floor again. And when Josh gives him a look, Tyler waves his hand. And the floor magically clears. “I was going to clean it, don’t worry your little head. I got your breakfast ready.”
“Oh,” Josh looks at the cereal on the counter next to the stove. “Thanks, but I usually don’t eat before work.”
“You have to,” Tyler says. “It’s going to make the day easier to get through. It’ll take you five minutes and it’s going to make a huge difference, trust me.”
Tyler turns a certain way and Josh catches a good look at the line of fair hair that starts below his belly button and goes down to the elastic part of Josh’s boxers that Tyler’s wearing.
Josh idly wonders what angel dick might look like. And feel like. And taste like.
“You should write this stuff down,” Tyler chatters on. “I won’t be here in a couple of days and these are the good habits you have to foster if you want the quality of your life to improve. Now, sit down.”
“I don’t care about the quality of my life improving because of cereal,” Josh says, trying to get rid of all of the angel sex thoughts before Tyler eavesdrops on what’s going on in his head. “I just want to get to work on time so I don’t get fired. So… I’m going to get going now.”
Tyler glares at Josh over his shoulder before he returns his attention to the refrigerator. He pulls out a jug of orange juice that 100% wasn’t there a second ago, and he points to the bowl of cereal. “Dude, don’t fight me on this. Because you’re going to eat. You need something in your system before you start your day.”
“How come you get to start your day with cigarettes and I can’t?” Josh asks. “It’s not fair. It doesn’t spark joy.”
“I don’t sleep,” Tyler says to him smugly. “There’s no such thing as starting my day for me. Seriously, stop being a big baby and maybe I’ll light a cigarette for you if you’re a good boy.”
“I could’ve lit it myself yesterday!” Josh argues. “I just. It was just a bad day.”
He waits until Tyler has looked at him to continue what he has wanted to say since yesterday. “It really was just a bad day yesterday. I didn’t mean anything I said. I don’t think I could… I mean, I don’t think I could actually go through with something like that. You have to know that, right? Like… it’s just jokes. I’m allowed to joke about how terrible and stupid my life is…”
Tyler looks at him. His halo is solid again, so bright and vibrant like a warning sign. He doesn’t have to say the words he’s going to say, Josh knows already. “I wouldn’t be here if the situation wasn’t dire. If not for the thoughts that you let replay in your head to help you sleep, then for what you did to yourself.”
“So you have a problem with it,” Josh says. His back feels actually amazing thanks to Tyler’s potion, but he has flashbacks to last night that send phantom strikes through him. The pain zings like lightning, he can feel it in his fingertips and in the undyed roots of his hair, and those are just the memories.
“You don’t like the fact that I’m into pain. Or, no, God has a problem with it, and now I’m getting punished with you.”
“Trust me,” Tyler scoffs, folding his arms across his chest and inadvertently drawing attention to the negative space cross tattoo that’s placed there. “God isn’t concerned with that. And me being here didn’t seem like a punishment last night while I was taking care of you, did it?”
Josh throws his hands up. “Isn’t this all about God? Isn’t— that’s the entire point! Listen, okay, everyone on this planet would be better off without having me to worry about, and the only way I can semi-function so that I don’t worry people is if I have something reliable to hurt me. So, I don’t know if it’s you, or God, or the fucking Grim Reaper who’s judging me for it but I’m gonna need you all to not.”
Josh reconsiders his statement for a moment. “Oh, my boss probably wouldn’t be better off without me. Yeah, he’d be real pissed to have to call someone else to replace me on the register. He’d probably miss me for those couple of hours.”
“I would care if you died,” Tyler says. “Don’t be stupid. I’ve been watching you screw up your life for the longest time, I want to see you succeed. So can you just do what I want you to do? Can you just sit the fuck down and drink some orange juice?”
Josh laughs in disbelief. “This is so— thanks for fixing my back, seriously, but I don’t need you to make me breakfast and to… to— it’s like you’re my mom, or something, or my boyfriend, and it’s. It’s really not necessary. Can’t you just tell me some good stuff in my life? And tell me that things will get better?”
Tyler looks at him bored. “Well, there’s not many good things to say if we’re being honest with each other. And things probably won’t get better if you don’t make some changes. Like the changes I’m suggesting to you now.”
Josh laughs again. Except this one feels all spikey in his throat, like it’s full of daggers. “Yeah, some orange juice is gonna cure me. Thanks, Tyler. Fucking hell.”
And now he feels panicky and that feeling won’t go away. Because like, okay, shit. His guardian angel can’t save him. No one can save him. His life really does suck, Tyler said so. There’s not many good things to say if we’re being honest with each other.
“Um,” Josh says. “I’m going to go now. Okay? I’ll see you later. Okay, bye!”
He grabs his keys from his bedside table and he bolts out the door so that Tyler won’t see him freak out. And then like lightning, Tyler’s dressed and following Josh down the stairs of his apartment building. Josh trips over his shoes when he sees Tyler at his heels, and the only reason why he doesn’t tumble down the stairs is because Tyler grabs at his shirt collar in the nick of time.
“I’m your angel,” Tyler says, still holding onto Josh’s collar. His voice is low and serious and he’s so close that Josh can smell his own cheap after-shave on him. The idea of Tyler shaving with Josh’s razor, using his things, wearing his things… it makes his stomach twist. “I have nowhere else to go. You can’t hide from me.”
“Why not?” Josh asks. He tries to pull away from Tyler, but Tyler’s grasp on him is steady. “I wish you would just leave me alone. That would make my life better. You leaving me alone and letting me live my miserable life the way I want to live it.”
“You’re making a big deal about orange juice,” Tyler says.
“You’re making a big deal about orange juice!” Josh argues. “You’re the one who keeps pushing it!”
“Because– because you need to be healthy!” Tyler’s collected, calm, and chill demeanor washes away the more frustrated he gets. Josh wonders what he’s like when he’s uncontrollably angry, if angels can even get angry. “Goddamn, do you even know what fruits are?”
“Of course I know what fruits are,” Josh defends himself. “I’m too poor to buy and eat fruits.”
“Well,” Tyler lets go of him and watches him stumble before he catches his own balance. “Maybe if you didn’t spend your money on low quality weed or paying fees to your club, you’d be able to eat fruits. There’s a certain way to do things and you’re doing it wrong.”
And it’s like. Josh didn’t think it was going to be like this. If Josh wanted to hear about fruits and giving up weed and pleasure, he would’ve just consulted his parents. Or anyone who thought they understood how his head worked, but actually didn’t. Josh had so many ideas and fantasies about the person who would come and change his life and Tyler is such a fucking let-down it’d be kind of funny if it weren’t so depressing it makes Josh want to cry a little. His life already sucks and now he has to deal with a chain-smoking Eminem-addicted preacher. Tyler did something nice for him last night and then he threw it in his face this morning and that’s been Josh’s whole entire life in a nutshell so it’s–
“Forget it,” Josh says. “Follow me if you want, I don’t really care.”
He searches his pockets for his phone and AirPods and then he looks at Tyler expectantly when he comes up empty.
“Can we share?” Tyler asks, handing Josh back his things. “If I have to hang out in Target without music I might freak out on someone.”
Josh hates his life.
It seems to be the case that when Tyler has his wings out, that means that he’s invisible to others. Last night, people knew he was on the bus with Josh – someone catcalled him, big blue coat and all, and he told them to eat shit. But now, with his fluffy wings out, no one has glanced at him. Or has asked why he’s following Josh around.
“Did you cut my shirt?” Josh asks when he takes notice of Tyler’s wings. He told himself he was going to ignore Tyler but everyone who works retail knows that it gets so boring sometimes and Ashley and Sameer, Josh’s favorite coworkers, don’t come in for another two hours. So, Josh works with what he’s got.
“Yeah,” Tyler chews on his bubblegum. He looks unsurprised by the fact that Josh is talking to him, almost like he knew Josh was going to break for him. “It’s one you don’t like though. I’ll sew it back together for you if you care that much. I don’t really get to bring anything with me when I get assigned to these cases.”
Josh lazily recovers some shelves and speaks low so that no one will think he’s crazy, talking to what they perceive is just air. “Oh. So you’ve saved people before.”
Tyler nods. “Yes. Don’t worry, okay?”
“You know, you keep saying that, and every time you say it, I worry more,” Josh says.
Tyler grins at him. “Smart boy. But don’t.”
Josh gets a warm feeling in his stomach when Tyler says that, and the way that Tyler looks at him afterwards, it’s like Tyler knows it too. It’s not fair. Josh wants to push Tyler’s buttons too, see if he can get his tough exterior to crack, but it seems like it only happens when he’s pissing Tyler off. And Josh isn’t really in the business of pissing Tyler off, he’s magical, who knows what he could do?
“So…” Tyler blows another bubble. “Entertain me for a bit.”
“I don’t even know how to entertain myself,” Josh says. “I come here, my brain goes on autopilot, and then I go home. This is not a life worth saving.”
“If you say that shit again I’ll kick you,” Tyler says, not necessarily angrily but sternly. “Understand? Your life is worth saving, don’t make my job look like a fucking joke.”
“I think you’re treating your job like a fucking joke,” Josh says. “You’re asking me to make you less bored, why don’t you go listen to Eminem or something and do some laps around the– why do you listen to Eminem anyway? I feel like Eminem doesn’t align with, like, anything holy or heavenly. He raps about killing women and he calls people faggots.”
Tyler leans against the shelves. His halo is really gorgeous in the shitty light of the store, Josh can’t get enough of it. It is a rare thing to see something beautiful in his life. “I can’t listen to a lot of music that I like when I’m upstairs. And trips downstairs make me feel grimy for days. So when I’m here, I try to get my fix.”
Josh blinks. “You make trips downstairs.”
Tyler nods. “Yeah. Eminem’s not dead, he can’t host events himself, so the DJ plays really shitty remixes… it’s not even the real thing. I mean, it’s Hell, you know, everything is supposed to be bad, but… putting Eminem behind a shitty beat and having the DJ interrupt every other minute with adlibs and sirens, it’s not… good.”
Josh can’t believe what he’s hearing right now.
“That’s not the part I’m stuck on!” Josh whisper-yells. “You go clubbing in hell, what the fuck?! Are you a demon? Be honest. It's not like I can do anything about it.”
“No, I’m not a demon,” Tyler rolls his eyes. “I just happen to have a fake ID that my buddy Mark gave me. Just because I’m an angel doesn’t mean I can’t have fun sometimes.”
“Being an angel means that you’re good,” Josh says. “Doesn’t being an angel mean you were good on Earth, or something?”
Tyler’s eyes flash with something that Josh cannot read. There’s no poking and prodding at him, really. “Not because I wanted to be. Sometimes life’s full of these little conundrums, like are you really a good person if you’ve been forced to be one? The answer, according to God, is yes. There are certain little systems in place, which is what I’m trying to tell you… kinda like these little hacks. If you eat breakfast in the morning, even though you don’t want to, your day becomes better because you’re nourished and you’ve tricked your body into thinking you’re okay and then you’ve cheated the system. Sometimes, that’s all you can do… fake it till you make it.”
And with that, Tyler takes Josh’s phone and AirPods and starts to head in the other direction, singing loud enough because he knows no one can hear him, I was born with a dick in my brain, yeah, fucked in the head!, almost like he knew there was nothing Josh could’ve said in response to him. So Josh just… sits with it.
After work, Josh, Ashley, and Sameer go out to Applebee’s. Tyler tags along, because he doesn’t have a choice, but he says that he’ll sit in the corner and listen to Nine Inch Nails. Josh is just ecstatic that his Spotify won’t be filled entirely with Marshall Bruce Mathers III, so he sends him off happily.
“Well,” Ashley holds up her margarita. “Cheers to half off appetizers and five dollar drinks loaded with alcohol!”
They cheers. It’s sad. But they’re in the heart of suburbia and Applebee’s is a walk across the lot from Target. Meaning– it’s fucking lit. Meaning – there’s nothing else to do here. It was either Applebee’s or Olive Garden, and though Olive Garden has that whole breadsticks thing, Applebee’s has the better deal on alcohol.
“So,” Sameer sets down his drink once they’ve all chugged their first and placed orders for seconds. “You’re saying that your angel is here right now. Like… as we speak.”
“Um…” Josh catches Tyler’s eye across the bar. Tyler is always watching him, Josh has come to realize. Tyler gives him a nod and Josh nods back. “Yeah. He’s over there. Guys, it’s really weird. I don’t think I like it… at all.”
“I met my angel when I was 14,” Ashley says. “She saved my life. I think it might just take some time for you because you still don’t believe it was really necessary. I fell for my angel hook, line, and sinker because I knew I needed her… I did whatever she wanted me to do.”
And Josh gets that, really, but also… “But you don’t enjoy living, Ash. I mean, let’s be real here. So did she really help?”
She shifts uncomfortably. “Well, I don’t not enjoy living. It’s better than it used to be and I’m happy to be here for the moments that are good.”
“But they’re so few and far between for me,” Josh speaks candidly once he’s got even a drop of alcohol in him. His alcohol induced blabbermouth has led to disastrous events in the past, but he loses most of his nervousness when he drinks too, so it’s kind of a win-lose on both sides of the spectrum for him. Josh hardly wins in life, this is something that Tyler should get through his thick skull.
“Well,” Sameer says, drawing little stick figures in the condensation on his glass, “I met my angel when I was 18. We had a lot of sex.”
Josh spits out his drink all over the table.
In a second, Tyler is by his side, frustration written all over his face as he hits Josh on the back to help him cough out everything in his lungs. Except, Josh’s back is still hurting, so in a quick second, he’s bombarded with a whole ton of feeling. Tyler by his side, the beautiful pain from his back radiating heat against his shirt, the fucking tequila in his lungs… it’s a lot.
“I leave you alone for five minutes, Joshua, five fucking minutes!” Tyler shouts. “Fucking Christ!”
“Oh, hi,” Ashley says to Tyler, since he is visible to everyone with his wings put away. She wipes their table with brown napkins and leaves them on the side. “You use a lot of swear words. That’s interesting.”
Sameer looks at Josh in concern as Josh coughs, his throat wrecked like he just did some unholy things. Or, if what Sameer is telling him is true, maybe those things are, indeed, holy if you do them with the right supernatural creature. Once Josh has caught his breath, he squeaks out, “you and your angel did what?!”
“My angel and I had a lot of sex,” Sameer repeats. And then he turns to Tyler. “Hi.”
“Hey,” Tyler says.
“Is that legal?” Josh sputters. “Having sex with your angel, isn’t that— like, basically having sex with your therapist?!”
“No,” Tyler answers, shaking his head. “Anything kinda goes. Sometimes humans feel a deep sense of connection to their angel… it’s a little looked down upon, as humans can sometimes feel rejection when their angel has to leave, but it’s not not a thing.”
He pauses. “Also, how would it be illegal? ”
“That’s fucked,” Josh says. Images fill his head because of course they do— he’s touch-starved as all hell, he can’t help it. Tyler on his back, Tyler on his knees, Tyler’s mouth open as he orgasms. He feels Tyler’s hand on his back, so hot, and he knows, he knows, that Tyler can see what he’s thinking. “That’s— that’s so wrong.”
“I don’t sleep around on my assignments,” Tyler brushes some of Josh’s hair behind his hair. “Sorry, baby.”
“You’re such a dick!” Josh says, swatting Tyler’s hands away. “God, I don’t like him. He’s so annoying, you guys see this shit, right?”
Ashley and Sameer give him sympathetic enough looks, but they don’t look convinced.
By either of them.
Josh dreams of violence. In this dream, he’s shirtless and tied to a tree outside. It’s dark. He can’t see much in front of him, but he can see Tyler’s halo flickering to the beat of his pulse. The bark of the tree digs into his back, his hands are dry and clammy at the same time as he rubs them against each other and he can feel thick rope against his wrists… there’s a tugging on his nipples and when Josh looks down, he sees that there are clamps on them. More than that, the clamps are connected to one another by a thin chain. Josh can feel the chain as the only cool part of him, everything else is hot. The summertime air, his body, the adrenaline through his veins.
Tyler is shirtless too, and his tattoos glow the same color as his eyes now, lavender. Josh misses the familiar brown but the lavender makes this more intense… it’s Tyler’s true form shining through just his vessel. The feathers on Tyler’s wings rustle with the breeze and Josh can smell stale cigarette smoke on him.
Tyler twists the chain on Josh’s chest with his fingers. He’s wearing those yellow bandages around them again. He tells Josh to count down from three.
Be a good boy for once, Tyler tells him.
Josh wakes with a gasp before he gets to one.
His hands fly to his chest, to protect himself, but there’s nothing on his chest. His hands are free. His back feels fine. He’s fine. Yet, he lies back against his thin and sweat-stained sheets with a frustrated groan. He’s hard in his boxers and he squeezes his eyes shut and shoves a hand down beneath the sheets to try to get off to the memory of it. Trees... Tyler... Tyler's halo... the smell of Tyler's wings...
He knows Tyler is nearby. He can hear him pausing his Rosalía song. Bebé, te quiero comer ya, ya… ya te quiero hacer hentai…
“Block out my thoughts,” Josh grits out through his teeth as he works himself over fast and urgently lest he forget the image on his head. Tyler’s mischievous grin, his intense gaze. “Don’t speak to me about this.”
Tyler is quiet.
Josh comes with a satisfied sigh.
Tyler hands him a tissue after a quiet moment of the both of them trying to catch their breath. “Sweet dreams,” he says. “Well, sweeter dreams. I guess.”
Tyler is quieter in the morning. When Josh wakes up, his apartment has been cleaned. The shower drain is no longer clogged with hair and soap scum. There’s breakfast on the counter by the stove, chocolate chip pancakes and turkey bacon. It seems to be an apology of some sort, even though Josh is the one who masturbated to thoughts of him, even though Josh crossed their boundary.
It’s almost like Tyler is disgusted with him and wants to get his job over and done with. But then, Josh spots a mug of instant coffee that makes him pause his self-deprecating thought process.
“Where did you find this?” Josh asks, running his thumb over the words on the mug. This belongs to the best brother ever! “My sisters made this for me when we were kids, I thought I lost it.”
“It was underneath your bed,” Tyler says. “I just. I wanted to—”
Josh knows what Tyler wanted to do. He wanted to be nice. He wanted to remind Josh of a good memory. Unfortunately...
“My parents didn’t approve when I told them I didn’t want to go to college,” Josh says. “They didn’t kick me out, but they kind of did… they told me it was to straighten me out, to make me see that life was going to be difficult if I didn’t attempt to hone in on a skill. But I never really learned my lesson. I just accepted the misery because I’m not good at anything.”
Tyler listens to him. He smokes a cigarette and right when Josh is about to remind him not to leave ash on the floor, Tyler flicks the ash into an ashtray.
“I’m the oldest sibling,” Josh says. He reads the words over and over again. This belongs to the best brother ever! This belongs to the best brother ever! This belongs to the best brother ever!
Abby had taken a class to learn how to make this. Ashley, his other sister, had painted it.
“I’m the oldest sibling and I feel like… I disappointed them all,” Josh admits. Probably for the first time out loud. He can’t afford a therapist because he doesn’t have health insurance, and his work friends are dealing with their own shit, it's been so bad for them that they've needed angels in the past. They don’t need this, this is just the tip of the iceberg that is Things wrong with Josh Dun. “They don’t even talk to me anymore.”
“They want to,” Tyler takes a drag from his cigarette. “I know that they do. I’m not a liar, Josh. I don’t do my job by telling you things that aren’t true. But they do want to talk to you. You projected your own shame onto them.”
Josh refuses to look at Tyler as he pours his coffee into another mug and leaves that one in the sink where he can’t look at it. “Yeah, well. I don’t know if I want to talk to them.”
“I’m the oldest sibling too, you know,” Tyler says. “Was. I was the oldest sibling.”
Josh looks up.
“I wish I had talked to my siblings before I did what I did,” Tyler says. “I think it could’ve saved everyone a lot of heartache.”
“Yeah, but you’re not a fucking freak,” Josh can feel his self-hatred begin to unthaw. The thing is that it’s always thawed out, though, so it’s like rotting meat with maggots and flies all over it. His brain is just like that… steaming and putrid and filled with holes. The hatred gnaws at him and he knows, because Tyler is here and not elsewhere, that he doesn’t have much left before he’s completely taken over by that.
“Who said you’re a freak?” Tyler asks. He hands over his cigarette to Josh when there’s just enough for one more drag and Josh finishes it off gratefully. Still, it doesn’t help the feeling in his chest.
“Uh…” Josh looks at him bewildered. “You? You did? You told me to give up the shit that I— you were there last night, you knew my dream, you know what I fucking want. And you keep telling me that I have to give it up, my dungeon night. And I don't want to. So I feel like we're never going to meet eye-to-eye.”
“That’s different,” Tyler waves him off. “What you want doesn’t make you a freak. It’s the avenue that you take to get to it that I don’t like.”
“No, I get it,” Josh says. “You hate the BDSM stuff. The thing is that I don’t. And I’m going to keep doing it.”
“I hate it because…” Tyler makes this low sound in his throat, almost a growl, and he turns his head in hopes that Josh won’t see the flash of lavender in his eyes. “Whatever. Forget it. This is going to lead to a disaster.”
“No, what?” Josh pushes. “What, Tyler?”
“Nothing.”
“Tyler.”
“Because you don’t fucking do it right, that’s why,” Tyler says. His halo buzzes and Josh always understood it to mean that Tyler’s patience for him was weakening, but now Josh thinks that it means desire. “Because you’re a fucking moron who puts himself in so much damn trouble.”
“Well, who’s gonna do it for me if I don’t seek it out?” Josh asks. “You, Ty? My precious fucking guardian angel, you're gonna hurt me the way I want to hurt? Doubt it.”
The halo’s buzzing gets louder, and the color gets stronger and stronger. Tyler’s hands are shaking. His lips are parted and he’s staring at Josh like he doesn’t know what to do. And Tyler always knows what to do, that’s his whole shtick.
“What do you want to do with your hands right now?” Josh asks, playing with fire once he sees the spark. This could be the death of him, but wasn't that the whole point? Wasn't the point to fucking die? “I see them shaking.”
“Wrap them around your throat,” Tyler replies. There’s lavender around his pupils. “Feel you struggle to breathe against me. Then I’ll show you how bad you want to fucking live.”
“Then do it,” Josh bares his throat for him. “Show me.”
Josh thought Tyler was going to treat him rough. He was halfway counting on him like a prayer. But then Tyler frames his face so gently he forgets all about his fucked up feelings for a moment. Tyler kisses him on the mouth even though Josh’s all slack jawed. And then his hands go lower.
“Tell me no,” Tyler says, his hands on Josh’s neck. They’re not even pressing in, it’s just a warm pressure. His hands are so big — Josh can feel the humming from the halo in them against his skin and suddenly, he needs Tyler to hurt him until he can’t breathe. “Tell me no, Josh, or I swear…”
Josh’s eyes flutter shut and he doesn’t say a word.
Tyler’s eyes have always been so intense but in the haziness of Josh’s own he swears he sees them glittering. Tyler’s wings are so tense as Tyler stares down at Josh’s reddening face. Josh makes a desperate noise as he chokes and the corner of Tyler’s mouth twitches like he wants to say something. But he doesn’t. He just looks at him.
Tyler lets Josh go right when Josh is sure he is going to pass out. He sucks in a breath that sounds like a sob and he brings his hands up to his neck. He looks at Tyler with tears in his eyes, he can’t think of a damn word to say, and Tyler doesn’t look pleased with him. At all.
“Don’t push me again,” Tyler says. “Don’t.”
“What if I want to?” Josh asks. His voice has a delicious burn to it and he knows Tyler can hear it too. Oh, he’ll play this fucking game now that Tyler broke. He quite literally has nothing to lose. “What if I need you to… like… punish me into doing what you want me to?”
Tyler scoffs. He turns and he puts Josh’s plate of food in front of him. “Don’t be a brat. Eat your food, you’re running late.”
And Josh has half a nerve to throw the plate right in Tyler’s face. He doesn’t even know what he wants, or what could make him feel alive, but getting choked like that was a good start. He wonders what else Tyler would do to him. Tyler said that he doesn’t have sex on the job, but this isn’t sex, this is a fucking power play and that just now, Josh was in control. There was something there that he did, he pissed him off and he got what he wanted. And now he wants more. Tyler said he wasn’t getting his kicks right. Well, what is his guardian angel supposed to do besides help him?
“I can read your thoughts, you know,” Tyler says. “You’re playing a fucking dangerous game here.”
“You keep saying that,” Josh says. He pushes the plate away from him gently and he smirks when Tyler’s jaw tightens. “The thing is that I don’t think I really believe you.”
Tyler looks at him for a long time. Well, like a couple of seconds, but it feels like a long time. And Josh stares right back. He lets Tyler see the redness on his neck, he lets him see that Josh is more than capable of taking what he dishes out.
“After work,” Tyler says, then. “I’ll take care of you after work.”
“Ash owes me five bucks,” Sameer says as he takes a good look at Josh’s neck in the breakroom. When he gently touches the faint red marks, Josh can feel himself shivering. “I told her it was going to happen before our next shift, she predicted a week.”
“They stay around that long?” Josh asks. God, he feels like he’s on cloud nine. Tyler’s been avoiding him all shift, but Josh doesn’t care. He doesn’t even care that Tyler’s been hogging his phone and headphones – he gets a reward after this. Well, no, he gets a punishment, but a punishment is like a reward.
“Listen,” Sameer scratches at his beard. “Don’t take this the wrong way. But–”
“I don’t want to hear it,” Josh interrupts him. “Please, man. This is like the first time I’m enjoying having him around. It’s just a little fooling around…”
“That’s how it begins,” Sameer says. “I’m just warning you. As someone who’s experienced it, it’s not worth it. You’ll never see him again once he’s gone, there’s no closure with it.”
Josh shrugs half-heartedly. He knows that if Sameer met his angel, shit must have been dark for him… but he doesn’t think it’s the same. Or, they’re the same. Like he doesn’t know how to put into words that he does not care. Nothing matters. Why would he care about pain later when he’s in pain now and something can help?
“I know we’re just work friends and stuff…but Ash and I care about you,” Sameer says. “Just be careful, okay?”
“Give me the worst you’ve got,” Josh says to Tyler once they’re inside the apartment. Josh had missed him all shift, if he’s honest. And for a gut-wrenching second, when Josh was clocking out, he thought that he had lost him. But then he appeared from around the corner with a dark look in his eyes that Josh thought only existed in shady basements.
Tyler laughs a little to himself as he shakes his head. He shrugs off his blue coat and he gently drapes it against the kitchen chair. “I like that you think you have a say in this.”
“I do,” Josh says. “I’ll piss you off until you do something to shut me up.”
“Just— just go take a shower,” Tyler says, waving him off. “Don’t wear a towel when you come out.”
Josh takes a deep breath in and then out. Oh. Okay. So it’s like that then. Fuck, what is Tyler going to do to him that requires him to be naked? Is he going to—
“Go!” Tyler shouts when Josh is standing there for too long overthinking.
“Okay!” Josh shouts back. And then he, well. Goes . Except his shower takes a little while to heat up, so he just overthinks in front of the mirror instead as he brushes his teeth vigorously. Like, is Tyler going to fuck him? Should he— or maybe he shouldn’t get his hopes up? This is a punishment, right? But Tyler didn’t really—
“Josh!” Tyler shouts. “ Stop. Thinking.”
He gets in the shower and he just focuses on what he can, then. His bar of soap is running low, he’s going to have to steal some more. His dick is half hard, maybe he can—
“ Don’t !”
His tattoos are vibrant when the water washes over them. There’s a spot of acne forming on his face where he rubbed his nose against his pillow. The water isn’t even hot, it’s lukewarm, but it does a fine job doing what he needs it to. Fuck, his heart is racing. The idea of Tyler sitting out there, planing this out, it’s—
He turns the water off once every part of him has been washed enough to where he’d be okay with Tyler touching him. He stares down at his feet for a few slow seconds, trying to catch his breath so that he doesn’t go out there looking too needy, too lust-driven. Then, before Tyler can yell for him, he steps out and grabs his towel so that he can dry himself to the point where he’s just damp instead of soaked.
After he’s hung his towel, he opens the bathroom door and Tyler’s at the stove, making more salve for his back. Josh can recognize the smell, he recognizes the recipe hastily scribbled on a piece of scrap paper.
Tyler turns to him when he hears the door open and he looks him over properly, almost like he’s inspecting him. His gaze is slow… maybe not inspecting, kind of like he’s studying him and taking this moment in for what it is. Josh, wet and waiting. And when Josh sees Tyler wet his lips, he makes a desperate noise. Yearning, wanting, needing, every fucking synonym in the thesaurus.
“I can read your mind,” Tyler says. “Not— not really words, but intent. I see pictures,” he explains further. “I can envision your safe word but I won’t know if it’s a yellow or red. That means I’m going to need you to say it if you need to.”
I don't want to, Josh wants to say. He wants Tyler to treat him like shit because he feels like shit. He wants his heavenly creature to step on him and kick him and make him come so hard his brain just shuts up.
Tyler continues. “Because if I see it in the front of your head, and you don’t say it to me, I’m not doing this again. I’ll have them send someone else for you, and not any angel like who Sameer had. No, I’m going to have them send the goodiest fucking two shoes ever.”
It’s kind of funny how intimidating Tyler can be while phrasing his words like that. It makes Josh so hard.
“But you’re going to know it’s there,” Josh says. “My safe word, I mean.”
“But I’m not going to always be here,” Tyler mimics his smart-ass tone. “I’m preparing you for when I’m gone.”
Right. Tyler will be gone soon. And then Josh is going to be alone again. Alone.
“Don’t cry,” Tyler says playfully. “I’m going to make you better to the point that you won’t miss me. You trust me, Josh?”
Not really. Sameer warned him not to do this for a good reason, the same reason Tyler is telling him now. Don’t get too attached, he’s going to be gone. There’s no closure.
“Enough,” Josh says so that he’s not outright lying. “Come on, please, I’m dying.”
“Oh, you’re going to have to beg better than that,” Tyler grins at him. Josh wants him to dig his crooked teeth into his neck, he wants to bleed. “Tonight, I’m going to make you beg.”
Josh opens his mouth to say Please but Tyler beats him to the punch. In a second, like lightning, they’re kissing. Well, Tyler’s kissing him. It takes a second for Josh’s brain to catch up with what’s happening, to feel Tyler’s hands in his hair, to feel his clothes on Tyler brushing against his naked skin. He tastes cigarettes on Tyler’s breath and he gasps when Tyler’s hand curls against his scalp. He kisses so dirty, Tyler, and Josh tries with all his might to match his energy. Tyler holds him in his place by his hair and Josh melts into the touch like honey. He pictures them stuck together and sweet.
When Josh pulls away to catch his breath, Tyler holds his mouth open by roughly gripping his jaw. Josh’s breath is ragged, desperate, and when he tries to fight Tyler’s grasp, Tyler just holds him stronger. Tyler’s wings rip through Josh’s shirt on his back and there’s that light from the lavender in Tyler’s eyes again. “I like you when you don’t talk,” Tyler says to him. “Keep your mouth open. Kneel for me, babe.”
Josh’s knees hit the floor as Tyler takes his belt off. He keeps his mouth open, just as Tyler asked him to, and there’s already an ache in his jaw that threatens to get worse. The hair on his body stands as he watches Tyler pull out his cock and fuck, there’s no way he’s going to be able to fit that in his mouth. No fucking way.
“I know I told you to tell me your safe word,” Tyler says as he lazily strokes his dick. Not to get it hard, because Tyler’s already hard, but because he’s taunting Josh with it. He knows he’s got a big dick, he has to know. “But I don’t think you’ll be able to. Just… shove me off you.”
Josh knows what comes next. Tyler’s going to shove his dick down his throat and choke him with it. He can feel his mouth water, he mentally prepares himself for it when Tyler comes closer, close enough to where he’s rubbing the head of his dick against Josh’s lips and across his cheek.
Josh makes a satisfied sound right when Tyler grips his jaw again with his free hand and he angles his head so that Tyler can go right for it. Except, then, Tyler’s fingers push into his mouth instead. And they go far back, to the point that Josh gags on them and his eyes water when he realizes that Tyler’s teasing him.
“Let me see if you can take me first,” Tyler murmurs to him like a promise. “Don’t disappoint me.”
Josh sucks Tyler’s three fingers like an oath. There’s nowhere else to look but in Tyler’s eyes and Tyler looks at him right back as he sobs and chokes because he keeps pushing him and pushing him. Eventually, Josh doesn’t need Tyler’s grip on his jaw— he knows what to do and he doesn’t close his mouth for anything once Tyler’s now free hand moves down until he’s jerking himself off right beside him, too close for Josh to see. He just hears the slick sound of it, just barely over the noises that he’s making as Tyler fucks his mouth in tandem with the strokes that he’s giving himself. Slow, meaningful, worthy. Tyler’s fingers brush the top of his mouth and Josh leaks spit all over himself and the floor.
“My messy little bitch,” Tyler closes his eyes for a moment and Josh closes his own too. Behind his eyes, there’s nothing except bliss. He swears he can hear the ocean. He can picture the sky pulsing the colors of Tyler’s halo. “You ready to take this yet? Or should we wait until tomorrow?”
Josh knows better than to spit Tyler’s fingers out of his mouth so that he can answer. Instead, he hollows his cheeks and moans, he rubs his face against where Tyler’s fist is around his own cock. And when Tyler smears pre-cum across his cheek, he smiles around the fingers in his mouth that have been stretching him out.
With his spit-slick fingers, Tyler slaps Josh across the face so hard and so suddenly that Josh gasps. Then, in an instant, Tyler uses those fingers to grip Josh’s hair and pull him towards him. Josh’s mouth is so wet and open that it doesn’t take much coercing on Tyler’s part to force his cock into Josh’s mouth — he takes him gratefully. And when Josh looks up at Tyler with teary eyes, hurting and desperate and wanting, Tyler smiles back at him.
“So good,” Tyler groans as he begins to fuck Josh’s throat as if Josh doesn’t need to breathe, as if Josh is just a toy. Just like he wanted. And Tyler doesn’t hide behind his moans either, he’s not like every other macho-Dom who wanted to pretend like he was better than this, better than what Josh can give him. No, Tyler lets him know how much he likes this, likes what Josh is doing for him, what he trained his mouth to do in such little time. A chill passes through Josh as he thinks, what else can Tyler train him to do in the time that they have? Sameer said a week. Josh can work with a week.
Josh’s vision spots as Tyler thrusts into him harder and deeper. He can feel his spit down the delicate length of his throat and he can hear the sounds of him choking and he knows that Tyler won’t stop unless he tells him to. Tyler’s hands, gripping his hair, serve as a reminder of that. But—
Before he lets himself think too much about it, he gently shoves on Tyler’s hips. And Tyler moves back from him, letting him have the chance to breathe, to spit out the shit that’s been stuck in his throat. He looks down at Josh like he’s so proud of him for asserting his place and letting his boundaries be known that Josh can’t help but let out a dry sob, especially when Tyler pets his hair and whispers to him “Good job, Joshua.”
He takes a moment until he can breathe normally again and then he looks up at Tyler who’s still touching him like he’s worth something.
“More?” he asks, his voice absolutely trashed.
“Of course,” Tyler brushes some hair out of Josh’s eyes. “I know that you’re a needy whore who can’t get enough. You’ll let me cum on your face, won’t you?”
“Anything,” Josh promises him.
Then, Tyler resumes. He doesn’t slap Josh across the face this time to get him to keep his mouth open, he just looks at him in this way and then Josh obeys. Tyler guides his cock down back into his throat and Josh moans at the taste of him, at the feel of him.
It’s unbearably slow. There are moments when he just barely lets the head slip through Josh’s lips, and then others when Josh’s nose is pressed against Tyler’s pubic hair. It’s infrequent and it’s Tyler and it’s Tyler laughing at him as Josh coughs and spits onto the floor and it’s Tyler gently wiping the drool that’s down Josh’s face with the sleeves of his shirt as he calls him all these names that make Josh’s head spin. Dirty and willing and fucking gagging for it.
“I’m close,” Tyler murmurs once Josh is sure that his jaw is going to fall off because of how much it’s stretched around him. “How’s your throat?”
He asks this question obviously when Josh’s throat is preoccupied. Josh just squints up at him.
Tyler reaches down and he runs a finger over the noticeable stretch on Josh’s throat. “Fucking Christ, Josh. I can fucking feel myself.”
He presses down a little hard against the skin, and he laughs when he feels Josh grind helplessly against his leg. “I know, I know. Here, keep your tongue out and don’t swallow unless I tell you to.”
Tyler pulls himself off and out of Josh’s mouth and he strokes himself quick and hard before he’s coming in ropes across Josh’s tongue and his lips. All this time, it’s just been the two of them looking at each other and now isn’t any different. Josh kneels there, naked and shaking and teary with cum on his face and tongue as Tyler tucks himself back into Josh’s boxers and jeans. He stands before Josh fully clothed and so in charge that it makes Josh’s dick leak.
Instead of ordering Josh to swallow, Tyler gets down to his knees too and he holds Josh’s jaw open once again. Josh is practically panting now, horny and waiting and confused, until he feels Tyler’s fingers against his tongue scraping.
“You don’t get my cum yet,” Tyler whispers to him when Josh closes his eyes and shakes as Tyler cleans him out of his mouth with his fingers like he’s trash. Like he’s nothing. The constant switch between praise and humiliation and tenderness and roughness makes Josh dizzy like he’s cross-faded. It’s amazing. Tyler swipes his cum off Josh’s tongue and off his face and then he gets up. Josh is silent when he hears Tyler’s footsteps and he winces when he hears the faucet run. Still, even as his jaw aches, he keeps his mouth open and tongue out as Tyler washes his hands clean because Tyler never said to close them.
“Open your eyes,” Tyler says to him and Josh listens. He feels like he might be floating. “Close your mouth.”
Josh does. And the thing is that as soon as he does, it feels wrong instead of feeling like relief. He hurts even more, so much so that he actually whimpers when Tyler runs a hand through his curled hair. His tears fall freely, they mix with his spit on the floor, and Tyler doesn’t care.
“Answer me honestly,” Tyler says. “Should you come.”
“Yes,” Josh says, looking up at Tyler like he’s never looked at anyone before, a deeply mystifying mixture of annoyance and devotion and desire. “I did what you wanted me to do. Please, Ty.”
“More,” Tyler commands. “What did you do for me? How were you good? Be specific when you fucking talk to me.”
“I—” Josh’s brain works faster than his tongue. “I, I acted out my safe word when I needed to, even though I didn’t want to and even though I wanted you to keep going. I… I didn’t close my mouth before you told me to even though it really hurt and even though I wanted to taste you…”
“You did want to taste me,” Tyler notes, and when Josh nods, Tyler nods sympathetically back. “I know, angel. One day I’ll let you, if you prove yourself to be good enough.”
Tyler turns back onto his feet, and for a moment, Josh thinks that’s it. He won’t be able to come. The thought leaves him distraught but he wants to taste Tyler’s cum more than he wants to orgasm himself, he realizes in a devastating moment. He wants Tyler more than that. He wants the validation more than anything in the world. He wants to be worthy.
Tyler sits in one of Josh’s kitchen chairs. He spreads his legs and he leans against the backing without a care in the world, a direct juxtaposition to what Josh is feeling as he remains naked and kneeling and waiting.
“Alright, Josh,” Tyler says, pulling out his pack of cigarettes. Josh watches as he lights one of them and the smell hits Josh harder than that slap to the face. At the remembrance of it, Josh’s face feels hot. “Put on a good show for me. Make yourself cum before I finish this cigarette. I want you to keep your eyes on me, and I’ll keep mine on you. Deal?”
“Yes,” Josh nearly cries. When he touches himself, he feels sparks. Tyler’s gaze on him is thrilling… his wings are huge and delicate as they move in time to Tyler’s pulls on his cigarette and Josh counts them as he strokes himself fast and hard just the way he likes.
He gets to ten before he’s spilling across his fist with a groan. They’re still looking at each other in this silent room, silent except for the crackling of the cigarette and Josh’s ragged breathing and the buzzing of Tyler’s halo, and Tyler’s eyes have a lavender spark in them when Josh holds his hand out to Tyler and lets him see the cum that’s spilled there.
“Let’s trade,” Tyler says with a sly smile as he hands Josh his cigarette to finish. And Josh would smoke it, he wants to, but then Tyler is licking his cum off of him and it’s like… Josh can’t, for a second, take his attention away from him. Tyler cleans him off the way that Josh wishes he could’ve cleaned Tyler off and Josh makes a little frustrated sound in the back of his throat when Tyler smirks at him.
“I was being nice,” Tyler laughs all not nice… but still amused? They’re still in the game. Josh wonders if it’ll end here or if it’ll continue until Tyler decides he’s through with it all. “Don’t waste my nicotine, seriously dude. I have to do favors for that shit upstairs.”
The nicotine is a kiss. Tyler’s gentle touch on him, cleaning off the spit from his neck and chest, is a kiss. And when Josh finishes the cigarette off, Tyler steals the smoke from him in a kiss.
Josh’s whole deal about aftercare is deeply personal… meaning it just happens by himself. That night when he first met Tyler, Tyler rubbed his back with heavenly salve but the magical feeling in Josh’s chest didn’t come from that. It came from being touched by another person without a trace of hurt. Josh doesn’t know what he was expecting after that… something… that he did with Tyler, but he wasn’t expecting this – Tyler having him wrapped up in a blanket and pouring candied chocolate into his hands.
“I can pour the M&Ms on my own,” Josh grumbles under his breath. “I’m not a child, you know…”
“Like you can light your own cigarettes?” Tyler teases him. When Josh turns to him and narrows his eyes, Tyler smiles at him. And he doles out three more M&Ms for him. “Just saying.”
It’s quiet in the apartment save for the sound of Josh’s chewing. It’s a weird way to end the night. Usually, he’d be sobbing into his pillow or chain-smoking and listening to The Strokes and imagining himself in Fabrizio Moretti’s place.
“You like the drums?” Tyler asks.
Josh blinks at him. To be fair, his head’s still just a little fucked. It takes him a minute to connect the dots and realize that Tyler was seeing what Josh was picturing in his mind, drumming like a mad-man behind a giant wall of sound fronted by Julian Casablancas. I went to the concert and I fought through the crowd… guess I got too excited when I thought you were around…
“I would if I could actually do it,” Josh says. His voice is still not quite there yet but Tyler made him drink some cool water after everything, so it’s better than it would’ve been if he didn’t. “There’s this thing called I’m broke. I’d have to rent a practice place, I’d need to have a drum set, it’s… I mean, you see how I’m living right now… ”
Paycheck to paycheck. He’s in a shithole of an apartment. This is not a life worth saving.
“You could take lessons at Guitar Center,” Tyler offers. “They have the sets already there. Use the money that you use for your BDSM club. You could get your masochism streak out that way, I heard you get hella splinters playing the drums.”
Josh has too much to say about that, but he’s so sick of this argument with Tyler. Didn’t he see what he did to him? Wasn’t he watching as Josh was so obedient for him? Didn’t he see how much he needed that?
“You need a hobby,” Tyler tells him. “Purpose. When I was still human, I played the piano and the ukulele. Granted, I still killed myself… but it was nice for a while. I wanted to be famous too.”
Wait.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Tyler says when he catches the shocked expression on Josh’s face. “So don’t ask me. I’m just telling you. If you really want to drum, you should do it. The payoff will be better than the shitty not-sex you get. Dude, they don’t even give you anything sweet afterwards. If you ever go back there, which you’d better fucking not, you need to demand some aftercare candy. Hey, they should make a brand of chocolate called that. Aftercare Candy. Actually, that’s dumb.”
“Your angel didn’t help,” Josh says. There are M&Ms melting in the palm of his hand.
“Nope,” Tyler still smiles at him but for the first time there’s a tinge of emotion behind his eyes, Josh can fucking see it. Tyler’s halo turns white for a moment and when Josh looks at it, it flashes back to its normal colors.
“I’m sorry,” Josh says. It’s the only thing he can say.
“Yeah,” Tyler steals one of the melted M&M’s from Josh’s palm. “Me too.”
His dream moves quick and there’s no rhyme or rhythm to it… there are just dirty images. Josh, drooling with a gag stretching his lips wide as Tyler fingerfucks his throat. Josh, bleeding freely as Tyler tears through his skin and muscle. Josh, kneeling as Tyler whips his cock. Josh, on his stomach getting fucked by Tyler.
He’s outside of his body, he watches all of it go on. His dick is hard when he looks down in the dream but he doesn’t touch himself. Tyler wouldn’t want him to, he doesn’t think. He thinks Tyler would want him to watch. Good boys get that, Tyler would tell him. Keep watching.
Josh wakes up hard and achy. He’s still so sleepy, still stuck between that space between being awake and being asleep, but he can hear music bleeding out from his headphones. Good, Josh thinks. He was listening to Eminem rap about wanting to have anal sex with Nicki Minaj and he wasn’t snooping around in my head.
“Oh, no, I can still see what you’re thinking,” Tyler says. He pauses the music and he looks over to Josh next to him. Then, Josh realizes that Tyler stayed next to him when he fell asleep. Tyler’s hair is all messed up from lying flat against the pillow and he’s a little sweaty. Something about the sight of him like this mixing with the remnants of the dream still replaying in his mind makes him want to kiss him.
So, Josh kisses him.
Some of the worst decisions Josh has ever made have happened in the dead of night like this. Tyler’s surprised gasp against him feels like a mistake. Tyler’s tongue in his mouth feels like a mistake. But Josh is hard, and Tyler is hard, Josh realizes when Tyler’s leg shifts, and what else is there to do? Josh doesn’t want to listen to Eminem. Tyler doesn’t want to talk about himself. They can’t get along without the sex, so why don’t they just do it? What could go wrong?
They don’t talk when Tyler gently rolls Josh over till he’s on his side. They don’t talk when Tyler is cursing under his breath as he searches through Josh’s bedside table for lube. Josh squeezes his eyes shut and he takes a deep breath in and then out when he hears Tyler’s dry chuckle. “A dildo. Aw, Josh. Are you really that needy? Look at the size of this thing. Oh, and it vibrates. Nice.”
“I don’t want that,” Josh says. He feels almost high. “Your dick, come on, let me–”
“Yeah,” Tyler cuts him off. “I know. I want it too.”
Josh is still naked from their scene so it doesn’t take much finessing on Tyler’s part until he’s got Josh positioned the way he wants him to be. Josh brings a hand up to his mouth and he muffles the moan that escapes from the pit of his belly when Tyler rubs two slick fingers against his hole.
“What did I tell you about the sounds?” Tyler asks, his voice low and gentle as he continues to tease him. He’s pressed right up against Josh, his breath is hot on Josh’s ear, his leg is tossed over Josh’s. He’s trapping him, he’s making him feel so safe and wanted. “I want to hear them. I like when you moan.”
Josh grits his teeth and he tries to stop the tears when he feels them against his eyelids. “It’s been too long. I feel like I’m going to die.”
“You’re not dying on my watch,” Tyler kisses right beneath his ear. He presses two crossed fingers into Josh and Josh gasps and rocks into the touch. “I keep telling you this and you don’t want to listen to me. Why can’t you listen to me?”
“I’m sorry,” Josh says through a breathy moan. Tyler’s fingers rub at his prostate, they stretch him out until he’s begging for a third. Then, once he gets it, he and Tyler make the same desperate sound. They’re heavy breathing in the same space, stuck together by sweat and with fingers and Josh has never felt so alive than now. And it’s like, yes, he is miserable at his core, but none of that matters now. He’s being held. He’s getting fucked.
“Ready?” Tyler asks him after what feels like hours of slow build-up. In actuality, it hasn’t even been five minutes. When Josh nods yes, whispers in this silent room Please, take me, Tyler does. Josh shifts his leg up, Tyler brings a hand up so that there’s something against Josh’s neck, not enough to choke him but enough for Josh to feel him constantly, and then, suddenly, there’s hot pressure. Tyler groans directly into Josh’s ear and the heat radiating off of his halo makes Josh sweat like it’s a hot summer day even though they’re in the middle of March.
It hurts. Josh wasn’t lying when he said he hadn’t been fucked in a long time. Tyler takes his time to pull him apart. Pressed together like this, sex on their sides, Tyler doesn’t do anything crazy like Josh imagined in his dream. There’s no spreader-bar, no gags, no handcuffs and no clamps. Still, Josh feels submissive as ever as Tyler fucks him the way he wants. Tyler presses down on his neck and his staccato moans fill every fucking crevice that Josh has. And Josh is hard, of course he is, but the sex like this makes him want to close his eyes and fall into it. He’d let Tyler do anything like this.
Josh makes a surprised noise when Tyler’s hand moves down to touch him. “Yeah?” Josh asks into his pillow. There’s a wet spot there from where he’s drooling a little.
“Yeah,” Tyler kisses his neck. “But I’m going to keep fucking you even after you come. Do what you want.”
The thought of it sends Josh. He comes against Tyler’s hand for the second time for the night with a satisfied groan and he rolls his head back so that Tyler can capture his mouth in a kiss. Tyler smiles into it, he kisses Josh all lop-sided and messy, and he leans back to watch the expression on Josh’s face change from afterglow to overstimulation because oh, yeah, no, he wasn’t dirty-talking, Tyler is not stopping and he’s still touching him. Josh’s cum makes his softening cock sticky and hot and wet and Tyler’s fondling of him turns from gentle touches to intent.
“I can’t,” Josh gasps and squirms as Tyler fucks into him harder. “I can’t, I can’t again.”
“I don’t give a fuck,” Tyler pins Josh down by the shoulder. “You told me I could keep fucking you.”
“I didn’t mean—“ Josh looks down and fuck, he can see himself hardening again. His body is fighting it, he’s still trying to push Tyler off him, but Tyler’s hold on him is stronger. “Tyler, I–”
“Tell me what you need to tell me and I’ll stop,” Tyler whispers to him. It’s not mean. It’s not a trick. It’s just the truth. Tyler even lets up, he pulls out of Josh and he lets go of the pressure against his shoulder. But once he’s gone— no, Josh wants him back. Wants to be forced to come again. Wants to be held down. Wants Tyler to fuck him until he’s done.
Josh waits a moment, he lets the panic seep out of his veins. He watches as Tyler’s hands work over his own cock, he can see the slickness of the lube in the moonlight, and no, it’s all wrong, Tyler’s hands should be on him, they should be coaxing that orgasm out of him. “I…” Josh swallows hard. “I want you back inside of me. I want your hands back on me.”
Tyler smiles at him. Crooked teeth, crinkled corners of his eyes… Josh wishes they met under different circumstances. “That’s what I thought. Turn back onto your side, let me make you come again.”
Josh rolls back over, he hugs his pillow closer to his chest. Tyler thrusts back into him hard, hard enough for Josh to shriek into the pillow, and Tyler laughs. “So good for me Josh, so fucking— fuck, you’re gonna kill me.”
“Hey,” Josh says, although the tail-end of that lets all mangled because Tyler’s hands begin their assault back on his dick and he’s momentarily frazzled. Tyler’s hold on him is so strong, and Josh knows that, but he still can’t help but try to shove him off. And Tyler just pins him steady. “You— you can’t die on me either. You turned me into this.”
“Nah,” Tyler says conversationally as he destroys Josh. His hand moves quicker on Josh’s dick, he strokes and strokes and makes sure that Josh doesn’t soften on him. He fucks into Josh like an animal, like he’s not even human. Except he’s not. “You started this, you fucking slut. I’m just giving you what you want because I think I like you. I think I like you a lot.”
Josh cries and squirms and begs for Tyler to— to what? He doesn’t even know. He doesn’t want to come, he wants to come so bad, he wants nothing and everything and anything. His voice is jumbled as he tries to speak and Tyler laughs at his poor attempts. “Stupid for my cock, huh?”
Josh’s vision goes white when he comes again. He knows that he screams. He knows that Tyler hasn’t come yet. And he’s about to tell Tyler his word, because he can’t do it again, he can’t take it anymore, the pressure on his cock and the never-ending push against his prostate, but it’s like Tyler reads his mind because Tyler rolls Josh over so that he’s on his back. His cum, twice released now, is smeared all over his balls and in his pubic hair and he knows he looks like a mess. Josh looks at him, bleary-eyed and exhausted, and he spreads his legs so Tyler can be situated between them.
Tyler makes him even messier. Tyler spits down onto his own cock and Josh watches in awe as Tyler uses the added slickness to jerk himself off until he’s adding to the mess there. The sound that Tyler makes is glorious. The look in his eyes is straight from Heaven. Maybe Sameer was right — Josh is fucked when this is gone.
Once Josh’s heart has stopped practically beating out of his chest, once Tyler regains his composure, Tyler wipes his cum and only his cum off Josh before Josh is able to savor it. Tyler winks at him when Josh frowns at him and he flops back down onto the mattress so that he and Josh are both staring up at the ceiling.
“So you’re gonna leave me sticky with my mess but I can’t get yours?” Josh pouts at him all child-like and he hopes that it masks the actual disappointment.
“Eventually,” Tyler promises him. “I gotta leave you wanting more, right? C’mere.”
Tyler pulls Josh into his arms and Josh snuggles against his bare chest. He’s warm and he’s safe and within a minute, Josh can feel himself falling right back into sleep’s embrace.
How can he tell Tyler that this is already more than he can ask for?
In the morning, Josh feels… strange. Tyler’s still here, Josh can hear him in the shower. It’s the first moment he’s had alone in hours, and the first moment he’s had alone since Tyler ordered him to get on his knees. Josh is naked already but he feels naked in the emotionally vulnerable sense.
He texts Sameer with one hand as he wipes the sleep from his eyes. How badly were u fucked up after your angel left?
Sameer replies back almost instantaneously. Josh has a perfect mental image of Sameer on his phone in the middle of the aisles at work and it makes him laugh a little to himself… until he reads the message.
u fucked him? i feel like i should shut my mouth now
I need to know. Gotta prepare myself. all that jazz.
bella listening to possibility levels of bad
Josh tosses his phone on the bed and he takes a deep breath. Oh shit. Not fucking Bella Swan. Josh takes another look at the bathroom door, to make sure that Tyler isn’t about to come out, and he grabs his phone again because he cannot help his curiosity.
Tell me ur just scaring me.
i still dream about him
At least Bella Swan had a nice view to look out to when she was drowning in her depression. What does Josh have? Oh, right. The crack house across the street.
He’ll be able to handle this. He will. It’s going to suck so bad but he’s going to be okay. Look at Sameer, he’s… well, no, he’s still living at home because he had a mental breakdown a year ago, and yeah, he can’t hold down a relationship to save his life… and he’s working a dead-end job… but…
Josh tries to think of some good things that will come from this besides the mind-blowing sex.
…so, naturally, he’s deep in sex flashbacks when Tyler comes out of the bathroom with Josh’s towel around his waist. He raises his eyebrows when he sees the state Josh is in, naked on top of the sheets and staring down at his phone, and he says, “Sup.”
Josh gives him an awkward wave. “Sup…”
Tyler searches through Josh’s pile of clean laundry and he picks out a pair of boxers. And then he just drops his towel.
“Dude!” Josh squeaks out.
“What?” Tyler turns around, genuinely shocked. “This was inside of you twelve hours ago. You do remember that… right? I mean, of course you remember that, you were just replaying that memory, what am I saying?”
“I’m going to need you to stop doing that,” Josh closes his eyes as Tyler continues to get dressed. “A lot of weird shit goes on in my head, it’s not really fair that you get to spy on me.”
“Too bad,” Tyler gently pries Josh’s hands away from his eyes. He’s fully clothed now and he looks good in Josh’s GROUPLOVE hoodie and sweatpants. He smells good too. “It kinda comes with the whole angel thing.”
“Please do not ruin this hoodie with your wings,” Josh says. So that he can stop thinking about how hot Tyler looks. It’s not really working. “I really like this one.”
Tyler makes a sort of noncommittal sound and he laughs when Josh glares at him. “Okay, okay, Jesus Christ. I like this hoodie too, GROUPLOVE used to be my favorite band, I won’t ruin it for you. Speaking of clothes, though…”
Tyler motions toward Josh’s overwhelmingly full laundry bin. “Let’s get that taken care of. Before I have to walk around naked all the time and you’re stuck walking around with your hands over your eyes. By the way, your dick is out too.”
Josh shrugs a little. “It’s different when it’s yours.”
Tyler smirks at him. “Right… so you only like it when you know you can have it. Got it.”
Josh makes a frustrated noise and he shoves at Tyler’s shoulders. “Shut up! Just– you’re the one who said he doesn’t sleep around on his projects or something. Act like it.”
Tyler considers this for a moment. Not a long moment, but a moment nonetheless. “You’re right. It was a mistake. I should be better than that.”
Josh nods. “It was. We can’t let it happen again.”
Josh got the fucking that he wanted, Tyler got to rough Josh up a bit, they both got it out of their systems. Now they can start from scratch. Now, Tyler can go back to trying to save him from his depressive thoughts with orange juice. Great. Perfect .
“Hey,” Tyler reaches over and flicks him in the face. “Don’t trash the orange juice.”
“Stop snooping in my head!” Josh flicks him back. “Fucking weirdo, did you just flick me? ”
Tyler flicks him again. “Yes, I did flick you, you fucking Vitamin-C deficient idiot. You’re gonna get fucking scurvy, you want to get fucking scurvy?”
Josh goes to flick him again but Tyler grabs his hand before he gets the chance to do it. Josh tries to pull away and Tyler holds him harder.
They have sex again.
Ashley meets Josh and Tyler at the laundromat because Josh needs a buffer when he’s around Tyler, he realizes. If they’re not having sex, they’re talking, and if they’re talking, they begin to argue, and if they begin to argue, they begin to have sex. Ashley is fun to be around in general, but she’s even more fun when Tyler’s in the mix because she just sends him off to do errands for her solely for the purpose of gossiping.
“Sammy said that you’re fucking Tyler,” Ashley says to Josh as soon as Tyler has gone to grab chicken nuggets from the McDonald’s across the street. Tyler told her before he left that she should eat more healthily and she stared at him blankly until he grumbled and left. “But he didn’t have to even tell me, dude, you’re covered in hickies!”
Josh blushes. He’s well aware of that fact, he gawked at himself in the mirror before he hopped in the shower to wash off all of the cum and sweat stuck to him everywhere. “Yeah… it’s. Yeah.”
“Good?” Ashley inquires.
“Embarrassingly good,” Josh says. He looks over his shoulder just to be sure that Tyler’s not anywhere near by, even though Tyler just left. “I don’t know how to stop it.”
“So don’t stop it,” Ashley says. “Sex is awesome.”
Ashley is extremely sex-positive. Josh and Sameer get a new story every other day and it’s just, it’s just a lot. This is a biased opinion, Josh knows. Still, he appreciates the feminine approach… or whatever Ashley calls it whenever she inserts her opinion in his and Sameer’s drama.
“I know sex is awesome,” Josh says. “I never get it, but I know that—”
“I know ten million people who would fuck you in a second,” Ashley interrupts him. “They’d fuck your shit up, dude.”
“Anyway,” Josh says. He doesn’t believe that for a second. Who would want him? Tyler doesn’t count — he’s been assigned to Josh and he’s technically dead, technically a ghost on Earth. “The point I want to make is that I know sex is awesome, and I know I should make the most out of this shitty deal, but—”
“But fuck it!” Ashley shouts. A couple of people in the laundromat turn to give her dirty looks. “Haha. Butt-fuck it. Literallllyyyyy.”
Josh buries his head in his hands. He can’t handle this. Where’s Tyler to save him from this?
“I’m sorry,” Ashley says once she’s done laughing. “I get it. Like, for as much fun as sex is, it’s also messy.”
She pauses and starts laughing again. “There’s no mature way to approach this. Um, okay, let me try again. For as much fun as sex is, the emotions can really screw things up. Like, there are probably ten people in this city who would fight me on sight because of complicated sex dynamics. And I know that Sam’s story about his angel is a total downer, but I don’t think that it has to be bad. You’re a sensible person.”
“Me? Sensible?”
“You understand that there’s going to be an end to this, you think about it all the time. Give your head a break and just go with the flow. And don’t fall in love.”
Ashley looks at him seriously. “Do not fall in love. Remember every little annoying detail about Tyler you can think of. Love is the enemy, you hear?”
“I hear,” Josh says, throwing his hands up to surrender because now she’s getting into her own problems and he can’t listen to the story again. He’s a bad friend, he knows it, but still. “I just— you can’t really help falling in love. You know, the whole Elvis song.”
“Yeah, you can,” Ashley says. “It’s really easy, trust me. So don’t.”
The bell on the door to the laundromat rings and Josh is delighted that Tyler is there. He holds up the bag of McDonald’s and he hands Ashley her coke. “Here’s your shit.”
“Thanks for my shit,” Ashley says. “Did you enjoy your trip?”
“Sure,” Tyler chews some gum. He smells like cigarettes. Josh wants the taste of it in his mouth via Tyler’s spit. He’s in so deep, he’s well aware of the fact. What did Elvis say again? Only fools rush in? “Did you enjoy your gossip session?”
“Sure,” she smiles back. She then turns to Josh and she says to him, “Remember this.”
The rest of the day is actually productive. The laundry gets done, Josh finally restocks on some groceries, and Tyler forces Josh to sign up for drumming lessons. Josh uses the word forces but it was more like Tyler whispering in his ear that there would be something in it for Josh if he did it.
When they got back to the apartment, though, Tyler quickly escaped to the fire escape to chainsmoke. And Josh would’ve followed him out there, but there were things that had to be done around the apartment and Josh was in a good headspace to do them. The idea of the drumming lessons excited him, the leftover serotonin from seeing Ash and Sam fueled him, and by the time Tyler comes back inside, Josh has made the place look presentable.
“Hey,” Josh looks up from reading a book. Josh hasn’t done that in, what, years?
“Hey,” Tyler eyes him curiously, he looks around. “It looks nice in here. I thought I was going to have to do it for you.”
“You might be having a good influence on me,” Josh jokes. It’s not really a joke, though. Tyler actually might be. Or, again, it’s like a head-high he gets from a cigarette except now it’s just a head-high from sex. Josh hasn’t gotten laid this much in this frequent of a succession in a year. His dick is, like. Singing praises or something.
Tyler laughs at the joke in Josh’s head.
“So…” Josh clears his throat. He puts his book down. “You said—”
“I know what I said,” Tyler interrupts him. It seems that when he was outside chain smoking, he was having a change of heart, Josh can just tell from the way the sentence starts. “However—”
Before he can listen to the rejection, Josh stands and wipes his sweaty palms on his jeans. “No, you know what? It’s fine. We had the right idea this morning. I just, I just feel like if you’re going to be gone anyway, we should just make the most of it. I mean, do you like having sex with me?”
Tyler raises his eyebrows. “Don’t be stupid.”
Josh knows that when Tyler’s mean, the facade is breaking. It’s addicting, getting to know Tyler’s little intricacies. Tyler may be an angel now, but he was human once. He was alive and breathing and bleeding and he had feelings and emotions once.
“Exactly,” Josh says. “And I like having sex with you. And you save me from going out and being stupid with strangers. If you don’t have sex with me, it’s, like, borderline irresponsible, basically.”
Tyler laughs . Not a chuckle, not a smug exhale through his nose, but a full-blown full-body laugh. One that leaves glittery tears down his face, and when he wipes them away, the sparkles are all over his hands. God, Josh wants Tyler’s hands on his face. On his throat. Sliding over the side of his body like they don’t know where to go next.
“No, because that’s the first time I’ve ever heard that,” Tyler giggles before he erupts into a coughing fit that’s overtaken, again, by another round of laughter. If Josh wasn’t so sure this was Tyler’s defenses on high alert, he might’ve been a little offended. The thing is that Josh might not be the smartest cookie in the jar, but he knows intent because he knows his own.
“You think I need you?” Tyler asks him, his eyes sparkling with lavender as he grins. His halo turns hot pink, revealing his feelings.
“No,” Josh says, grinning too. “But I think you want me. So what’s it gonna be?”
Josh doesn’t get Tyler’s cum that night but he gets two rounds of sex that leaves him breathless and numb and desperate. The head-high is long gone as he kisses Tyler over and over and over again until he can’t tell what’s his breath and what’s Tyler’s. He’s never swapped spit like this.
Sameer was right. He’s a goner. Somebody catch his breath.
The sex is sex. There’s only so much Josh can say about it. First off, his brain is mush, so it’s not like he’s got the words to describe it. He wakes up and Tyler’s already fucking him and probably has been for several minutes. They get in the shower and make out against the dirty tiles. They play footsie while Josh eats his breakfast. They kiss during Josh’s smoke breaks at work and they taste like tobacco and Sour Patch Kids and winter. They fuck as soon as they get home and they fuck after Josh reads a couple of chapters in his book and they fuck before bed. Hard, fast, almost too personal. Tyler can read the thoughts in his head, he knows what Josh wants, he knows the right words to say until Josh is just panting. It’s too perfect. It’s a band-aid solution. It’s going to destroy him wholly.
The in-between is a different story. The in-between is strange because he and Tyler are not exactly friends, but not enemies either. Tyler tells Josh about his favorite artists, about the night that he died, about his family that doesn’t live that far away. In return, Josh makes little adjustments in his life. He attends his first drumming class at Guitar Center and immediately applies to be a cashier because he would like this job ten thousand times more than he likes Target. He cancels his membership to the back-alley BDSM dungeon. He drinks more water. He Marie Kondo’s the fuck out of his apartment. All boring ass shit, if he’s being honest. Except then, his head gets a little clearer. The days don’t seem so goddamn hopeless when he’s got a clear space to get fucked in on his hands and knees.
They smoke cigarettes on the balcony and listen to music and talk about Sameer and Ashley and which Sex and the City girl they would be. Tyler rubs his salve on Josh’s back and on any bruises he enthusiastically puts on him and when he kisses him afterwards, the area is always a little hot. Josh will call him Tyler Durden and Tyler will say well, maybe because of the whole disappearing act thing. They talk shit about customers, they debate about Eminem’s best album, they try Hot Cheetos Mac and Cheese for the first time. It’s everything Josh has ever wanted stacked into a neat package of three days.
Three days is a lot of time when you hate yourself. It flashes in an instant for Josh.
“I wanted to be a musician,” Tyler whispers to him in bed one night. A week to the day since he appeared. Josh is sex-happy, oblivious, hanging onto every word. “I wanted to change lives. I think I’ve been selfish this time around. Or maybe I was selfish all along.”
Josh is too sleepy to answer. He just holds Tyler’s hands in his and he kisses his knuckles.
“You become dead to the people you love and suddenly, you crave attention. I think I went about this all wrong,” Tyler says. “I think I really fucked it up this time.”
Josh yawns. “But it was not your fault but mine. And it was your heart on the line…”
Tyler laughs softly. “Didn’t I, my dear?”
Josh breathes in deep. He tries to commit this to memory. Tyler’s smell, his bony fingers, the lines around his wrist. Tyler’s crooked teeth, Tyler, Tyler, Tyler.
“I wanted to die when I met you,” Josh says. “I don’t— I don’t want to die now. But… hey, I’m an adult. You’re leaving. I get it. You’ll tell me when you’re going, right?”
Tyler swallows hard. “I think that’s what I’m trying to do now…”
Josh sits up suddenly, ignoring the nausea that comes from moving too fast. Tyler sits up too, then, and he slaps a hand over Josh’s mouth before Josh has the chance to tell him off. “Listen to me. I’ll be gone in the morning. And I don’t want you to think it was your fault, and that you weren’t good enough for me. I know the way your head works, dude.”
Josh squints his eyes at Tyler. In the dark, he’s barely perceptible. But then it slowly comes to him like film developing. Tyler, Tyler, Tyler.
“I know I did a bad job at being your angel,” Tyler says. “Maybe you’ll be able to forgive me. But you’re not killing yourself. That’s a fucking order, do you hear me?”
Something deep in Josh’s stomach lurches. Josh gags against Tyler’s hand and Tyler holds him tighter. “I don’t care about how much you hate your life. You don’t want this instead, leaving pretty boys you’re halfway in love with behind. It’s a fucked punishment. You’ll continue your drumming lessons. You’re going to save your money. You’re going to contact your siblings. You’re going to move out and you’re going to get a dog and you’re going to fall in love and life will still suck but it’ll suck a little less than it does now. Those are orders too. You fucking hear me, Josh? ”
He sounds desperate. Tyler doesn’t ever sound desperate.
Tyler removes his hand and Josh takes a heaving breath that sounds like a sob. Tyler looks away. Fucking pussy. He’s weak. He’s running away and it’s not fair because Josh still has to wake up and be himself. Why? Why can’t he go too? What does he have here?
“You’re not my Dom,” Josh says, looking for anything to rile Tyler up, anything to make him stay just a day longer. Just one day. They wouldn’t have to have sex at all, they could smoke cigarettes outside and they could hang out at the laundromat and they could make music together, they could do anything they wanted to because Tyler was magic and he—
“You can’t make me do anything. I wasn’t even good for you, I didn’t even get—” Josh gestures wildly toward Tyler’s penis.
Tyler looks down. “You’re mad about cum,” he says plainly once the mental image in Josh’s mind appears, Tyler holding him down and coming inside of him. It’s not about the sex. It’s about the closeness. It’s about Tyler’s semen spilling out of him and Tyler pushing it back into him because it would’ve proved that he was his. It’s about getting something he’s wanted for ages (read: a week) and Tyler giving it to him because he wanted to as well. It was about Tyler’s pleasure and his own pleasure, and they would’ve been the same thing, interchangeable and inseparable and you couldn’t decipher one from the other.
“I’m mad about everything!” Josh thinks he might be having a panic attack. “I’m— you— halfway in love with—”
Tyler failed his mission. Doesn’t that mean something to God? To Tyler? To anyone? What was the point of this? To show Josh a glimpse of happiness and rip it away from him? What the fuck was the point of it.
“Don’t leave me,” Josh wraps his arms around Tyler and he pins him to the bed. Tyler goes easily, he humors Josh’s desires because he knows he won’t have to do it anymore. Oh God, Josh is going to be sick for real. He wants to slap some sense into him, except he wouldn’t dare. “I won’t let you leave. Fuck you, Tyler, you—you knew everything I thought, you knew this would happen to me and you let it, and you need to fix it.”
Tyler looks up at him and Josh knows. He knows that Tyler was human once, he knows that Tyler fucked this up royally. The worst thing is knowing that Josh wouldn’t have wanted this any other way. Screw an angel that actually did what he was supposed to—not when he had Tyler.
“You don’t even know me,” Tyler says to him like he’s comforting a dying animal, like he truly pities him, and he lets Josh manhandle him until his wrists are above his head. He lets Josh capture him there so that they can play pretend. “It’s been a week.”
“I’m in love with the way you flick your cigarette ash,” Josh’s tears drop onto Tyler’s face and Tyler closes his eyes. “I’m in love with the way you tell Ashley to fuck off. The way that you hate Sameer. The way that you kiss me before you choke me so I know that you actually kinda like me.”
“Josh,” Tyler warns. Warns of him what? This is actually the worst it’ll ever be. Josh puts his hands on Tyler’s throat and Tyler’s eyes widen ever so slightly.
Josh leans down to kiss him and Tyler meets him halfway.
It’s just been a week, you’ll get over it you big baby, Tyler told him right before he fell asleep. If Tyler hadn’t made love to him, maybe he would’ve been able to stay up longer… but the fact was that between the crying and begging and sex, Josh was exhausted and fell into the deep abyss of sleep like diving into the ocean. Tyler was shirtless in the waves next to him, laughing and spitting salt water out of his mouth.
Josh woke up the next morning and he was so alone. So much had changed in such little time, and such little things too… no breakfast on the table, no cigarette smoke wafting through the crack in the window, no Eminem on his speakers, no Tyler next to him to make fun of him for whatever dream he had the night before. No, it was fucking nothing, and it felt goddamn awful.
Josh couldn’t even tell him he missed him. Imagine that.
Sameer had said something about this being Bella Swan from New Moon levels of bad. Josh is here to say that he was beyond right.
“I told you not to fall in love…” Ashley trails off. She and Sameer came over after they heard that Josh had called out of work. They’re good friends no matter how much they got on Tyler’s nerves with the overbearingness. They wrapped Josh up in a blanket when they found him crying into his knees on the floor and they got him to drink some of the chicken noodle soup Sameer’s mom made. It was spicy, it made Josh’s nose run, it hurt to drink and Josh couldn’t get enough.
When Josh raises his head to glare at her for her comment, he can’t even do so because his face is too swollen from all of the crying. His voice is hoarse from all the screaming too, just Come back to me and I’ll fucking do it right now, don’t think I won’t and You told me this was worth living and it’s not and you’re a fucking liar and a cheat and I hate you and It was only a week, what did you do to me? He feels, just mildly, fucking insane.
“I’m sorry, dude,” Sameer touches Josh’s shoulder sympathetically and another wave of bitterness hits Josh like whiplash. He doesn’t want sympathy. He wants pain and the only motherfucker who could do it right went away. “The whole thing is a scam. If your guardian angel is always around, then why aren’t they allowed to just… be around?”
“Caseload,” Ashley answers. “Everyone’s got to get their turn.”
“The idea of Tyler fucking some other depressed guy makes me want to vomit,” Josh says, nasally and snotty because of all of the crap leftover in his nostrils and tear ducts. He wants to be purged of it all, to be stripped away like acetone.
“Well,” Ashley says and then doesn’t continue that sentence when Sameer quickly shakes his head. When Josh turns to look at him, he immediately stops and offers Josh a grimace as a smile.
“You should stay with me for a couple of nights,” Sameer says. “It’s not good to be alone. And if you don’t want to stay, you should at least eat dinner with us and watch a movie or two. Sitting in this apartment… it’s not gonna help you.”
Josh looks down at his hands.
“Is this a… suicide watch?” Josh asks. When he looks to Sameer and Ashley, he expects them to look away sheepishly. But they don’t. They look at him like they really care about him.
“It’s a We love you and want you to be okay watch,” Ashley says. “A… a fucking You’re worth more than any stupid angel thinks you are.”
“Fuck that dude,” Sameer says. “You got us. We’re gonna take care of you and we’re not gonna leave you, I promise.”
Yeah, fuck Tyler actually.
Right.
Totally.
Unable to sleep at Sameer’s, Josh is forced to recount a conversation that he and Tyler had one night. Josh was ranting about being miserable, because of course he was, and Tyler told him to shut up and be sensible. It annoyed Josh to be told in such simple terms that he was overthinking. It was eye-opening.
“What do you have to be miserable about?” Tyler asked. “Quickly. Don’t take your time to think about your answer.”
“No one wants me,” Josh said. “I’ve never met a single person who wanted me unconditionally. Never.”
“You’re twenty-five,” Tyler rolled his eyes. “Don’t be dramatic.”
“Why shouldn’t I be dramatic?” Josh asked. “It’s fucking pathetic. No one on this fucking Earth has looked at me and wanted to love me. I have so much of it to give and no one–”
“Never,” Tyler shook his head as he recalled the word Josh said earlier. “ You know, this reminds me of something my two favorite philosophers said once.”
Josh didn’t really care about philosophy. But he liked listening to Tyler talk. His voice was like creaky floors and it reminded Josh of being in high school and sneaking back into his room after going to parties. He wonders what Tyler was like in high school. He wondered who his friends were, and what music he listened to, and if he was a good student. He wondered how frequently he went to church. He wondered if Tyler ever saw this happening.
“Yeah?” Josh asked. He kissed Tyler’s knuckles because he liked seeing the blush form on Tyler’s face. Like clockwork, it appeared. Hot pink, like his halo. There were so many moments that Josh was going to miss, he stored them away in his mind for a rainy day. “What did they say?”
“They said, and I quote…” Tyler cleared his throat. “I will never say never. I will fight ‘til forever. Whenever you knock me down, I will not stay on the ground. Never say never. That’s by Sir Jaden Smith and Sir Justin Bieber.”
Josh dropped Tyler’s hand. “Dude. I was actually taking you seriously!”
Tyler laughed. He liked being a dick sometimes. Josh found it as infuriating as he found it genuinely hilarious. He wondered what Tyler was like as a son, as a brother, as a friend, as a lover. Did Tyler leave anyone behind? Did Tyler doom someone the way he would come to doom him? “But I’m dead fucking serious. You’re telling me the word never and you’re fucking twenty-five. It’s a little ridiculous. Besides… you don’t think Sameer has the hots for you?”
It was Josh’s turn to flush hot pink. No, Josh did not think that. “Shut up, Tyler. No, he doesn’t.”
“Yeah, he does, ” Tyler leaned in and he pressed a kiss against Josh’s throat. “Why do you think I don’t like him? He’s trying to steal you from me, doesn’t he know that you’re mine this week? He can have you later.”
“No,” Josh squirmed away from Tyler’s touch and he pointed an accusatory finger in his direction. “You’re just– you’re just talking out of your ass because you’re trying to rile me up. He doesn’t like me. Who would?”
This was easy for Tyler to answer. “Me.”
Now, on the bed in the guest bedroom, Josh ponders this. Was Tyler trying to set him up? Tyler ordered him to fall in love – and Josh did. Just, with the wrong person. Maybe that was a manipulative move on his part. Maybe he was just planting seeds the way he had been planting seeds with the suggestion about drumming lessons, about getting a new job, about being healthier.
The idea of it being a trick hurt. Tyler’s jokes about Jaden and Justin, maybe even the sex they had afterwards when Tyler kept calling him Baby, baby, baby, ooooooh, and it made Josh laugh so hard he came untouched, maybe those moments were tailored specific to him. Like Tyler got a handbook of the right things to say and the right buttons to press and everything was a ruse.
God would do that to him, Josh is convinced. He probably thought Josh was weak.
Josh was many things in this world. Maybe weak was one of them. But his streak of stubbornness was stronger.
Fuck Tyler. Fuck God. Fuck it all.
“I can’t believe how much I hate,” Josh admits a week later at the breakfast table.
He’s still staying with Sameer. Sameer’s parents are so chill about it, it’s a bit frightening. Sameer says that they’re just like that—he doesn’t know what went wrong when it came to him. That statement made Josh sad—Sameer was awesome. And that statement made Josh hate Tyler—Tyler’s hatred for him was uncalled for. So what if Sameer actually did like him… at least it wasn’t manipulation.
“I hate everything,” Josh says. “I hate Tyler. I hate living. I hate our job. I hate the fact that I didn’t get a call back from Guitar Center. I hate that I can’t have a dog in my apartment. I hate that I can’t afford a dog anyway. I hate that I can’t masturbate without thinking about Tyler’s dick. I hate that I can’t smoke cigarettes without thinking about Tyler’s face. Tyler’s stupid fucking face.”
“This is an interesting way of saying grace,” Ashley cracks a smile. She’s been coming over for breakfast the past couple of days. It’s just Sameer, Ashley, and Josh at the table, or else Josh would’ve left out the details about Tyler’s dick. To be honest, he might’ve left the rest of it.
“I’m sorry!” Josh buries his head in his hands. “I want to get over it too. But it’s like… wow. Wow, this sucks. And he left me here to wallow in how sucky it is.”
“Take revenge,” Ashley says, smirking around her orange juice. Josh has already finished his glass. Force of habit, or something. “He told you not to do stupid things. Well, what’s living without doing stupid things. The hell does Tyler know about living, he’s fucking dead.”
“And what stupid things would I do?” Josh asks. He doesn’t dare look at Sameer. Oh, Tyler set him and Sameer up alright, but Josh is certain Tyler would be a little peeved about it if Josh moved on too soon.
The thing is that Josh is all shook up. He wants to love Tyler, he wants to hate him, he wants revenge and he wants to please and he wants to act out, and he wants all of it at the same time all the time. The feelings are contradictory and don’t make much sense.
“Join your BDSM dungeon again,” Ashley says. “Easy peasy. If Tyler is watching, he’ll be beyond pissed. It’ll be awesome.”
“Uhhhhh,” Sameer interrupts her. He looks at her like she’s crazy. “That was cracked to begin with. That was always a bad idea, since the beginning. Josh, do not listen to her. She’s thinking with her vagina!”
“Fuck around and find out!” Ashley argues. “If Tyler’s around, he won’t let you do it. He’d stop you before you even got the chance. You deserve to fuck with his head too.”
Josh is grinning from ear to ear.
At work, he rings up tampons and milk and condoms and portable chargers and deodorant and face wash and pregnancy tests and bread and birthday cards. Typical day. Sameer and Ashley keep calling on the phone by his register to tell him dumb jokes to make him smile and he appreciates it but at the same time it’s like…
A lot.
He doesn’t want to smile, don’t they fucking understand that? He wants to be miserable. It’s his most natural state. He’s gone back to square one, except not even really because he’s worse than he started. Tyler said to fake it till he makes it — can he even do that?
He’s in the middle of bagging a middle aged woman’s random pile of shit when the phone rings again for the second time in ten minutes.
Josh gives the woman the most apologetic look he can muster before he picks up the phone and brings his free hand up to his head to quell the headache that’s been steadily building. “Guys, I really appreciate this but—”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Josh drops the phone.
It bounces off the counter and Josh scrambles to pick it back up off the floor by its coil. It flops around for a second like a fish, it crashes into the side of Josh’s counter twice before Josh practically slams it back up against his ear.
“W—”
“Don’t be stupid,” Tyler repeats. He sounds so far away, like he’s on another planet. There might be waves crashing in the background. Josh isn’t sure. “The thing you’re thinking about doing? I’ll never forgive you for it.”
“Never?” Josh speaks without thinking. He presses the phone so close to him and so hard that Tyler’s background echoes between his ears like he could be beside him. “The thing you said you’d never say?”
Tyler laughs. In a second, Josh forgives him for everything. He’s already forgetting the details of his face. He’s already forgetting about the ache in his knees as he begged God for Tyler for back.
“Tyler,” Josh says, his grip on the phone strong as if he could hold Tyler himself. “I think I might need you.”
The line goes dead.
Their sex always had elements of BDSM. There was a clear top and a clear bottom. But honestly… it never really got to the level of Josh’s violent dreams. It didn’t need to. Tyler just understood it. It was probably because he could see inside Josh’s mind. Like damn, Josh was an idiot. Tyler never really loved him. He just regurgitated back what Josh was already thinking, he was just a puppet. He wasn’t even—
Whatever.
Josh watches some scenes unfold before his eyes and he feels a bit queasy. How was he able to do all of this before Tyler? No one is laughing in here, or cracking jokes and kissing and checking in. It’s a lot of screaming and moaning and crying. It’s the things that Josh dreams about except, he doesn’t know if he can actually handle it anymore. Not without someone loving by his side.
Even if Tyler was a fake.
“Josh!” someone calls out to him.
Josh looks up and sees an old scene partner. This guy dug his knees into the crook of Josh’s neck three months ago and Josh wasn’t able to breathe right for two weeks. His voice was destroyed. He was utterly quiet. He felt small and useless.
Josh smiles at him. Perfect.
“I heard you pussied out!” he says.
“It was a mistake,” Josh rolls his shoulders out. “I got it cleared up. Are you here with anyone tonight?”
This is the equivalent of Bella getting on the back of that loser’s motorcycle. It’s now or never, Tyler, Josh thinks. You said you’d never forgive me. Well, maybe I don’t want you to forgive me. Maybe I want you to hurt me so bad I never want to think about you again. And maybe then we’ll be even.
Josh has never felt more alive than when he gets that blindfold put on him. His heart has never beat so fast. The images behind his eyes move so fast he can’t catch his breath and the blood rushes in his ears. Getting whipped so hard he drips blood, getting hit to the point he can’t sit at all, getting face-fucked until the inside of his throat was torn up, red red red red red. He wants none of it and he’s going to get it all and no one will be there to stop it.
The smell of the room is wrong. This is not his home. This is not where he belongs. He needs to leave.
Josh opens his mouth to say his safeword before the Dom begins but no words come out.
Before he can truly panic, though, he feels a hand grip and pull his forearm, forcing him to stand. When Josh falters, the person holds him steady.
He smells like cigarette smoke.
“Get the fuck up,” Tyler says into his ear. “I’m taking you home.”
Tyler is so mad. His halo keeps flashing like lightning. One second, white. The other second, pink. Red. Orange. Purple. Repeat.
Josh cries into his hands. Relief. He was wearing Tyler’s oversized blue coat around his shoulders like a shawl because Tyler refused to let him stop for even a second to put his shirt back on. When someone tried to stop Tyler and Josh at the door, Tyler spit at them to suck his fucking cock.
“I think I might’ve broken you!” Tyler laughs in disbelief as he paces the kitchen floor. “Fucking hell, Josh, fucking Christ! Are you goddamn insane?!”
Josh looks up to answer.
“It was a rhetorical question. Don’t answer it,” Tyler tells him.
He continues to pace. He opens his mouth to scream and then he decides against it. He keeps looking at Josh and then he looks away. It’s so human. It makes Josh sick with love.
“I didn’t know what to do to get your attention,” Josh says childishly through his tears. “I wanted you back so bad, Ty.”
“Josh!” Tyler keeps laughing in disbelief. What’s not to believe? How could he think this was okay? He didn’t actually think Josh could’ve moved on that fast. What’s that word he likes to use so much, stupid ?
“Are you going to stay?” Josh asks him.
“I can’t,” Tyler says. “I shouldn’t even be here. I just— fuck, man, why?”
“Me?!” Josh whines. “I didn’t do shit, you did it! I’m miserable, don’t you— I had nothing to lose falling in love with you! You were supposed to be the strong one. You weren’t. That’s on you, my guy.”
Tyler blinks at him. Then, like he’s working on auto-pilot, Tyler sits and pulls out his pack of cigarettes and his lighter.
Josh watches him curiously.
Tyler lights his cigarette and he points it in Josh’s direction after his first pull. “Don’t talk.”
Josh remains quiet.
After several minutes of smoking in silence, his eyes averted and fixated on the GROUPLOVE hoodie on Josh’s bed, Tyler finally glances in Josh’s direction. He looks calmer now, though not by much.
“The dungeon thing was one thing,” Tyler says, moving his hands around. His second cigarette spills ash. “If I left you in there, you would’ve gotten your safeword out, I know this because I know not everything I taught you went to shit. But every time you thought that I didn’t care about you— honestly, it grated on my goddamn nerves.”
Josh smiles a bit despite the fact that he’s still dripping snot from his nose. He loves the fact that Tyler swears and uses God’s name in vain. He watches as Tyler ashes his cigarette in the way that he is in love with.
“I can’t— listen, even if I quit the angel gig. It’s not really a good idea for me to be hanging out here, when there are people who would recognize me even though I’ve been dead for some time now. I’m dead, Josh. I fucking killed myself.”
Josh bites the inside of his cheek to keep from crying even more. He hates thinking about it.
“So— you see why this is a bad idea?” Tyler asks. “I can’t drive. I can’t rent a home. I can’t get married. I can’t be a father. These are all things you want. I was trying to give them to you, except you’re too fucking stubborn for your own good and you can’t get over me.”
He continues. “I’m trying to right my wrongs with you. I’m trying to get people to stop making the mistake I did. Baby, I’m going to disappear and I swear to you, in a year, I’m going to be the faintest memory.”
“Sam still dreams about his angel,” Josh offers weakly. He’s bargaining, he realizes. Depression is next, except that’s always been there. Acceptance, then, is truly next. No. No, God, please.
“Yeah, well, maybe you and Sam can bond over that with your two future children,” Tyler sneers. Josh loves his possessiveness. Josh loves his bitchiness. Josh loves everything about Tyler that negates his angel side.
“Trust me,” Tyler leans over the kitchen table. “Everything about me is a mistake and I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry I ruined your guardian angel experience. I’m sorry I fell in love with you. I’m sorry about it all. But I’m trying to make this better now and I’m trying to tell you to stop being fucking stupid. Don’t wait for me. I’m not going to be there.”
Josh grits his teeth together but he can’t stop the tears. Not even when Tyler stands and kisses the top of his head.
“I love you,” Tyler’s own tears wet the smallest patch of Josh’s scalp. Josh can feel his human. “I’m sorry. Hey, check your Spotify.”
That’s supposed to be the end. That was supposed to be his closure. That was the fairytale ending, Josh’s knight in shining armor coming to save him one last time.
Tyler still never came inside of him, you know.
That was not the end of their story, Josh is convinced. Tyler will find a way – he’s got to find a way. He owes Josh that much. He owes Josh fucking semen.
“I think that’s a little crazy,” Ashley tells Josh. “And you know I have some crazy ass ideas sometimes. But I think that might be actually kind of insane.”
Josh shrugs. “I don’t know. I feel like it’s really not that weird if you know him.”
Josh says this because Tyler left Josh a gift. For two weeks, Josh didn’t listen to music. He didn’t want to. The AirPods didn’t feel like his, they felt like Tyler’s. The Spotify account didn’t feel like his own, not when Tyler used it so much that his Yearly Wrapped would not be accurate. He never wanted to open that app again, he wanted to preserve it so that it would always remain Tyler’s. Except, Tyler gave him an order.
When Josh pressed the search option, the first item on the list was a playlist titled HOMETOWN. The playlist had three likes. It was full of music by an artist Josh had never listened to before, an artist named Tyler Joseph.
Tyler left Josh some music.
Of course, when the music was written, it wasn’t intended for Josh. Obviously. But Tyler left it there for Josh. Fourteen songs.
I wrote and recorded an album, Tyler told Josh one night. In my basement. It was a lot of God stuff. I had a God phase for, I don’t know, twenty-four years. It’s not really good. The music, I mean. Well, the God phase wasn’t really good either.
Let me hear, Josh said. I’ll be the judge of whether or not it’s good.
Maybe… Tyler smiled at him. I only show my music to my favorite people.
After finding out Tyler’s last name, it was kind of easy to lightly stalk the absolute fuck out of Tyler’s life. He only died a year ago. Josh scrolled through hundreds of pictures on Instagram, Tyler’s pictures on basketball courts and at Taco Bell and at church and his family’s pictures and his friends’ pictures. Tyler and his brothers at an Eminem concert. Tyler and his date to prom. There were memorials on Facebook, paragraphs upon paragraphs about Tyler. Tyler had tweets about college assignments, about Donnie Darko, about God and about La Dispute. Pleas for help on Tumblr, text posts about Breaking Bad. Demos on SoundCloud, songs about holographic Pokémon cards and someone else having your name. Fucking everything, Tyler left it for Josh to see and read and listen to.
There was a song and it went Sometimes we will die and sometimes we will fly away… Either way, you’re by my side until my dying days…! And if I’m not there and I’m far away, I said ‘Don’t be afraid’... I said ‘Don’t be afraid’... we’re going home!
It meant something. Tyler’s life meant something.
He doesn’t tell any of this to Ashley and Sameer.
It’s his and Tyler’s secret to keep.
He knows like he knows Tyler’s lyrics that Tyler will be back.
Months pass.
Josh gets a call back from Guitar Center.
Josh gets the job.
Josh calls his parents and his siblings and they make up.
Josh gets a gig playing drums on the weekends because he practices every second he doesn’t work.
Josh moves out of his shitty apartment.
Josh moves into an apartment that allows its residents to have pets.
Josh receives a puppy named Jim from Sameer and Ashley.
Josh does not fall in love.
Tyler does not come back.
The thing about Josh’s sadness is that it doesn’t actually go the hell away. It’s a fucking stain on his life. He doesn’t know why it’s there, it just is. It’s like what Sameer said that one time, he doesn’t know how this happened because everything else should’ve been fine and it evidently wasn’t.
There’s a night. Sameer and Ashley were over and they were all watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. Josh kept blushing and laughing into his hands because Shah Rukh Khan’s character reminded him of Tyler a little bit… he was a dick and he was funny and he said these lines that made the pit of Josh’s stomach grow hot.
Josh wasn’t even feeling particularly sad that night— he had his friends over, Jim was running around the apartment like a mad man, the Taco Bell hit exceptionally, all of the boxes for the night were crossed. Except, they were watching the movie. Rahul grabbed Anjali and whispered, “And one more thing… I’m definitely going to take over your sweetmeat shop!”
Ashley choked. “What?! Oh nah, the euphemism was too heavy handed there.”
There was this song in this movie on this night. The combination of everything, Rahul’s bad joke and Jim barking and eating shoes and Tyler’s absence and the song combined into this terribly churning feeling. The lyrics were translated into the screen. As Josh read them, the pang of hot heat in his stomach developed into lava. He could feel it in his intestines. He could feel it burning him from the inside out.
He missed Tyler. It had been months, but he missed Tyler. Tyler would’ve loved this. Maybe not the company. But he would’ve loved this life that Josh had begun to create. He would’ve loved this movie. He would’ve loved that Josh was beginning to feel happy, even if the thought of Tyler not being here was beginning to dampen the whole thing. Josh listened to Tyler’s music every night, he drummed along to it when he closed the store for the night. He screamed along to the lyrics Reign down and destroy me! and he looked around to see if Tyler heard him singing to his words.
On the screen — The sun dims into twilight… the moon beams simmer brightly… I wonder why this sky is melting all around us… I stand still as the Earth moves around me… The heart beats faster as my breath goes deeper… Is this the call of first love?
In the movie, the song is just a fantasy sequence because Rahul and Anjali know that they can’t be together. They do the typical Bollywood movie thing and dance in front of pyramids and rub their faces in the crooks of necks because the actors can’t actually kiss. The characters dance in the water and their outfits become sheer. Rahul watches as Anjali is accepted into his family even though that would never happen in real life, Anjali watches as Rahul dances in the street in the rain.
It felt stupid, but Josh really, really missed Tyler. Maybe it was because he had fantasies like this too… maybe without all the dunes and mesh shirts and the Hindi, but he did. He dreamt about Tyler hanging out with his friends, about Tyler singing his gorgeous songs on stage in arenas, about Tyler meeting his family. He dreamt about Tyler curling his hand into his hair and kissing him slow. He dreamt about Tyler tying him to the bed with deep red ropes. He dreamt about Tyler’s hand marks on his throat. He dreamt about everything, all the time. The thoughts were beginning to drive him crazy.
May the sun continue to shine, let the moon wait, these dreams are too far-fetched, our union seems impossible.
After that, even after watching Rahul and Anjali get together, Josh still felt sick. Like, that would never be him and Tyler. Never. What did Jaden Smith and Justin Bieber know? It was like for the first time, Josh realized the sheer ridiculousness of it all. The fact that he was really deeply in love with his guardian angel. The fact that if he really, really wanted to, he could’ve visited Tyler’s grave. Tyler said this to Josh himself — he killed himself. There was nothing there anymore. It was over.
But what if?
What if? The phrase was like matches being struck. Josh envisioned the words like tiny flames. What if? What if? What if? What if?
When he went to bed that night, Jim asleep a couple of feet away from him, he pictured a fire in his mind. In the flames, there was only Tyler. His love for him could’ve burned this whole fucking place down. He pictured Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol in the water. It’s the thirst of the ocean, it’s the dream of the night. The heart of the flames have been set afire. I stand still as the Earth moves around me.
What if? What if? What if? What if? What if? What if Josh actually just fucking killed himself after all? What if Tyler could’ve reversed it all, would he even? What if he and Tyler could see each other again? What if Tyler was searching for a way? What if? What if? What if?
“Don’t be stupid,” Tyler says.
“You sound so real,” Josh says with his eyes still closed. Tyler’s voice felt like— “Like you’re here, baby.”
“No, dumbass,” Tyler says. “I am actually here!”
Josh scrambles to open his eyes and sit up in bed. Tyler’s at the foot of his bed, his wings spread big and large behind him. He is crossing his arms. His halo is hot pink. His hair is shaved down now. He looks fucking sexy. He smells like cigarettes. Josh needs his dick inside of him since four months ago.
“Yeah,” Tyler says, trying to sound mean except Josh knows him better than that. He can hear the smile in his voice. “When you start picturing burning your fucking apartment down, I get flagged down to you because they think you’re losing your mind.”
Josh doesn’t reply. He just reaches for Tyler and Tyler comes to him. When they kiss, it’s like— Josh doesn’t even know. Josh gasps against him, Tyler licks into his mouth like he’s never tasted him before… it’s nothing like their first kiss, weird and unfamiliar and nerve wracking, this one is the most sure they’ve ever been, Josh can feel it. They kiss like they’ll never see each other again, which is a frightening thought because he just got here. But Josh won’t let himself go down that road just yet.
“I missed you so much,” Tyler says soft against his ear as his hand snakes down to Josh’s clothed cock. Tyler’s hard already, Josh can feel it. The memory of Tyler’s dick makes his mouth water, his legs spread. “Angel, I missed you so fucking much.”
There’s so much Josh wants to say to him. He wants to tell Tyler that he heard all of his music, that he loves his new hair, that he masturbates to thoughts of Tyler only. He wants to tell him that he won’t let him leave this time, he’ll tie Tyler down if he has to. However, just before Josh is about to say at least some of those things, he realizes something grave that makes even the sexy thoughts in his mind pause.
“Wait!” Josh freezes right before Tyler is about to pull his dick out. “Wait, wait, hold on, stop.”
Tyler looks up at him, his brown eyes wide with concern. Josh has missed that look, oh God. There’s some part of him that might vomit out of sheer excitement.
“It’s Jim!” Josh whisper-yells, nodding his head in the direction of the sleeping puppy. “We can’t wake up Jim. I’m his dad, he can’t watch me have sex, that’s wrong!”
“Oh,” Tyler sighs in relief and he dips his head in Josh’s neck to laugh out the leftover nerves. The heat from his halo makes Josh’s face turn red with warmth. Then, like the doubt in himself written across his face never appeared, Tyler laughs lower… sexily… Josh feels hot in his stomach. “And who said you were going to have sex tonight anyway?”
His eyes glitter when Josh rolls his own and Tyler fakes a groan when Josh elbows him in the stomach. “Ow, you motherfucker! Those drumming lessons made you strong.”
He pauses. He kisses beside Josh’s ear, bites his earlobe. His teeth are sharp. His voice is creaky floors, the vehicle to the lyrics that are engrained forever in Josh’s mind. “You followed my orders, Josh. All but one.”
Josh tips his head back, he lets Tyler kiss the length of his neck. Its felt so goddamn naked without Tyler’s hands there, Tyler’s kisses. “Will I get what I want then? Finally? Please?”
Tyler nips at his collarbone. “Get rid of the dog before he sees some shit that will traumatize him for life.”
Tyler works some of his angel magic on Jim — he doesn’t stir when Josh gently carries him to the living room even though Jim is the type of puppy where… once he’s awake, all hell breaks loose. Josh loves him like he’s never loved another creature before, but Tyler is the closest second to ever exist when Josh comes back to the room and Tyler’s waiting there for him. Naked with his wings on full display, his hair and his eyes dark… Josh stands for a moment just drinking the sight of him in.
Then, Tyler gets on his knees for him. His wings cower, they shine in the moonlight peaking through Josh’s shitty curtains. “Come here,” Tyler says to him, and Josh has to force himself to remember how to walk.
“Ty,” Josh’s eyes slide shut as Tyler runs his nose along the toned muscles of his stomach. The buzzing of Tyler’s halo feels almost like little tiny kisses too. Tyler’s hair is buzzed short so Josh has nothing to grip onto as Tyler presses open-mouthed kisses to his hips, to the base of his cock, down to his balls. Worship, almost.
Tyler laughs gently when he hears Josh think it. “I just really missed your dick,” he admits before he gives Josh the messiest head he’s ever received. By the time Josh is coming, he’s sure everything between them is wet – the floor, Tyler’s face, their hands, everything below Josh’s metaphorical belt. Josh gasps when Tyler grabs at his arm and yanks him down so that they’re both kneeling, both breathing hard, both red in the face. Tyler makes a face and Josh opens his mouth before Tyler even has to touch him – Tyler spits Josh’s cum directly back into Josh’s mouth and then shoves him down by his shoulders until he’s laying with his back against hardwood.
“How do you want my cum?” Tyler asks, jerking his cock above Josh. There’s still a string of the pearlescent mixture hanging from Tyler’s lip and he swipes it with two fingers on his free hand before he sucks it off. Josh is dazed, watching Tyler and still trying to swallow down the taste of himself and Tyler’s spit, and he chokes on a moan when Tyler rearranges their limbs so that he can ghost his fingers over Josh’s hole. “Quickly. Down your throat? Rubbed into your face? Deep in your ass? Come on, answer me.”
“I don’t know!” Josh blurts out. “Three for three?”
Tyler’s frenzied movements cease. He raises his eyebrows. The room is so still, it’s picture-perfect. This spot on the floor will never be the same, Josh will never let it get dirty.
“Am I being greedy?” Josh asks him, feigning innocence. “That’s your fucking fault. You’re the one who left your, uh…”
He falters for a brief moment. He looks at Tyler staring him down with those deep brown eyes and then it comes to him like a wave, like driving home.
“Insatiable fucking whore.”
Tyler looks so pleased. It makes Josh want to orgasm again and again and again.
“I did, didn’t I?” Tyler asks, shaking his head as he grins. It’s strange, Josh gets harder at the sight of Tyler’s smile more than any of the dirty talk or slick moves. “I’ll make it up to you, don’t worry about that. Let’s get on the bed.”
The moments pulse like the colors in Tyler’s halo.
Purple when Josh is crying into his pillows from overstimulation as Tyler coaxes a second orgasm out of him with three fingers pressed against his prostate. Tyler whispers to Josh that he’s going to fuck him through a third now and that if he wants to take a break, just say the word. Josh laughs through a sob and tells him Don’t be stupid.
Orange when Tyler flips them over so that Josh is on his back when Tyler fucks him again for the first time in months. They make the same sound when Tyler pushes in and takes Josh, and Josh realizes that however gone he is, Tyler is too. He runs his hands over Tyler’s hair and he cups his face to kiss him. Tyler is the poet between them, but Josh thinks it would be hard for even Tyler to put into words what Josh is feeling.
Red when Tyler reminds Josh that he wants to hear his moans. Don’t hide away from me, Tyler says as he lightly slaps Josh across the face to bring him back to his body. Tell me what you want. Tyler tells him. Josh can only moan in return and he lets the images in his mind tell Tyler the rest, getting pressed and held down, being fingered even after Tyler comes.
Hot pink when Tyler makes him come a third time. Josh can’t believe his body can do this. It should be impossible. He feels like he might be dreaming, until Tyler thrusts into him again and he’s rocked back into the world. He looks up at Tyler with wide eyes, wet and gorgeous, and Tyler gasps and says that he’s close. Wait for me.
White when Tyler comes inside of him. It’s a goddamn mess and Josh doesn’t want it any other way. He laughs deliriously when Tyler pushes it back inside of him when he begins to leak and Tyler reminds him, his breath hot on Josh’s neck as he places a bruise there the shape of his mouth, that he asked for three.
By the time they’re done, Josh can’t even remember his name. He pulls Tyler so close to him that he’s sure he’d be suffocating him if he weren’t already dead, and Tyler smiles against his arm when Josh murmurs to him that he’ll beat his ass if he’s not there in the morning.
“Kinky,” Tyler remarks sleepily.
Tyler smokes in the kitchen as Josh eats his breakfast. Tyler smirked when he saw the glass of orange juice that Josh poured for himself and Josh smiled to himself – they didn’t have to talk about it, but yeah. Whatever. Orange juice was okay sometimes. Especially the fresh squeezed stuff, which is what Josh makes for himself every morning.
Josh can afford oranges now.
Josh drums now.
Josh has a dog.
“How do you not like dogs?” Josh asks when Tyler makes a face when he feels Jim licking his toes. “You’re kind of a sociopath, to be honest.”
Tyler blows smoke in Josh’s direction. He’s not wearing a shirt and Josh’s mouth waters as he remembers those tattoos in his face last night. He remembers the Instagram post Tyler made about them. He knows it all, fuck, it’s exhilarating. “I don’t know,” Tyler shrugs. “I just don’t. Jim is alright though.”
Josh rolls his eyes as he picks up Jim so that he can sit in his lap. Of course, then, Jim starts begging for a piece of Josh’s breakfast sandwich, so then Josh sets him back down and he goes right back to biting Tyler’s ankles. “Well, he likes you. He’s going to be depressed when you leave, you know.”
Tyler raises his eyebrows.
Josh is using his dog to talk about his feelings, yes.
“Like… really… really… depressed,” Josh continues. “It’s just, now that he’s used to having you around, it’s going to hurt even more when you leave.”
Tyler blinks at him.
“And I… he...”
“What the actual fuck are you doing?” Tyler asks him.
“I’m trying to talk about this in a way that doesn’t make me want to stab myself!” Josh winces. It’s just— okay, Tyler fucked him within an inch of his life last night. It was fucking amazing. Tyler came all over him and in him and on him and the smell of it was still ingrained in Josh’s nose when he got up to shower in the morning. But, what now? He doesn’t think he can handle only seeing Tyler three times a year. If that’s the case…
“It’s just…” Tyler ashes his cigarette in the way that Josh is in love with. “I got called to you yesterday because you were thinking about setting your apartment on fire. In a sick way, I can only be with you when you’re…”
Tyler trails off.
Josh supplies it for him because he’s pissed off at the world and at God and at every single force that is stopping him and Tyler from being together. He’s pissed off at Tyler too, for even— because what was the point?
“Trying to die,” Josh says, shaking his head. “I can only be with you when I want to die. That’s… yeah, that’s rich. That’s cool.”
Josh stands. He feels like he might be sick. He doesn’t know why he’s having such an adverse reaction to this — Ashley and Sameer already explained this possibility to him. But it’s more real when Josh can look at Tyler’s face and see only hopelessness and pity.
“I meant what I said about Sameer, you know,” Tyler tries to make this better.
“Shut up about Sam,” Josh throws his hands up. “I don’t want him. I want you! I— I listened to your music, you know.”
Tyler flushes warm pink and he looks down at his hands.
“So don’t even tell me that I don’t know you. I think I know you better than I know me,” Josh admits in a devastating moment. “I love you more than I—”
“Don’t be—”
“Stupid? This whole thing is stupid! Tell me you’ve figured out a plan.”
Tyler finishes up his cigarette. He rubs his face with his hands and he looks more exhausted than Josh has ever seen him. Josh knows that he doesn’t sleep anymore, but Josh wishes he could give it to him like morsels of chocolate, little moments of bliss like handfuls of M&Ms. Josh knows he’s a stressful individual to be around, but hey… Tyler said he loved him back.
“It’s a crazy ass plan,” Tyler says. His voice comes out muffled behind his hands. “It’s the dumbest plan to ever plan.”
“Tell me!” Josh says excitedly, honestly not expecting that Tyler actually came up with something. “We’ll make it work. Come on, what is it?”
Tyler looks at him through the gaps of his fingers. “I think you should pretend to attempt suicide…?”
This might be the worst decision Josh has ever made in his entire life. And Josh has made countless of those.
“Tyler,” Josh does not want to die. “Tyler, I don’t want to die.”
If this was supposed to be a wake up call from the universe, Josh is woken the fuck up. He’s never been more terrified in his life, standing on the edge of the building roof. It’s almost Jigsawian… maybe he really did need to be brought to the brink of death to appreciate his life.
Though, he was loving his life even before this. He loves Jim. He loves his over-enthusiastic and overbearing friends. He loves his new apartment, and he loves his new job, and he loves drumming. The sadness was there but it was manageable.
He realizes this wholly as he looks down at the fall. The sadness would always be there, but it would be manageable.
“Suicide?!” Josh nearly spit out his orange juice.
“Yes,” Tyler said. “The thing you were contemplating when I first met you. Not to actually do it, just to pretend to do it…”
“What the fuck!” Josh shouted.
“I told you it was crazy!”
They bickered for what felt like ten minutes. Then, Josh gave up. Because Tyler was making good points. I’ll negotiate it when they see you. I’ll tell them, you’re fucking crazy and you need serious help. Just… I know it sounds insane, but trust me?
Tyler told him months ago to trust him, and Josh did, and good things happened. Amazing things happened, actually. But haha… haha, oh Jesus Christ, staring down at the fall, Josh is having some serious regrets.
“Huh?” Tyler squints up at him from Josh’s balcony. A cloud of smoke follows his voice. He’s wearing Josh’s clothes and his wings are out. “Say it louder, I can’t hear you!”
Josh closes his eyes. “I don’t want to die! I’m really scared right now! When can I come down?!”
Tyler pauses for a moment. Josh feels a buzz against his thigh and he nearly jumps from the feeling of just that. Still, he catches himself and he glances down at the message when he pulls his phone out of his pocket. The message is from an angel number, 222. Follow the script dude
Josh sends his message with shaky hands. you’re not being reassuring, u know
I’ll be reassuring later
Tyler told him explicitly not to jump. Those were orders. He told him to just… stand there on the ledge and yell about hating his life.
“I…” Josh swallows spit. “I want to die. I hate my life.”
“Louder,” Tyler calls out from below. “I can’t hear you.”
“I HATE MY LIFE AND I WANT TO DIE!” Josh shouts. “FUCK THIS!”
Something in the atmosphere changes once Josh starts shouting. It was foggy that afternoon, the air cold but not brisk… it was just kind of there in Josh’s bones. It was cold like November, not December. But then, all of a sudden, Josh feels a sudden wave of warmness. It caresses his cheek like Tyler in bed.
He hears Tyler clear his throat down below.
“Sir,” Tyler says.
Josh peaks down at the balcony, but he sees no one else there with Tyler. Still, Tyler offers the presence his chair. When Tyler looks up at Josh, he winks at him. He flicks his ash in the way Josh is in love with, Josh’s cue to keep going. “I DON’T LIKE THIS…”
“Joseph,” a deep voice says. It’s a man, Tyler’s superior is a man. Josh has a fleeting thought, Is Tyler talking to God right now? “You know I don’t like when you smoke those.”
Tyler laughs. Josh hears a lighter flicker. “Would you like me to light yours?”
Two clouds of smoke follow. Fuck, Josh could use a cigarette now. But, Josh reminds himself of his job. “I… UM. I AM HERE TO KILL MYSELF… I HATE… IT HERE…”
“Right,” the Presence says. “This is not going to work.”
Josh’s heart beats faster. He thinks about everything he loves and he flips it on its head. “MY FRIENDS SUCK. MY JOB SUCKS. DRUMMING SUCKS, EVERYTHING SUCKS!”
“He means it,” Tyler says. “He needs help. I would do it, I would give up my post to do it. I see myself in him, you know? I had a lot of good in my life and mental illness stripped it all away. I want to continue showing him that there’s purpose in his life. He’s a good kid.”
Josh latches onto those words. “I NEED PURPOSE AND I CAN’T FIND ANY IN THIS SHITTY EXISTENCE! I’M A GOOD KID, I NEED HELP!”
“You don’t think I know this is a ruse?” the Presence asks. “I like you, Joseph, but honestly…”
Josh feels a buzz against his thigh. Be more convincing.
“NO ONE LOVES ME,” Josh shouts. He pictures Tyler kissing him, sweet and slow and with tongue. He pictures them watching Trapped in the Closet while high and laughing their asses off. He pictures them playing poker on the bed in the old apartment for head. “I… I DON’T…”
“It’s not!” Tyler sounds mildly desperate. This worries Josh greatly. As it would worry anyone. “I’ve seen the inside of his head, it’s seriously worrying. His parents love him, his siblings love him, he couldn’t see any of it. It was– would be– the biggest mistake of his life, definitely. He just needs someone to remind him of that, someone who actually cares about him. I care about him. He just needs a real friend.”
“ALL I HAVE IS FRAUDS. LIKE THE NICKI MINAJ SONG.”
The message comes in as soon as Tyler thinks it. What are you DOING?!?!???!!?
“I’M NERVOUS!” Josh shouts his reply.
“Uh huh…” The Presence says. “I think he can find that on his own without your help. He was making strides, I’ve been keeping tabs. New job, new home… I should be promoting you, not demoting you.”
“Josh would not be a demotion,” Tyler says defensively.
“Right…”
“PEOPLE VIEW ME AS LESSER THAN… THEY DON’T TAKE ME SERIOUSLY, HANGING OUT WITH ME WOULD BE LIKE A… DEMOTION….”
“You know that’s not what I meant,” the Presence says. “I’m finding this very difficult to understand. When you died, you told me that you wanted to make a difference in people’s lives. Not one person’s. People. I took a chance on you even though you committed sins because you were a good son when you were alive.”
“Was I,” Tyler trails off with a scoff.
“Yes,” the Presence says. “And now you want to throw away your after-life’s purpose for a…”
“For a what?” Tyler interrupts him. Josh’s eyes widen. Can Tyler seriously not piss off God right now, before this entity does something fucked and Josh actually dies for real? “As if Josh’s life wouldn’t be worth risking it all for. My life when I was alive was worth something, his is too. He deserves to keep it. He deserves more than a second chance, he deserves chances period.”
“And you’re going to be his gay lover,” the Presence says bluntly.
“Yeah, maybe I will be,” Tyler says. “Truth be told, I think I fucking deserve another chance too.”
It’s quiet. A little too quiet. It sounds like failure. Josh can’t see anymore puffs of smoke, and he doesn’t feel the celebratory text message against his thigh. So maybe…
That was it.
They tried their best and they didn’t succeed.
Josh opens his mouth to scream some more bullshit, but there’s this bee.
There’s this bee that comes out of fucking nowhere, and it’s really distracting. It’s not even a bumblebee, it’s one of those scary ones that Josh used to watch documentaries about, the ones that could kill you if a whole swarm came up to you. And if there’s one bee, aren’t there more?
Josh swats away at it a couple of times, and then it gets angry, so then it makes a beeline toward his face.
Josh loses his footing and he falls.
He does not want to die. He does not want to die. He does not want to die.
It all happens so fast, he can’t begin to process it. For a second, he’s falling through the sky like a fallen angel. He slices through the sky like a hot knife in butter, quick and seamless. In another second, Tyler dives off the balcony to catch him. Josh had his eyes closed because he didn’t want to look at what was going to be his obvious fucking death, but he smelled cigarettes when a force grabbed him by the hand and he knew it was Tyler. For a moment, they were floating. It felt like being on a rollercoaster, right before the drop. And then Tyler took him higher, until he was gasping and falling onto his back when Tyler threw him down onto the balcony floor. The both of them shared equally spooked glances when Josh dared to open his eyes like… What just happened?
“Uh…” Tyler looks between Josh, the space on the chair where the Presence must still be sitting, and then back to Josh. “I wasn’t kidding… he really is crazy…”
Josh just laughs. His breath is caught in his throat, the fear makes him start to cry as he realizes he very well could’ve just died, and he hiccups every time Tyler looks at him with equal parts astonishment and anger in his eyes. It’s a lot of things to be doing at once, but he’s doing them. He plays his part well for the first time in the afternoon.
“I see that now…” the Presence says. “I really see that now.”
He stands. Josh can feel the shift in the air. Tyler looks at him and then back to Josh with a barely concealed smile. Success.
“You can stay with him,” the Presence says. “Keep him out of trouble.”
“I will,” Tyler swallows hard. “I’ll try my best.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, Joseph,” the Presence says before he vanishes. The windchill returns. It feels like nothing and everything has happened all at once.
And now… they just sit in silence.
At night, after Josh and Tyler have had their evening cigarette on the balcony, they (plus Jim, who was blissfully unaware of his father’s traumatic afternoon) cuddle up on the couch. Josh has a couch now, by the way.
“So,” Josh says, drumming his fingers against Tyler’s stomach. The TV that Josh now has, by the way, is playing a rerun episode of Frasier. “What do you want to do your second time around?”
The rules about this were unclear. Could Tyler see his family again? Could Tyler actually pursue his dreams of becoming a musician? Maybe Tyler could just get on Instagram and announce that he was an angel. There were already Reddit forums about Guardian Angels, so why the fuck not? Anything seemed possible, the Presence bolted out of there quickly. It amused Josh, the idea that God, or something adjacent, was just as spooked by Josh’s fall as he was.
Tyler scratches behind Jim’s ear. “I want to continue writing my music. I want to sell out arenas and I want kids to know that just because you think your time is up, it doesn’t really mean your time is up. Sometimes, you come back from the dead. Sometimes, you fall in love with a crazy person who jumps off a building when they see a bee.”
He pauses. “I’d want to do the music thing with you, of course. Although, you never did tell me if you liked the songs or not.”
Josh could see it all. Pink and blue confetti, sweating on stage, Sameer and Ashley on their crew because Tyler would come to love them too… he saw Tyler singing at his piano on stage the same way he watched videos of Tyler playing the piano at church, his voice loud and unsure and desperate for someone to listen in.
Josh was listening. Josh would always listen. Tyler’s voice wasn’t unsure in Josh’s fantasies. He had a whole crowd backing him up, showing to him again and again that he was lucky for another chance.
“The songs were okay,” Josh jokes when he notices Tyler’s smile. Tyler was totally listening into Josh’s thoughts, that asshole. “Just okay.”
“Just okay,” Tyler mimics Josh’s voice before he pulls him in for a kiss… something sweet and reminiscent of bubblegum pop music.
In a weird, roundabout way, Josh wants to thank the back-alley BDSM club for this.
“Don’t,” Tyler says, shaking his head. “That ain’t got shit to do with this.”
Okay, Josh will thank himself for this, then. His stubbornness, his persistent belief in Tyler even when everyone else was calling him crazy. Well, Josh did feel slightly crazy sometimes. But in the Beyonce and Jay-Z way, you know.
“Better,” Tyler grins.