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The air of the highway is not enough.
Not today.
For, the heat of the car is truly stifling – perhaps causation of the indignation, the umbrage of the driver, as his foot bears down upon the slope of the accelerator, and his hands attack the steering wheel with an arduous, brimming rage.
Today is lost, astray to his anxiety.
Disquietude, not unbeknownst, a feeling that shifts towards anguish as he decants his vehemence through the tips of his pounding fingers. The helm to the car is submitted to its typical punishment – he matches the beat to his favourite song, a spurious drumming that he employs without a care.
It is wonderful. Josh finds that his cheeks are flushing, and his grip is tightening.
He jostles his head, simply to feel. His curls are bouncing fierce as they thwack against his brow, not enough to sting, just enough to notice. The sensation tugs at his ribcage, and he sways his skull again – again, again, again, slamming his hand against the jut of the car’s turn signal, the crash symbol to his pseudo-motor drum-kit.
He very nearly smiles. He is a bitter child at heart, and one that simply yearns to feel accepted as his talent falls to obliviousness.
It doesn’t matter now – he veers his steering, hauling his elderly automobile into the nearest gas station. He ponders for a moment if he has the change to spare, and would likely come to starve just to fill the tank with fuel. His vigilance falters, and he doesn’t pay it mind.
Simply stations his car in its usual spot, his lips curving upwards as his eyes dart to the storefront – the slender, young man with the Red Bull and the Walkman, his meek seeming features and his stunning, blissful nescience. He is always standing here, always loitering with grace.
Josh thinks he is beautiful, and would love to introduce himself. Only, Josh is socially defective, terribly incompetent, and he thinks he’d spill his guts if he attempted conversation.
Six o-clock, on the dot, every single day.
Perhaps tomorrow.
He is always telling himself this; tomorrow he will grow a pair, puff his chest, bear his courage.
For now, he simply watches, observing with an interest – the way the stranger cracks his can, and snaps the tab from the aluminium. Each and every time, it is a perfect, clean break. He slips it into his pocket, and he readjusts his headphones.
Josh can see his smile as his lashes flutter courteously. It is as if he is thanking his music for the simple act of playing, nodding his head, a hop to his step, grin atop his features where his crooked teeth unmask.
It is rude to stare at strangers, Josh knows this is fact, yet the stranger is so winsome, so wonderful, so joyous – he cannot find a reason to avert his peering gaze.
Perhaps tomorrow.
Josh is continuing to tell himself, perhaps tomorrow.
Chris tries to understand – Josh is attempting to tell his coworker of his woes, stultified by the dullness of the following day; “he’s strange,” is what he says, with his head against his hands, “he’s pretty, and he’s strange, and I want to get to know him.”
The record store is quiet, not a personage in sight. The drum-kit looks delicious, tantalizing, nestled neatly against the corner of the room, “so, talk to him.” Chris says this as if the task is majorly simple, “what’s the worst that he could say?”
There is plenty here to work with; “I hate you, go die, you’re gross, don’t talk to me,” just to list a few of his horrifying daymares.
Chris clicks his tongue, “or,” he begins, “he could, I don’t know… be nice, perhaps?”
Josh is resolute, unyielding in his doubt. He nods his head as if he agrees, the contingency only furthering his vexation. His fingers flick through vinyl records – they tremble with a might as the shop door creaks to open.
Chris is a good friend. He shifts towards the register, commandeering their juncture of tasks, knowing that Josh is vulnerable, knowing that he is troubled.
Josh heaves a sigh of relief, a thankful glance, and reassumes in his rifling.
“He carries this old Walkman, ancient thing,” he continues talking, thinking maybe it’ll aid in his unbidden apprehension, “didn’t know people still bothered – s’all MP3s and downloads, now.”
“You still bother,” Chris says it, smirks as if it means something, “got a huge collection of CDs in that busted-ass car of yours.”
Josh does, yes – he isn’t understanding, “and?”
Chris is merely shrugging, tongue against his cheek, “you could show him,” he says, “good conversation starter, maybe something nice’ll come of it.”
Something nice is terribly futile, “you want me to show him my massive dick’s worth of CDs?” Josh is going to scream, “I want to chat him up, Chris, not scare him away.”
“You can heed my advice, or you can suffer in your misery,” it is harsh, yet it is true. Josh is beginning to falter to the logic of his utterance, “talk to him – not gonna get anywhere unless you introduce yourself.”
He is right, and yet, “I’m shit at talking,” excuses continue to pile against the surface of their conversation, “he’ll think I’m fucking stupid.”
“You are,” Chris says. Josh knows that he is joking, yet he swallows hard regardless, “talk to him,” he reiterates, as Josh claws at the jut of his wrist, clamps down against the inside of his cheek. Chris laughs, grins, blissfully unaware, “I’ll be expecting an update tomorrow,” he jests.
“Okay, okay,” there will be no update. Just the stain of a foreboding memory, a reminder of his horrifying idiocy, “okay, fine, and if he kills me on the spot, you can pay for my damn funeral.”
They shake on it. Chris outstretches his hand for Josh to take, and they corroborate in their fraudulent deal – then, he juts his pinky forwards with a grin amidst his face, “promise?” he asks.
Josh does not enjoy the infantilization of his troubles, so – “fuck off,” he tells him, with a half-heartened smile, a falsified simper.
He is brilliant at acting.
Truthfully, Josh feels imbecilic as he clambers into the heat of his car. Vapid, naive, he has nothing left to offer – only the violent slap of his fingers as he thwacks them forcefully against his steering wheel. He realises he may be swerving as he hauls across the freeway, his seatbelt unbuckled, his foot against the floorboard, though he feels a little better knowing this is how he’d pass.
Thinks this is how he’d die, within the comfort of his car, speedometer revolting, rising during his journey home from work – that is, if the pretty man at the gas station forbade him of his endeavors.
Regardless, attempting to subdue the daydreams of his untimely passing, he slurps his first ever Red Bull as he pilots his vehicle, raising it upwards from its place amidst the cupholder. The taste is awfully bitter, like acid, corrosion from a battery. Nevertheless, he downs the entire contents of the can, even comes to snap the tab from the lip, trailing the grooves of the metal beneath the tips of his fingers. The underside is sharp, and it bites against his thumb as he squeezes with an ardour.
A wonderful, fleeting pain. He comes to breathe easier by virtue of the sting – it offers something sharper than the jagged edge of his blunt, bitten fingernails. Perhaps he can do this, and overcome his fears beneath this scantly-apt self-affliction. He chews his bottom lip as he comes to park his car, slams against the brakes as percussion comes to closure.
Tugged beyond his headspace, where the clangour is forgiven, and the barrage blares with poise, his eyes hone to his target with embarrassing ambition. The man that simply captivates is exiting the gas station, slotting his head beyond the storefront, eyes peeking carefully before he steps into the incarceration of these terribly, earthly concerns. There is no gambol to his saunter today. His expression avows exhaustion, and his feet are trudging slow, as he drags along the sidewalk with his headphones at his neck.
Josh is finding that his chest is aching terribly, his eyes coming to crinkle amidst the fearful realisation that something is wrong, whatever it may be. He tugs his keys from the ignition switch, popping the handle to the car door. His fingers are trembling, yet he vetoes his anxiety, and debars it from rearing its unsightly head.
His feet skid across the tarmac. The scrape is so utterly loud - it causes the prepossessing stranger to lift his head in confusion. His eyebrows slanted, he is looking like a kitten, his nose scrunching lightly, perplexity to his features.
Josh freezes. His knees risk buckling, “I…”
“Hi.”
Gospel.
His voice is airy, so nasally, it is sweet – higher, squeakier than Josh’s average own.
He has not planned for this. Forgetting what to say by virtue of his instantaneous impulse to dote – he doesn’t even know this man, “I – I like your… shoes?” he says, then grimaces hard.
He begins to tighten his invisible noose.
His feet are turning quick, and his mind begins to race before the stranger comes to speak, “thank… you?” he says, bewildered smile coming to grace his plush mouth. Josh is sighing, heavy, beholden relief, “I, uh… I like your sleeve.” He gestures broadly to Josh’s arm.
“You do?” Josh is very nearly surprised. He clears his throat with haste, “thanks, uh – thank you,” his chest is pounding bitterly. This will be the very last time he is heeding Chris’ guidance, “you… six o’clock, every single day… I see you, I come here for gas.”
A frangible sort of beat comes to pass. A momentary, delicate quiet, whilst Josh is loading his emblematic gun.
“So, you’ve been… stalking me?” the stranger asks, yet his smile is spreading wider, his pretty, bottom teeth, and the creases at his eyes, “that’s weird.”
How high from the ground is the ceiling to the gas station?
“No,” Josh blurts, lifting his hands in panic, “no, definitely not – no, I do, I come here for gas and you’re always just – you’re always standing,” and you’re always fucking beautiful – Josh doesn’t tack this onto his vocable vomit.
His frightened scrambling is meaningless, regardless.
The stranger is ignoring his fret.
“Is that a can tab?”
Josh shifts his gaze, eyes flitting towards the tips of his quivering fingers – forgetting he’d held onto it, he hauls his digits outwards, “yes, I – It’s…” he curses that he stutters. He wishes that he didn’t, “you can have it,” he heaves, in lieu of unearthing finer words, “if you like.”
“I would like, yes,” the man plucks the silver tab from between his thumb and index – he studies it with care, evaluating the curvature, analysing the shape, “round top… bean shape, yeah, it’s nice – I like this one,” he hums, offers his approval, slotting the scrap of insignificant metal into the pocket of his jeans, “you cracked this… from a regular ol’ Red Bull?”
“Yeah,” Josh nods, nods hard. He nods so hard, in fact, that his curls begin to bounce, “yeah, ‘cause I saw that you like ‘em,” he is not aiding his case amidst the stalker allegations, “not that I was… I wasn’t watching you – I just…”
“It’s okay,” the stranger pauses to laugh, rubbing the crinkle between his brows, “you made my day,” he says, “you made my week, in fact, uh…” he trails away, as if he searches for the crest of his incomplete utterance.
He is awaiting a name, Josh realises; “Josh,” and he is abruptly given an answer.
He smiles. If anything, he appears a little timid. It is terribly adorable, saccharine, sweet. “Tyler,” he provides, and he does not offer his hand – Josh does not quite mind. He has never been fond of societal formalities. “Thank you for the gift,” Tyler pats his pocket, gentle, as if the canvas of the fabric is holding his most precious possession, “I will cherish this for life.”
“No problem,” Josh is going to melt. His heart is coming to simmer, like butter atop a hot plate – he is going to melt, and Tyler will be befriending a puddle. He turns, attempting to hide his further fluster, “I guess I’ll…”
“Wait – wait, Josh,” Tyler halts his sentence with eager eyes. He seems a little happier, “give me your number,” he implores, tugging his phone from the backs of his jeans, “you can send me… pictures of your can tabs,” he feels a little silly, saying it aloud, “if you like, of course – I mean… I would like it if you did.”
Josh does not think that it is silly.
“Yeah,” in fact, Josh thinks that it is cute. Josh thinks that Tyler is cute, “Yeah, I will,” and he will do anything within the feasible realm of possibility to maintain contact – to obtain even a sliver of a chance to bed this beautiful, peculiar man.
This extends to drinking Red Bull, and extends to cracking can tabs.
In spite of how brutally bitter the taste attacks his tongue.
“Thank you.”
The flavour of this energy drink is utterly loathsome. The caffeine is only furthering in the tightening of Josh’s chest, simply worsening the threat of his foreboding anxiety – his heart rate is spiking, pure masochism, as he approaches the tail end of his eight hour shift.
He slurps the malice of his third and final Red Bull, throat begging for relief as he proceeds towards the bottom of the can. He can hear his gullet screaming, feel it beseeching – praying for the alleviation of water, or coffee – anything but this acerbic pungency.
It is all rather absurd.
He will do anything within the feasible realm of possibility.
Anything.
“You’re gonna die,” Chris is telling him, as he plucks the empty can from the grasp of Josh’s fist. He is more than likely correct, “you never do this, Josh – y’sleep that bad?”
“Wait, don’t,” Josh pleads, scrambling hands towards the empty aluminum, “it’s for Tyler, gimme back.”
Only a momentary confusion, “Tyler?” before the cogs click into place. Chris is grinning, beaming proud, awfully complacent, “the guy you wanna fuck?” he asks, relenting his grip atop the crumpled scrap of metal. Josh snatches, assesses the tab for damage – it remains unscathed, and he sighs, a quiet breath of bitter relief, “you talk to him?”
“I did,” he twists the tab, snaps it from its place of rest. The break is awry, dissimilar to Tyler’s; he cannot even do this right. The simple task of splitting the alloy, “I did, so hop off my dick.”
“Hey – I was never on your dick,” he was, and he always has been, “m’glad you grew some balls.” Josh glares, scowls, as if Chris has kicked a puppy. Chris raises his hands in an offering surrender, “y’show him your CDs?”
“No,” he rolls his eyes, “no, Chris, I did not show him my CDs,” then, applies a mocking tone, scrunching his features – “Hey, Tyler, come check out my nerdy, emo mixtape! I’d rather fucking die, dude.”
“You never know, he might be into Death Cab.”
Josh is drowning in dubiety, “no fucking way,” he tuts, thumb shifting to fidget with the can tab amidst his palm. It is blue, cobalt, this one is rectangular – Josh is praying that Tyler appreciates its colour, “‘might be into Death Cab,’ you’re outta your fucking mind, man.”
“No way – I love Death Cab!”
This is an odd turn of events.
Tyler recognises Josh’s car. He dashes towards the driver’s side, where the window is ajar, and where Josh is resting his wearied head. Not far from his slumber, with his music lulling quiet – hushed, yet narrowly loud enough for Tyler to discern, just beyond the crack of the glass.
“Hey,” Josh lifts his skull with a start, heart palpitating as he lowers his window further. Tyler’s face is a sight for sore eyes. “Hey, you,” he heaves a laugh, a terrified grin, “almost fell asleep on you – you’re late, today.”
“I am,” he smiles, and it emanates delight, “Battle Born release day, just picked up my copy.” He lifts a jewel case towards Josh’s face, the CD pinched between his delicate grasp, “do you like The Killers? I was hoping… maybe we could listen together?”
“We can,” anything within the feasible realm of possibility. This is something comfortable, Josh is far more accustomed to this, “yeah, of course we can.”
“Sweet,” Tyler beams, raising to the balls of his feet, standing atop the tips of his toes, “can I hop in? Is that too much to ask?”
Quiet, hitched breath. Josh ruminates on the depths of his trepidation, chewing harshly at the inside of his cheek.
He decides that this is okay, looming panic attack be utterly damned.
“Car’s unlocked.”
Tyler bolts, bounding towards the opposite end of the car. He clambers his way into the passenger seat, flailing, excitable limbs as Josh shoots him a momentary glance – only fleeting, it is all that he will allow himself. Tyler’s jubilation is infectious; the emotion bespoke, specialised, tailored beautifully to fit his idiosyncrasies. Josh finds himself grinning, as the dimming sunlight radiates with comeliness beyond the windshield.
The luminescence is only accentuating Tyler’s unparalleled features – his high cheekbones, and the jut of his jawline, the supple, tender flesh that lays beneath the protrude of his chin. He stretches, spreading his fingers as they cast outwards, unfurling, clawing against the nothing of air like a kitten. The sweetest display of decompression, he is unwinding into the cushion of the car seat.
Josh is forcing himself to swallow.
Darting his tongue to wet his lips, his eyes are tracing the intricacies of Tyler’s figure, trailing slow across the lengths of his arms, the slantage of his shoulders – until he catches the gentle glint of a necklace, hanging loose, framing the expanse of Tyler’s utterly edible neck.
There is a familiar can tab dangling atop his chest, draping from the silver of the chain that is residing.
“Is that…” he begins. Tyler is already nodding.
“The tab you gave me, yeah – reminds me of you,” he says, thumbing the pseudo-pendant beneath his grasp, “I was worried… when you didn’t text me, didn’t call me,” something brave – Josh would never admit the same, despite his similarly brooding fret, “so, I made this.”
“That’s…” awfully sweet, disgustingly so. Josh cannot vocalise this, “that’s neat,” he says, in lieu of his yearning, “I like it, looks good on you.”
Tyler’s eyes crinkle. He caves in on himself, his chin against his chest, an attempt to hide his reddening cheeks, “thank you,” he says, his voice emitting gratitude, it is very nearly a whisper. He thrusts his CD towards Josh, gazing downwards at his lap, “you can... if you want to, or we can listen to Death Cab, I don’t mind.”
Josh plucks the album from between Tyler’s fingers, a silent confirmation as he cracks the casing, uncovering the disc, “y’wanna drive?” he asks. There is not much to be seen here, surrounded by the dullened grey of the unfrequented parking lot.
Tyler raises his head, “what, so you can kidnap me?” he jests, eager eyes, ones that sparkle, as Josh slots the CD into the the car radio, “you gonna tie me up, Josh? I knew it – gonna hold me hostage in the boot of your car?”
He giggles.
Tyler seems to think that this is funny.
Josh does not.
His breathing stutters, shudders as he sighs. He attempts not to visualise the man before his eyes, smothered in rope, and reddened with fervour. “No, you idiot,” he heaves, securing his palms against the steering wheel. His fingers are itching to tap, longing to drum, “thought it might be nice.”
Softening, “it will be,” Tyler says, tugging his seatbelt, buckling in, “I’m messing with you, it will be nice.”
“Okay, yeah,” Josh nods, stifling his fret, “yeah, lets – okay… where to?”
It doesn’t matter, “anywhere,” Tyler says, “anywhere but home.”
Tyler can sing.
An unbidden realisation that causes Josh to thaw, dissipate. The ice concealing his utterly waterlogged heart – it appears as though it is deliquescing, melting beneath the pseudo touch of Tyler’s numbering, charming attributes.
Josh is losing count. There are far too many, now.
Tyler is wonderful, and inconceivably so, “you know the words,” Josh states. He ponders, sighs; perhaps Tyler is a falsity, merely a figment of his twisted imagination. He is simply far too good to be true, “the album released today.”
“I know,” Tyler pauses his gospel, his angelic timbre, just to grin, “there’s this really cool thing, it’s called ‘a single’ – have you heard of it?”
“I work at a record store,” Josh deadpans, tuts. He frowns, as he awaits the recommence of the chorus, “I know what a single is.”
“You didn’t tell me,” Tyler is pouting, and his bottom lip is plush, slick with spit. Josh is going to die, he thinks – with frisson, pulsating, streaming throughout his arid veins, “I paid for the album, gimme my discount.”
“Next time,” he promises. His fingers slap downwards, matching the undiversified beat of the lingering music. His bravery seems to overthrow his trepidation – or perhaps it is the amativeness, “I’ll mark ‘em down,” he says, “all of the albums, whichever ones you want. They’re free if you’re cute, y’know?”
Tyler’s artificial glower is ever present, “if you’re cute,” he sulks, “so, I’m paying full price, I see how it is, big boss Josh only gives discounts to girls.”
Thinning eyes, Josh is peering, awaiting the epiphany. In the meantime, his hands continue to belabour the peeling leather of the steering wheel – awfully patient, considering the toiling courage it had taken to flirt so aimlessly.
The comprehension does arise. It occurs in due course, taking only a moment. Eventually, Tyler’s brows are lifting upwards, and his pretty lips are parting, “oh,” he breathes, so quiet it is almost indiscernible. Tyler is never afraid to ask, “so, you like…”
“Guys, yes,” and Tyler. Specifically Tyler, “I like dudes,” he confirms, as his fingers shift to attack the turn signal to his left, “I can pull over now, if you wanna hop out.”
It is a lingering juncture of time – five seconds, miniscule, yet it feels as though they are five, grueling hours. Josh could slam his foot against the floorboard, he thinks, forcefully ram his car into the nearest, tallest building, with Tyler safely relocated to the guard of the sidewalk.
It sounds wonderful, joyous, it is very nearly attainable. Although Tyler is speaking with a gentle simplicity, “why would I?” he asks, sweet thing, tilting his head amidst confusion. He is entirely unknowing of this foreboding tumult.
Josh nods, “right,” he heaves, agrees, concurs, “of course, why would you?”
It doesn’t matter.
He flicks his turn signal to off.
They decide to eat.
The Taco Bell drive-thru is awfully romantic.
Battle Born repeats, and repeats, and repeats – it is nearing its fifth play, and Tyler is smearing food across his cheek amidst his ravenous hunger, pouring the remainder of his day-tired energy into devouring his quesadilla.
The car reeks of tranquility, quietude. Josh is silent, wordless as he reaches forwards, outstretching a shaky thumb to swipe at the mess of guacamole, the streak of queso atop Tyler’s darling face.
He is surprised to find that Tyler is letting him.
There is no flinch, no recoil, no quiet shift away. Tyler is accepting, allowing skin to meet skin – his flesh is baby soft against the pads of Josh’s fingers, and it comes to redden faintly beneath the clement of his touch.
It is terribly cliche.
“Sorry, you had…”
Tyler gapes. His bitten lips are parting slowly, “s’okay,” he murmurs. No fear, no disgust amidst his pretty, flustered countenance. He swallows, whispering a gracious, “thank you,” as Josh eventually withdraws his hand.
Then, the air is falling to quiet.
The enclosure of the car is entirely hushed, bar the gentle, lulling hum of The Killers.
Neither speak of the contact, nor the aftereffect of timidity it appears to leave behind.
It doesn’t matter.
Josh slurps at his drink.
It is not Red Bull.
The sky is fading to a deep, navy blue, slowly acquiescing to the setting of the sun, “you never told me, that day – the day that we met,” Josh begins, clarifies, “you never told me why you were feeling so down.”
“I… I never told you I was feeling down,” Tyler frowns, scrunching his face, forcing his head into his hands beneath the bitter reminder of his terrible day. Josh is quickly coming to regret his choice in conversation topic, “s’that obvious, huh?”
“No, no, it’s not that,” Josh panics, raising his hands in an attempt to console, “y’just… I dunno, didn’t have that usual pep to your step," he explains, "you’re usually so carefree, so happy. It’s nice… s’nice to watch you.”
Tyler seems entirely bewildered.
“Happy?” he asks.
Josh is concerned, “are you not?”
Tyler is shaking his head, fiddling with the neon, plastic straw of his soda.
“I don’t think so,” he admits, “not all of the time.” He pauses, catching a glimpse of the other’s souring expression. It causes him to fret, to stutter, “I – I don’t think anybody is,” he says, speaks with haste, reasoning his case, “does that – I’m scared, I don’t want – I wouldn’t like it if you…”
“It’s okay,” Josh soothes, resting a gentle hand against Tyler’s bouncing knee, “I just assumed, I guess.” It isn’t his fault. Tyler is so polar opposite, so eminently mismatched to the anxious predisposition that Josh entirely embodies – perhaps he is mistaken, and perhaps Josh has wholly come to misunderstand, “you’re just… different? I see you, and I smile, you’re that kinda guy.”
Tyler nods, slow, repetitive, “okay,” he says. His expression reads confusion, “okay, alright, I’m glad… I’m glad I make you smile?”
His scepticism is baffling. Tyler doesn't seem to know that his quiddities exude elation.
Josh squeezes his knee, sharp, affectionate, a silent, yearning plea for the clarity of elaboration.
Tyler offers this; “my roommate trashed my tabs.”
Josh is gawping, “what?” then scowling, “sorry, what?” he repeats. He shifts his weight, bringing his shin towards the cushion of his seat, turning, fumbling – just to study Tyler’s face as he spits his nettled question, “why?”
“I don’t know,” Tyler murmurs, lowering his gaze. His expression seems to blank, an enigmatic guise, he is hiding his bitter hurt, “I mean, I do know, the house is freakin’ full of ‘em… it was full of ‘em, must’ve been over three-thousand.”
This does not explain a single thing, “your roommate is a dick.” Josh is finding this thoroughly difficult. It is practically unfeasible, he simply cannot camouflage his unabashed disgust, “are you fucking kidding me, who does that?”
“I don’t know,” the repetition appears to be Tyler’s only form of solace, “I don’t know, I don’t know… I don’t want to go home,” he heaves, forcing his mouth into a harshened, straightened line – even now, he is attempting to conceal his agony, stowing his sorrow between the grooves of his cerebrum, “the tab, the one that you gave me, that’s all I have left – all I had left… I cracked a few today, I have a couple with me…”
“Tyler,” Josh is seeing red; over godforsaken can tabs, he is seeing pungent red. This is ludicrous, “I didn’t – I forgot, but I… fuck me, Jesus, here.” His sentence falls to futility. He rummages, slots his hand into the backs of his jeans, scooping the tabs collected during his work day into the clammy well of his palm, “for you, these are for you.”
He hurls his hand into the midst of Tyler’s peripheral, a benefactory offering of the insignificant metal.
It is not insignificant; at least, not to Tyler, “Josh,” he sniffles. Josh scarcely overhears the dejection of the sound, “Josh, what?”
“For you,” he repeats, thumbing at the tabs as his nerves begin to heighten. They clatter in his palm, jangle with a vengeance – there are three of them, placed ever so delicately atop his jittering hold. Uniform in shape, identical in colour, “keep them safe, Ty – they’re yours.”
Another gentle sniffle, “they’re beautiful,” Tyler says. There is something awfully absurd regarding the scenario. Josh is finding it difficult to imagine the recycled amalgams of alloy as anything but negligible, pitiful scrap. Still, he understands – recognises the joy behind Tyler’s beady eyes as they practically sparkle, glimmer with delight, their soft-brown, doe-esque gaze falling spiritedly atop the cobalt fragments of hardware, “blue, I love the blue ones… really pretty – they’re pretty, aren’t they, Josh?”
Josh is nodding, “super pretty,” he concours, pressing the metal into Tyler’s trembling hold. He cups his hands, delicate things, and his stubby, clubbed-esque thumbs are gingerly curving with grace, “blue is pretty, and I like the shape.”
“These are from the older cans,” he muses, staring downwards, quietly gazing upon their exquisite configuration. He studies their intricacies, their characteristics, “did you get these from a vending machine?” he asks, “I wonder if the drinks were… past their expiration.”
He glances upwards. He seems to snap himself out of his momentary daze.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“I did,” Josh says, ushers, encouraging tone, and welcoming the gift of this newfound knowledge, “from a vending machine, yes, I did. You know so much, Ty.”
“Thank you,” he bows his head with grateful resolve, smushing the tabs against the jut of his nose – like a quiet, calming cuddle, inward, unspoken. It appears to calm his fret, “I just wish… I wish I had an interest in something more important.”
“It is important,” in simple view of the fact that it is Tyler’s information. It is his to divulge, his to uncover. Josh is holding the weight of this wonderful privilege, so; “tell me more,” he says, with his knees atop the carseat, “tell me more,” he pleads, he begs, “tell me everything.”
“Josh,” Chris is already beginning to pester, antagonize. Josh is only scarcely coming to enter the building, “did you…” Chris raises his brow, circles his thumb and his index – he gesticulates the act of sex, and Josh is groaning with a bitter displeasure, “do that?” he finishes. His grin is spreading wide, with an intrigue to his features, “with Tyler?”
“Chris,” Josh is going to clobber him, “it is nine o’clock in the motherfucking morning,” fodder, fuel for the daydream of today – a baseball bat, and the promise of a hemorrhage. “Not a single patient bone in your bastard body,” he tuts, forcing the shop door to close with his heel, “you’re obsessed with my sex life – what, you want me that bad? Is that it?”
Chris offers a falsified gag, “no, man, m'only tryna help,” he relents, prodding Josh’s side as he swings behind the counter. He hauls an entire twelve-can-pack of Red Bull atop his shoulders, plonking it heavy, ungracefully atop the sheer of the wooden veneer, “forgive me for caring, but you sound kinda…”
“Pissed?” Josh claws at the plastic of the outer packaging. Chris is nodding, a scowl atop his face, an utter, baffled confusion. “Yeah, I am fucking pissed,” Josh spits, forcing a can of atrocity into Chris’ unassuming grip, “you’re gonna help me, man,” he says, snatching a drink of his own, and cracking the tab with an unbeknownst anger, “we’re gonna chug this entire fucking thing, the whole damn pack. I got more in the car.”
“Dude,” Chris is gawping. He flips the can beneath his clutch, eyes scanning the lengthy list of ingredients, “there’s like… seventy milligrams of caffeine in this shit – nearly eighty.” Josh is merely shrugging, chugging, and the cartilage below his throat is bobbing harshly as he engulfs, “we’re gonna die,” he says – a little dramatic, “just pour it down the sink, dude.”
“I paid for this shit,” Josh smears sticky, Red Bull residue from the corners of his lips. The drink is cold, tenacious against the heated skin of his hands, “all of the can tabs – they go to Tyler,” he hisses, swigging, he drinks a little more, “all of them.”
“Josh,” tentatively unlatching the chill of the can, “this is stupid, this is really fucking dumb,” Chris warns, shaking his head as he speaks with concern – still, he presses the lip of the drink to his mouth, swilling the acerbic pungence. He offers a slow sneer regarding the taste.
“I don’t care,” already edging towards the culmination of his can, “you wanted to help, Chris, you – you’re always on my ass, always fucking asking me when I'm gonna get me laid,” he huffs, swallows. He crushes the newly emptied alluminium, “this is how we do it, this is how it happens.”
It is stupid. Conceivably, this is a terrible idea. Josh is welcoming to the truth of the knowledge – that, and it seems as though, lately, Chris is faultless in his accuracy.
Regardless, Josh is unperturbed, wholly undeterred by the spiking of his heart rate.
Anything within the feasible realm of possibility.
“So, drink,” he spits, “drink.”
They manage seven of the twelve.
“Hey, buzzbug,” and Josh is vibrating dreadfully. The irony of the sobriquet is not lost to his idiocy, “how you holdin’ up?”
Tyler is hauling himself into the passenger seat of his car, “better,” he says. The monotonous drone of Death Cab for Cutie is soothingly ever present. Tyler grins as he catches ear of the sound, “doin’ better – I counted them,” the misshapen curve of his pretty bottom teeth are showing; they duress Josh into a terrible stun.
“Your tabs?” Josh breathes, heaves, sighs. It feels as though Tyler is purloining – a thief, knocking air from the repository of his lungs. His smile is magnificent, exquisite, unruly, “how many?”
“I think… twenty-one of them, now,” a triumphant announcement. Tyler’s doe-esque eyes are glimmering with pride, “five of them are blue, and one of them is green,” he wiggles his fingers amidst his excitement, “green, Josh. Green tabs are super rare, y’know?”
Josh is quick to correct; “twenty-eight,” he says.
The car falls to quiet.
Tyler offers a quizzical frown, “twenty-eight?” he asks.
He is treacle covered, smothered in pleasantry, terribly cute, honeyed, impeccable. Josh is nodding, aching, “twenty-eight of them,” he says, as his palm comes to outstretch. “I’ve been holding onto them, so… m’sorry, they might be kinda sweaty,” he heaves a quiet laugh, and offers his assemblage.
There are seven silver tabs laying dormant, scarcely still atop the tremble of his fingertips – they quiver with strenuity, today. Josh is coming to realise; caffeine is an ungodly stimulant, and one to be consumed with a particular circumspection.
“Josh,” It doesn’t matter. Tyler doesn’t notice, or perhaps he doesn’t mind. He squeezes his eyes, scrunches his face, “you need to stop doing this,” he whispers, slotting his hand against the flesh of Josh’s palm. “I can’t keep – it makes me… I feel a…”
“Tyler,” Josh falters. The touch is thoroughly tender, engendering an anguish, “Ty, you don’t need to take them,” he reminds.
“It – you can't…” the stutter feels utterly humiliating, “that needs to stop, too,” Tyler requests. It is unpredicted in its horror-stricken nature, a daunting, bitter utterance, “don’t call me that.”
“Okay,” wide eyes, and mouth agape, “okay, I… I’m sorry, Tyler.”
“No,” he jostles his skull, tugs at his hair. Josh is trying his best to understand, “no, don’t apologise – and don’t give me tabs, and don’t call me that.”
Christ.
Josh grits his teeth.
“Have I done something wrong?” the question hangs heavy. It lingers, dwells, lodging in the air, it makes itself home.
Tyler never answers. He grasps at the stands atop his wearied, disorderly head, and he pulls, and pulls, and pulls.
It is all making sense, now. Josh is coming to a recognisable epiphany – one all too impertinent, and all too familiar.
“I understand,” he heaves, as he tugs away his hold. He leaves Tyler’s fingers, lonely, hovering, pitifully jittering against the affliction of the atmosphere, “it’s because of what I told you,” he cognizes.
“What?” Tyler squeaks, “no, no, It’s – It’s not because of anything.”
“It’s because I like guys,” he grimaces. Tyler is continuing to shake his head, “It’s because I like guys, and you’re a guy – you’re a guy, and you think I wanna fuck you,” – he wouldn’t be mistaken. Still, it is entirely besides the point, “does that make you uncomfortable?” he asks, tossing the forgotten tabs haphazardly against the dashboard. They scatter against the windshield, and Tyler flinches, cowering into the force of his hands. “Is that what this is?”
It seems to strike a nerve.
“Yes,” and Tyler begins to sob – at least, it appears as though he does. Josh cannot see the pooling of his tears, or the fluster of his face, “yes, that’s exactly what this is.” His knee begins to jitter, and his nose is streaming terribly, “I hate it, I don’t – yes, it makes me uncomfortable.”
Josh is scowling, incorrigible. He forces his tongue against the inside of his cheek – the muscle is tracing the uneven surface, outlining the wounds where his teeth have come to masticate. He clamps, chews down hard against the flesh that resides.
It stings, “why are you crying?” he asks, enigmatic, catatonic. He sucks the bitter copper from the lesion of his bite, “does it make you feel shitty, Tyler? I bet it fucking does - well, imagine how I feel, I didn’t even do anything, I can’t help any of this.”
“You don’t – you don’t understand,” Tyler rocks his frame against the comfort of the seat. The cushion is assuaging, mollifying, as he lifts his doleful head. It forces Josh to swallow, reconsider; Tyler is simply brimming with distress, no virulent hostility, no unabashed prejudice. He is unambiguously terrified. “It isn’t you, it’s me, Josh, it’s all me,” he laughs, weeps, rueful as he cries, “I don’t wanna say it, I – I can’t say it.”
“Say what, Tyler?” he has already spoken plentifully, thoroughly, Josh thinks, “that you hate me?” he asks, “that you wanna see me dead because I’m gay?”
“No, you fucking idiot,” Tyler curses – an oddity. Tyler never curses. It forces any looming argument to simply pass away, wither to naught atop the tip of Josh’s tongue. He freezes, watches as Tyler unfurls from his foetal-esque positioning, eyes burning with resolve, staring with intent, “It makes me… I’m uncomfortable because I like it.”
Josh is crumbling.
His head attacks the window to his left. It bonks, and the heat of his laboured breathing fogs the chilling bite of the glass.
“Oh,” he says, pitifully.
“Yeah.”
There is a momentary quiet, a beat that comes to pass. It is a silence, that is not so very silent – there are sniffles, and the quiet, subtle jolt of a wearisome sob. The sweet lull of Death Cab is continuing to play.
Tyler shifts, shuffles in his seat. Josh regrettably cannot look. Instead, he watches with simplicity, staring, gazing as his breath obscures the view of his lamentable reflection.
The tallest building in Columbus; it is one-hundred and ninety-one meters from the ground.
That’ll do, he thinks.
It doesn’t matter.
“God will never forgive me for this,” Tyler murmurs, as his fingers intertwine with the handle to the door, “he will never forgive me, Josh, and neither should you.”
The clamouring is loud, and the door is flung to shut.
Josh has collected thirty-nine can tabs.
The thirty-ninth is red. He pops it into the little, glass jar atop the surface of the counter – they reside, make home here, dwelling just behind the cash register.
“Number forty comin’ up,” Chris announces. He tosses an empty can across the stretch of the record store, grinning with delight as Josh catches it easily, “you’re getting better at that,” he marvels.
Josh tugs at the tab, wiggles it gently. The metal acquiesces to the strain of his hold; he appears to be improving in the art of can tabistry, his newfound methods, and his customary formula. This break is simply immaculate, “thank you, thank you, I do try my best.”
“No Tyler?” Chris is raising this anticipated question, as is now customary. Josh is grimacing regarding the indignant, bitter reminder – it has been eight entire days since the two of them have spoken.
“Nope,” Josh huffs, “not a peep.” He raises his phone from his pocket to his face, as if it will aid in curing the ache beneath his chest. It seems to only intensify the agony; Tyler is wholly absent from the overabundant clustering of notifications, “I did try to call him,” he says, fingernails tapping against the glass of the screen, “I think he might’ve blocked me.”
“Huh,” Chris hums, “did you show him your assemblage?” He gestures broadly to the half-brimming jar of can tabs. Josh is shaking his head, “y’should text him a pic, man – he might change his mind.”
Josh snorts – as if sharing the tabs had not been the sole cause of their unfurling predicament.
“He won’t,” he says, yet he shifts, and he heeds. He amends his position, slotting his elbows against the wood of the countertop, “actually, he told me to stop.” Raising his phone before his line of sight, he snaps a quick photograph of his culminating efforts. The recent addition of the shiny, red tab peeks proudly, brazenly from beneath the sea of plain, silver alloy, “said he doesn’t like the gifting, makes him feel all funny.”
“Makes him feel all gay,” Chris corrects, heaving a sigh as he relocates to Josh’s rear. He slots his head atop his shoulder – never touching, he simply hovers – inquisitive eyes watching with intent, as Josh begins to type an extensive dissertation, “poor guy… n’you pretty much went through the same,” Josh is nodding, an exacerbated sigh. He laments the loss of his joyful teenagehood, “s’that why you’re not giving up?”
Josh shrugs, “who knows?” He drives his thumb against the backspace of his keyboard, his thumbnail clacking harshly, loudly against the screen. He inhales, swallows, then hastily resumes in his expeditious typing. “Read this, check this,” eventually, he thrusts his phone towards his coworker’s face, “I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing, man. I feel like a jackass.”
Chris blinks, narrowing his eyes. He reads; “‘I’m sorry for hurting you, I miss you a bunch, I’d love to remain friends,’ - okay, yeah” He nods, pursing his lips as he contemplates the phrasing,“yeah, I mean, it sounds good to me, just… maybe remove the part about your feelings, for now.”
“I miss him,” Josh frowns, “I do miss him, I want him to know that. Is it too overwhelming?”
“I don’t know,” a gentle squeeze, Chris is placing an assuaging hand against the slope of Josh’s shoulder, “I don’t know how he’ll take it, but think about it this way – wouldn’t it have overwhelmed you?” he queries, “back in the day?”
Tongue against his cheek, Josh is capitulating, “yes,” he tuts. More clacking, and his thumb is embracing, incarcerating the backspace, “yeah, you’re right, fuck you, you’re always fucking right.”
“I am, aren’t I?” a triumphant smirk. Josh is hitting send, and “look, delivered,” Chris is pointing towards the screen, calling blatant attention to the conspicuous obvious, “he hasn’t blocked you, Josh.”
“He should have,” reassuming his position, Josh leans his tired frame against the countertop. His fingers drum, tap haphazardly against the cool, biting metal of the cash register, “he won’t reply, anyway, so there’s no fucking – oh.”
“What?”
“He’s typing.”
“I told you,” Josh does not want to hear this. He continues his belabouring rhythm, bone hitting harsh against the cash drawer. His fingers are beginning to ache with verve, “project ‘fuck the guy at the gas station’ is back on, baby!”
“Shut the fuck up, dude, fuck,” anxiety is spartan, unbearable, intolerable. Josh’s phone is pinging loud, and two sets of curious eyes are widening in shock – one brimming an utmost delight, whilst the other trembles with a terrible, unrelenting fright, “he replied,” Josh says.
“No way,” even Chris is falling to astonish – so much for his pride, and his unerring anticipation, “what’d he say?”
Josh is rolling his eyes. He sets his phone, face down, atop the surface of the countertop. “‘Can I come collect the tabs?’ he said. That’s it, dude, he fucking hates me.”
“If he hated you, he wouldn’t have replied,” an argument with merit, much to Josh’s ignominy, “tell him to drop by after closing, I’ll be out of your hair by then.”
“Chris,” Josh scowls. His fingers are jittering, tender, throbbing – perhaps they will bruise, “you’re acting like we’re gonna fuck.”
Chris grins, tilting his head amidst his deviant question.
Josh is going to kill him.
“Aren’t you?”
They do not.
Tyler pushes his head beyond the door. Josh is locking eyes with his wearied own, only for a tantalizing moment.
“Josh,” and he sobs. He forces his gaze towards the ground, and he sobs, “I’m sorry.”
Josh is practically hopping, springing over the top of the counter. He would perform gymnastics, if it meant he could reach Tyler easier, “you didn’t do anything wrong, you didn’t.” He reaches outwards, then grimaces with clarity, “would it make you uncomfortable if… I assume you don’t want a hug, Ty…” he shakes his head, “Tyler,” and corrects his mistake.
“I do,” he sniffles, slotting himself beyond the heavy weighted door, “I really do.”
“C’mere,” Josh is on him; arms against the facet of his back, comforting, like the cushion of a car seat, and the bolster of its headrest. Tyler falls into his hold, acceding to the credence of his yearning – Josh is here, now, and Tyler is pitifully, undoubtedly craving him, “no apologies, now, c'mon. You wanna see your can tabs?”
Tyler shakes his head, “I wanna see you.” He presses his face, his heated cheek, against the warmth of Josh’s chest, breathing, searching. He sniffles, smiles at the faintest thrum of his stuttering heart, “your heart rate is so high,” he laughs, soft beneath his tears – they only stream harder, “you do too much for me… drank all this Red Bull, and you’re freakin’ buzzed, Josh, you barely even know me.”
“I like you,” Josh replies, simplicity, entirely unalloyed, “I like you, and I like that you like can tabs.”
“It’s so stupid,” Tyler huffs. He tugs his face away – like glue, it is stuck. It doesn’t want to leave, “nobody cares, nobody ever has.”
“I care,” he reaches upwards, pressing his thumbs against Tyler’s downcast face. He swipes at tears, and quivering cheekbones. He is simply overjoyed to find that Tyler is letting him, “we can talk about your tabs, I – is this making you…”
“Uncomfortable?” this vacuous word. Tyler is hackneyed by its usage, “yes,” he affirms. Still, Josh is attesting to this fact, and he simply swears by its existence; Tyler is nuzzling his face into his touch, forcing his cheek against the flesh of his palm. He is delightful, superlative, the sweetest, most prepossessing doe, “I’m… pushing on through.”
“I wish I knew,” Josh murmurs. He withdraws his hold. It is more for his own selfish sake – it is taking everything, ample self-restraint within the depths of his acquisitiveness not to plainly kiss Tyler, “I wish you’d told me, I never knew you were… big into God.”
“I’m not,” Tyler hurries to amend, “I’m not, not so much nowadays.” He fiddles with his fingers. His gaze teeters sideways, off towards the counter, where the little jar of tabs lies dormant and forgotten, “It’s all I know, all I knew. I don’t… I stopped showing up for service years ago.”
“Me too,” Josh states. It is quick – Tyler’s eyes are slotting back, falling easily atop the commiseration of the other’s succouring features, “I stopped, too, but I still…” how does one word this? “I still have a faith of my own,” Josh settles on. Tyler is watching as his features shift uncomfortably, the stare of a hawk, yet he listens with intent, “my God doesn’t care about all of that – all of the… irrelevant details.”
“Not irrelevant,” Tyler says, “not irrelevant, it’s just your way of loving.” He glosses over the actuality that this may also be his way of loving – he hasn’t quite decided. He smiles, and still, his voice emits as though he has been stabbed, “I’m not so sure my God would be so kind.”
“It’s okay,” Josh’s tone is alleviation, sympathy, “we don’t have to talk about this, I don’t want to make you…” Tyler scrunches, forces his face into an unpleasant glower – uncomfortable.
“You’re not,” he says, “you aren’t.” He hangs his head, a shameful display of his biting chagrin, “you aren’t the first guy I’ve found,” and he pauses to swallow, “attractive.”
Josh is very nearly smirking.
“Oh, you find me attractive, do you?” he teases, prize money to his greedy, wanting hands. He prods at Tyler’s side, and Tyler is smiling now – a real, unabashed giggle, a wonderful, joyful refrain, “nice to know,” Josh says. “I thought the appeal would’ve dwindled, y’know, with the way that I treated you.”
“No,” Tyler hums, softening features, “you’re gorgeous,” he admits. His breathing sutters lightly, as he heaves a lungful of heartening air, “God made you gorgeous. It would only be right… for me to marvel at his work.”
“Damn,” antithesis – Josh sighs, exhales, ridding himself of his consternation. He cannot find the words, “Tyler…”
“I really want to kiss you,” he confesses, although his features crease with effort, as if the words are merely biting, utterly paradoxical in nature, “would that be… a sufficient enough apology?”
“Fuck…” kissing, any beautiful, bittersweet affection had been entirely out of the question, ever since the moment Tyler had simply vanished. Josh is so wholly unprepared for this, “Tyler, it’s not – it shouldn’t be an apology, ” he reminds, “I only want–”
“I really want to kiss you,” he reiterates, as his fingers raise with pose, “I’m pushing this aside, I’m pushing my faith aside,” his eyes are starkly screaming, pleading, beseeching an understanding – one that Josh is offering by way of his approach. He steps forwards, ever so slightly, then halts. He patiently awaits Tyler’s permitting affirmation, “I don’t know anymore – I don’t know… my God is understanding, my God is… tolerant, and merciful, and he is nothing like I was taught.”
Josh is chewing at his lip. It is craving the warmth of Tyler’s plush, opulent mouth. It is beautiful, and it parts as Josh advances further, forcing Tyler’s back against the creak of the door.
“Is it selfish, Josh?” Tyler touches him. He presses his outreaching fingers just lightly, tender against the blatant jut of Josh’s pectorals, “you gave me so much, so much, so many things that nobody else could.” His breathing turns to chaos – laboured, confused, bewildered, and Josh is rushing to soothe with a hand against his jaw, “you took an interest in me, took an interest in the stupid stuff I like… you were put on this earth for me to find.”
“So, find me, Ty,” Josh murmurs, as his fingers pinch at stubble – light, prickled hairs that barely protrude beyond the pliability of Tyler’s smooth, velveted skin, “it’s not selfish, not selfish if I want this, too… come find me.”
Tyler is trembling, shaking punitively as he leans himself inwards, “mh,” and he is offering this pathetic semblance of a sound – a gentle, clement hum, it is agreeing, and corroborating, a concord of understanding. His hands are shifting, searching for hips, as they slide across the firm, unyielding muscle of the other’s hardened frame, and his breath is fanning hot, so terribly inconsistent against the bitten, reddened skin of Josh’s cracking bottom lip.
Their mouths meet. It is wholly unceremonious, dry, brittle, the tiniest of pecks. Josh is moving, endeavoring to deepen, whilst Tyler is enshrouding, and attempting to relent; it is four entire seconds.
The greatest four entire seconds of their meager, paltry existences. A blissful, peaceful juncture in time, in which everything is tranquil, and everything is making sense.
It is wonderful, if not a little cursory.
Still, Tyler is backing away amidst a woeful apology, “you…” and he heaves with a venture to clear his petrified throat, “I can’t do this, I can’t, you’re too…”
Josh grins. His lips are curving light, yet they meander with a sympathy, “hot, sexy, beautiful?” he jests, as he slots his forbearing hands into Tyler’s lustrous disarray of hair.
Tyler swallows, “I… uh, yes,” he blurts brazenly.
Josh is petting him, “you don’t have to,” he says, massaging at his scalp, caressing at his skull. Tyler very nearly mewls apropos the feeling of his fingers, just a tender, benign kitten, with a yearning towards salvation; he wants to play, it seems, and take enjoyment in the unfurling of this newfound ball of wool. “We can forget this, if you need to… I’m happy, Ty, I’m happy – happy to remain friends, and we can keep collecting can tabs, and… hey, I have a pack of Red Bull in the back, if you–”
Patience to naught, Tyler kisses him again.
Tyler kisses him again, and this time it is truculent.
His mouth is an argument, one that Josh is battling. He gasps, hums, and acquiesces to its verve, relenting with a quiet huff as Tyler kitten licks at his bottom lip – so sweet, it is scarcely a make out, and more of an awareness, an understanding of his buried, bygone feelings – they draw towards the forefront now, and they fulminate with a calamity.
Josh is pinning him forcefully against the withered frame of the door. Tyler’s knees threatening to buckle beneath the heavy weight of his tongue, he shakes, shudders, as Josh licks hot into his mouth, thieving his saliva, purloining his vehemence.
Then, Tyler whines.
It is entirely unbidden, although not unjustified – plainly embarrassing. He trembles as he pushes, and he claws at Josh’s chest, signaling his finish. Josh is honouring his wishes.
“Tyler… y’okay?” he queries, compassionate, alleviating, it is soothing like rainfall. Josh is chilling, and whispering, and aiding in his flush, “s’okay, Ty, it’s okay.”
“I didn’t…” he heaves, tongue darting to swipe at the drool cooling apace against the jut of his lip. He notes to himself that this is an amalgam, a carnal combination of their heated, vulgar spittle. The realization causes Tyler’s head to spin, “I didn’t mean to do that,” he says, “are there… Christ, are there cameras in here?”
“There are,” Josh points above their heads, grinning beneath his reverent haze. The watchful eye of the security camera is gazing with intent, its beady, glass eye, its singular, looming lens – perhaps it is enjoying this just as much as Josh, “nobody’ll see, nobody. You wanna watch me wipe ‘em?”
“That…” Tyler blinks. His chest fills with heat, warmth at the realization that Josh is understanding - Tyler needs a little time, and needs a little headspace for the embracing of his treacherous desires to unwind, “yes, that would be nice.”
Josh does not see these desires as treacherous.
They are a part of Tyler, and a part that needs to be nursed, coddled, protected; he will wait for days, years, if need be, in hopes that Tyler will allow him to assist in making sense of these mistaken feelings of wrongfulness.
He will continue to bring him can tabs in the meantime.
It will take a little time for Tyler to match his outlook.
Josh does not quite mind.
Anything within the feasible realm of possibility.
“I went to church today.”
Josh is very nearly expectorating his Red Bull. He coughs, and it dribbles across the front of his chin, “what?”
“I went to church,” Tyler tells him over the phone. He doesn’t sound unhappy – in fact, Josh can practically discern the smile from the way that he is speaking. His typical, joyous tone, it does not sound disconcerted, “I went to church, and nothing made sense.”
“That… that sounds awfully familiar,” Josh remarks, wiping at the sticky mess of energy drink atop his face. He simply marvels their similarities, “d’you wanna talk about it?” he asks, “Chris can hold the fort, I can take my break early.”
Tyler is quick, and an awfully inept liar, “no,” he replies with haste, “you don’t need to do that, I think I got it… all figured out.” He doesn’t sound so sure.
“S’okay,” Josh hums, with his shoulder smushed tight against his ear – his phone is trapped between. He glances to Chris, and Chris is nodding curt, a wonderful friend, “I could do with a smoke, anyway.”
Tyler blows air, hot from between his lips. The receiver picks up the discordant clamour of the exhalation, “you smoke?” he asks, with bafflement to his timbre, “maybe you are a bad influence, bad boy Josh wants to bed me, and he smokes cigarettes?”
“Hey – I only smoke when I got pretty boys to ponder,” Josh tuts, fumbling his way towards the break room – an ashtray and a window lay quiescent, tantalizing, “anyways,” he huffs, “who said I wanted to bed you?”
“You,” Tyler underlines, “you just did. Who said I was a pretty boy?”
“Me. I did,” Tyler is surprised to find that he softens, weakens. Josh is capitulating to the need; simply must call Tyler every wonderful name he can think of, and offer him everything residing beneath the heat of the sun. The entire globe, and the oceans that reside, “my really cool brain told me, and my eyes are pretty damn sure that they’re right.”
Tyler falls silent.
“Too much?” Josh grimaces.
“Not enough,” Tyler professes, “tell me more,” he pleads, with his cheeks a shade of cerise – not that Josh can see. He would undoubtedly pick on him for the fluster of his face, “give my brain a reason to stop, I wanna stop thinking.”
“Ty, I don’t wanna–”
“Josh, you’re gonna make me uncomfortable,” Tyler heaves. Josh is lighting his cigarette, and practically inhaling it whole, “can you stop worrying about me for like, half a damn minute?”
“You’re gorgeous,” Josh relents, with ash beneath his fingerprint. He wipes the filth against the denim of his jeans, smearing his sweat against the fabric of his shirt, “you’re gorgeous, I’m obsessed with you.”
“Mhm,” is Tyler sniffling? This is all too familiar, evocative, like exposure therapy, cognitive behavioural futility, “and?”
“I wanted you from day one,” he continues. Tyler is shuffling, kinetic static beneath the crackle of the line, “saw you with your cute, lil’ Walkman, and your cute, lil’ headphones, and I wanted you bad, Ty – wanted to…”
He draws in lungfuls of smoke, the taste of the tobacco. His chest is straining fiercely.
Tyler doesn’t say a word. In fact, it is strangely, curiously quiet.
Perhaps the line has dropped.
“I wanted to fuck the everloving shit out of you.”
“Josh.”
Perhaps it hasn’t.
“Just checkin’ you’re still there,” he swallows harshly, scrunches his nose, “is that… okay?”
“Yeah,” a quiet, unsolicited sob. Tyler is finding it impossible to hide his uncertainty, his undecidedness, “yeah, s’fine, I’m just…”
“Scared?” Josh queries, with his hand against his forehead. He forces his fingers deep against his temples, rubbing slowly, forcefully, as his cigarette burns forgotten. He neglects the latter half, and it withers, sprinkling ash beneath the grasp of his fingertips.
“No,” Tyler warbles, sniffles, fumbles. Josh discerns another hasty set of movements, and an insuppressible gasp, “I mean, yes – yeah, I’m scared, it’s just… my, uh… my dick is misbehaving.”
Not the most subtle way of putting this, “oh,” Josh respires with raising brows, widening eyes, a shift in his position. He attempts to will his impurities to the trenches where they belong, “does that… bother you?”
“No,” nevertheless, he sounds so dreadfully frightened. He weeps for a moment, and Josh is stubbing his smoke – useless thing, it has been of no help – he is still undeniably brimming with stress, and the ache beneath his shoulders is retaining its vehemence, “it doesn’t bother me... my hand - my hand between my legs is bothering me.”
Josh is choking on his spit, “Tyler,” and he splutters, coughs. It is the last thing he expects, and yet it is a justified consequence of his insufferable teasing. He feels he may be acting iniquitous. The guilt is awfully overbearing, “you don’t need to–”
“It feels… really good,” Tyler sighs, sniffles, whining beneath his breath. Josh is heaving as he tightens his thighs; they clamp together, bind, secure, and he curses with remorse as his cock begins to stir, “It’s not fair, none of this is fair. I want to - it feels really fucking good, Josh.”
“I…” Josh is at a loss. Chris could walk in, and view this abhorrent display of vulgarity at any given moment, “what are you doing, Ty?” Still, he questions amidst his selfish resolve. He simply cannot help himself – Tyler is emitting these tiny, pleasured whimpers beneath the anguish of his cries, and the sound is frightfully inducing, “tell me, baby, it’s okay. You’re so sweet, Ty, there’s nothing wrong with this, everything’s okay, nothing’s wrong.”
“Everything’s wrong,” Tyler retorts, vexed, aroused, simultaneously. “I’m – I’m touching, I’m touching,” as if the fact were not abundantly clear. Nonetheless, the vocal admission is titillating, straightforwardly divine, “over my jeans, my dick hurts, I want to… it’s really good.”
“I’m glad, good, I’m glad that it’s good,” it is impossible not to find intransigent joy in Tyler’s hedonism. Josh is ruining him, debauching him, “you can try, if you want to…” he urges, patiently awaiting the oncoming refusal, “try putting your hand in your pants, Tyler.”
It sounds oddly inexperienced. Josh is anything but, “I can’t, I can’t do that, s’too much,” Tyler is crying – in all actuality, it is solely not enough. “I can just… like this, like this is fine, and nothing bad will happen.” Josh does not remember; is there a rule prohibiting skin on skin written within the The Bible? He isn’t quite sure, and doesn’t recall studying even a meager half of its formidable existence.
It doesn’t matter. Josh is deciding that he does not wish to know, “nothing bad will happen if you do,” he soothes as best as he can amongst the emergence of his foreboding erection, his innate desire for pruriency, “nobody’s watching, nobody else, only I can hear you. Just us, Ty, it’s just us… are you listening, baby?”
“I’m listening, I am, I’m listening, Josh,” a distant, zipping hum – metal teeth are unclasping, unlatching. “My hands are – hah, they’re shaking,” and a divulgence so unbarred, so entirely open; Tyler’s organs are on full frontal display, falling to gelatinising putty beneath the clement of Josh’s words. “It feels like… eyes on me, there’s eyes on me, all of the time, and they’re always watching, always waiting for me to…”
Sin.
To sin – to stumble, and to falter. Josh understands, promptly sympathises with the feeling, “nothing wrong with this,” he reminds, as he snaps his gaze towards the door. There is a distant, murmured chatter; the shop is bearing customers, “nothing wrong, you’re feeling good - feeling good, Ty, and you deserve it, don’t you?”
Does he?
He does not.
Something snaps.
There is a ligature, and a grouping of puppeteering strings – Tyler is unsure who is coercing him to perform. It is an excruciating game of forbidden tug of war. Josh is dragging one way, whilst the skies wrest in opposition, and Tyler is ruptured into two, with his aspic bones fragmented, and his thrashing heart dismantled.
No matter how diligently he strives to repent, and no matter how fervently he attempts to disdain his faith, he will always come to remain entirely split. He cannot decide on a single way of life. “No,” he sobs, no mewl, no pleasure behind the fear of his timbre. He ceases in his movements, and Josh is halting his emboldening, “no, I don’t – I don’t know what to do,” he snivels, “I really like you, I really like you, Josh and I – I’m messing everything up.”
“No, you’re not, no,” stomach fluttering, yet clenching with convulsion – it is the very first time that Tyler is admitting this, and admitting it aloud, no less, “not messing anything up,” Josh affirms. There is a nasty combination of pride, and heartbreak; something gnawing, a feeling munitising, slotted deep within the in between, “I really like you, too.”
The declaration only forces Tyler to sob harder, “I can’t shake the feeling,” the feeling of being watched. Knowing that the skies are holding tickets, front row seats to the play of his deplorability, “no matter how hard I try, and I want to be normal, I want you to touch me,” he hiccups as he weeps, with his utter contiguity, “I want to listen to your voice, and – and I want to… to not feel sick when you tell me that I’m pretty,” he pauses. “I’m not, by the way, I’m not. I’m terrible, I’m awful, you deserve somebody better, somebody who you can… do this with, and – and somebody who doesn’t…”
Run away.
Somebody who does not run away. Somebody who does not flee, and does not recoil from the jubilation of a person to revere.
Josh could never blame him for this.
“I don’t care, Tyler.”
Verily, Josh would do almost anything – it is already known – anything within the feasible realm of possibility for Tyler. This extends far beyond sex, and far beyond attraction, now.
Josh is glued to this man, unbiddenly stuck. It is a curse; one that he does not intend to lift, “I don’t care, we don’t need to do any of this,” he hushes, consoles. Still, he is ashamed, contrite, and horrifyingly so – the rigidity between his trembling thighs will not come to abate, no matter how desperately he is attempting to will away the arousal.
The penitence of his delinquency, the culpability of his desire - it forces a guilt to reside deep within his chest.
It is differing guilt from Tyler’s own. Irregardless of faith, and irregardless of belief, he is truly, woefully aware; he has given even further rise to Tyler’s brimming discomfort.
He has pressured him, and he has coerced him to cry.
He senses an oncoming compunction.
In consequence, he attempts to repent. “I’ll come over,” he says, as he straightens his posture, “I’ll come over after work, I’ll come see you, we can talk about this, we’ll talk, or – or we can listen to music, I can bring you some albums, they’re still free if you’re cute.”
Tyler is sniffling. He hums, hiccups, ever so soft, “okay,” he says, and he is wonderful, seraphic. He does not deserve this internalised tumult, “I… I would really like that.”
“The Killers, I got a bunch,” Josh informs. He would simply love to smile. Tyler is blowing his nose, and the rustle of a tissue is noisily everpresent. He is adorable, and it is hurting, afflicting far more than succoring, “we have tons, Death Cab, too… and–”
“Mario Kart,” Tyler pleads, “Mario Kart… and Donatos Pizza.”
“Yeah,” Josh is nodding, nodding to nobody, “okay.”
He knocks his head against the cold, hard wood of the back room door.
Like a kick drum.
It is soothing.
The walls reek of smoke.
He does it again, a little more forcefully.
He calms, and eventually comes to smile, “yeah, Ty – Mario Kart, and Donatos Pizza.”
Josh abhors his lechery.
He frankly cannot stand himself.
It is nauseating. He slips a hand into the incarceration of his briefs. His erection pervasive, his arousal a disease; he fondles his cock, and he pictures fucking Tyler.
His shame is constrained to the bathroom of his workplace. The compact, toilet cubicle, where he is locking the door, and he is fucking his fist, as he woefully attempts to avoid the repugnance of his reflection.
He detests his hedonism, and the engendering of his pleasure. He groans, whines, as he works himself to finish – within the chimerical illusion he has come to concoct, Tyler is spreading his pretty, pliant thighs. They part with ease as he raises his hips, and he arches his back, and he begs for Josh to take him.
This isn’t lasting long. It is minutes, scarcely three, before Josh is cumming hot across the clammy surface of his palm, muffling noises with his teeth against his lip. His dirtied, sodden fingers curling harsh, unforgiving, as they dig into his skin, and they knead his tired flesh. They promptly come to circle at the base of his girth, where they squeeze with detestation, and they placate his intemperance.
It is a chokehold.
He throbs for Tyler, as he slowly comes to soften beneath the animosity of his grip.
The clarity of his actions weighing heavily, this substantial, ponderous burden atop his achingly wearied shoulders – he throbs for Tyler, and he contemplates his death.
He is terribly, bitterly selfish; covetting Tyler, he yearns to hold him close, and he yearns to eat him whole. In fact, he silently pleads for Tyler to disdain his devoted reluctance.
He is inconsiderate, awfully insensitive, although at least he is aware.
It doesn’t matter.
He grimaces.
He comes to clean his hands, and he disregards his filth.
Tyler will never come to know of this abundant lasciviousness.
“Hi.”
Tyler is disorderly.
“Hey, buzzbug.”
His nose has been streaming, hottened and red, and the bags beneath his eyes are unusually swollen. Irregardless, he is beautiful, ethereal, and Josh would like to kiss him. Would like nothing more than to dry his wettened cheeks, and smother him in affection. Simply coddle him until he is soft, and he is safe, a malleable lump beneath the tender assuage of his touch.
It is all that he desires.
“Red Bull,” Josh blurts, irrevocably imbecilic, “I brought you Red Bull.”
There is a gleeful glint of joy beneath the unforgiving misery, “thank you.” Tyler’s bottom lip trembles as he speaks; it appears as though his tearfall may begin to recommence, “Mark is out,” he says, “you… you can come in.”
“Your roommate?” Josh queries, and Tyler nods curt. “You’re lucky, he’s lucky,” Josh attempts to conceal his aversion. It is not to much avail, “don’t think I’d be able to hold myself back.”
Tyler very nearly smiles, “it’s okay,” he reassures. He sniffles as he shifts, and allows for Josh to enter. “Mark is… he’s fine, he’s okay,” Tyler doesn’t sound so sure, “he’s all I really have… he’s the only friend I got.”
Josh is finding this tumultuously difficult; he does not believe a word. He pads along the hallway, trudging slowly behind the other. There is not a single can tab in his immediate line of sight.
He grits his teeth.
“He trashed your tabs,” he resorts.
“They were garbage,” Tyler smiles, as he turns to face his friend, “at least he recycled them… and he didn’t trash my cans,” he adds, “I still have those.”
“Yeah?” for some inexplicable reason, Tyler seems reluctant to divulge any further information. Josh has no choice but to claw the prattle out of him, “you never told me about… uh, can I see them? Your cans?” he asks.
Tyler looms before his bedroom.
He hinders the entryway with the obstruction of his frame. It doesn’t offer much in the way of an apt barrier, “they’re in here,” he murmurs, with a frown amidst his countenance. “I’m scared… honestly, I – I’m scared to let you in.”
Josh blinks, scowls, “because of your collection?”
“It’s not exactly…” he pauses, sighs. “It’s not normal, is it?”
Isn’t it?
Tyler’s fingers jitter eminently against the surface of the door, “collecting can tabs isn’t normal.”
Josh huffs a quiet laugh, “you’re choosing now to feel ashamed?” He cannot help but interrogate. His intonation verges, teeters on the edge of offended. “I cracked so many of those little bastards for you,” still, he smiles as he says this in attempt to quell the fear, the abysmal consternation lacing Tyler’s pretty features, “even now, Tyler, after everything, do you really think I’d judge you?”
It is a genuine question. There is no rhetorical nature to its ask.
Thankfully, Tyler is offering the envisaged answer, “no,” he breathes, “no, I don't, but I can’t – I can’t switch off my head.”
Of course he cannot. If he could, this would be easy.
If he could, then Josh would fuck him, and this would never have been so torturous.
“I wanna see.”
Anything within the feasible realm of possibility.
Hesitant, Tyler’s fretful, doe-esque eyes; “are you sure?”
Josh nods, resolute, and he has never been so certain, “show me everything,” he requests, as he nears a little closer, breaches diminishing distance. Tyler can practically feel his breath, fanning hot against the fluster of his face, “I wanna see it all, wanna know everything about you. I said it earlier, didn’t I?”
Tyler is relenting, “said what?” capitulating, despite his confusion. He twists his fearful frame, and he tugs the handle to the door.
Josh is grinning. The bedroom smells of sugar, aspartame, and sweetener, “that I like you,” he says.
He slips into the unfamiliar space. It is not as if anything is particularly out of place, although there is an overcrowded shelf; it is brimming with Red Bull cans, and little glass jars, settled neatly against the corner of the room. Everything is orderly, and the items are pristine, laid in clean, linear rows, arranged by colour, they are uniform.
In sooth, they are pretty.
Josh is wholly misunderstanding where Tyler’s apprehension is stemming from.
Hanging, hesitating, Tyler fiddles with his fingers, “there’s a lot, isn’t there?”
“There is,” Josh agrees, “there’s a lot, and I like them.”
He glances to the bed where his fingers itch to touch. He daydreams of Tyler with his hand between his legs.
Indecent, salacious, it cannot be helped. He clamps down violently against the flesh of his cheek, and masticates harshly at the innards of his mouth, “can I?” he asks, as if the thought is seldom titillating.
Tyler doesn’t have a clue.
Poor thing. He nods, as he clambers hastily atop the duvet, “yeah, yes, here,” and he pats the space beside him, glancing hopefully towards the other, “come sit, yeah, there’s controllers under the bed.”
“I was hoping we could just… talk?”
Tyler freezes.
He halts, and he shudders, as Josh slots himself unobtrusively against the cushion of the mattress. “I’m sorry about earlier,” Tyler heaves with panic, “I think I should have caved, I probably should have listened, and – and I should have just–”
Josh is quick to calm. “Hey, no, I didn’t mean it like that,” he shuffles towards Tyler, with his knees against the blankets, “I… I want to…”
Tyler nods, “yeah, yeah – I want.”
Words are futile, and actions speak volumes. Josh is drawing closer, inching inwards, leaning near. His arms are outstretching, unfurling, and they slot tight against the slope of the other’s drooping, enfeebled shoulders.
He smiles.
Tyler doesn’t jolt, and he doesn’t flinch away. Instead, he rests his wearied head against the swell of Josh’s chest, his forehead at his clavicle, and his chin against his sternum.
Josh simply cannot help but exhale, long, slow between the passage of his lips. His breathing effuses beneath a stutter, his terribly racing heart, “you’re sweet,” he says, “you’re unbelievably sweet.”
Timorous, unsure of what to say, Tyler offers this; “thank you?” he whispers, and the utterance emits as an accidental query. He tries again, “thank you, Josh,” and now, it sounds a little better.
“Is this okay?”
“This is okay,” he affirms.
In fact, he seems to be relaxed, and seems to be succumbing – putty beneath the heat of Josh’s sinewy, muscular build. His nose is tickling pleasantly as it digs into his flesh, like the soft, brown muzzle of a skittish, quizzical deer.
He is testing the waters of this unfamiliarity, “do you think…” he begins, and then appears to trail away, “I don’t know, I don’t… It doesn’t matter.”
Josh reassumes his thought, “do I think what?”
Tyler fiddles with his hair amidst his momentary nervousness. It seems to offer tranquility, a peaceful juncture beneath this fleeting minute of uncertainty, “do you think that your God… would be proud of me?” he culminates.
It is an interesting question.
Josh has to ponder this, only for a moment.
“It depends,” he says, as he tugs at Tyler’s hips. He pulls him in closer, leans his back against the pillows, “I think that he would be proud of you for pursuing what you love.”
It seems improbable, entirely unconvincing. “It’s meaningless,” Tyler rebuts the protrusive claim, “everything I do is meaningless.”
He squirms as he attempts to stare with longing, gazing over towards his collection of unopened Red Bull cans. Josh’s lips curve into a grin.
“Sit still,” he hums, as he tugs at the other's hips once more. Tyler is writhing, wriggling, as his legs venture to shift in position. Josh is not having this, “baby, sit still,” he says, only causing Tyler to giggle; Josh utterly adores the effervescent tonality of his laugh. The sound is lifting the sodden mood.
He huffs, sighs, forcing Tyler’s head against the supple meat of his chest.
“It doesn’t matter,” he murmurs. Tyler is relenting, with his skull now happily cushioned, he settles back into place, “your tabs, and your cans… they mean something to you, don’t they?”
“I guess,” he huffs, as he snuggles his cheek into brawn, “but it’s just a bunch of junk.”
“It’s a precious bunch of junk,” Josh corrects, “one man’s trash is another man’s treasure – whatever it is they say.”
An elongated pause.
“Huh…”
Then, silence.
Josh is fearing, expecting the worst – thinks he may have misspoken. His head begins to pound with the threat of his anxiety, “did I do something wrong?” he asks. He will always rattle with worry; and he will always come to fret over Tyler’s discomposure.
Although, Tyler merely grins.
It is the first real smile he has exhibited all day.
He is beautiful.
He steers his eyes upwards, and he studies Josh’s features – his downturned, prominent frown, and his worrisome, puppy-esque expression, “no,” he sighs. His lashes flutter cautiously, “just thinkin’.”
Josh allows for him to elaborate.
It takes a little while. Although, eventually, he does come to speak; “do you think…” still, he appears somewhat cautious, ruffled, “do you think that… your God would be proud of me – proud if I…”
His pupils seem to dilate, expand beneath their gaze – an abundant adoration as they come to flicker downwards, and they settle with intent atop the jut of Josh’s lip.
“Tyler,” Josh is not an idiot. It is clear as day. He wholly understands what Tyler is intending, “Tyler…”
“Josh,” his face begins to redden as he slowly, strivingly relocates, shifting impossibly closer.
“Tyler.”
Again – it is Tyler.
It is Tyler who approaches first, with efficacy, and with verse – or, perhaps it is not a verve, and more of a finalisation, a pinnacle to this half-spoken, impermissible wanting. It appears that now he is accepting what the skies have unbiddenly come to offer him; Josh.
They kiss.
Their mouths are reuniting, after days of discriminatory sunder. There is a heaved, brittle noise of truly unabashed shock, before Josh is simply melting, airless against the other’s soothing tongue – he cannot believe this. Tyler is taking, seizing, it is practically an apprehension; selfishly stealing what he truly desires, he is tasting saliva, he is purloining heat, he is lapping at teeth.
It is wonderful, and it is stunningly inexperienced.
Josh is accepting this as an unembellished offering.
Tyler is allowing this. He is surrendering his innards to an audacious form of faith. Josh’s form of faith, in which he will not need to cry, and he will not need to beg. There is no forgiveness necessary, there is nothing here of wrongfulness – nothing here to invoke even a semblance of remorse, in the wake of aching chests, stuttering hands, as they promptly come to fumble, and they stumble into touch.
It is all equitable, righteous.
Although, it is clear, Tyler doesn’t quite believe this, haply, not quite yet. Still, he seems to be pushing aside whatever looming, chilling voice is attempting to enforce his foreboding fear. Josh is pondering whether or not their prior embrace has had anything to with the surrendering of his morals.
It doesn’t matter.
In fact, Tyler is faintly whimpering, and there is nothing more significant.
There is arousal, an indefinite burn settling deep within Josh’s stomach.
He halts, “wait, no, Tyler,” it is forced. He is prying himself away, yet he plainly does not want to depart, “we don’t…”
“I know,” he nods, a wobble to his speaking, “I know, but… let me…”
Despite the willingness, the inconsistency regarding Tyler’s keen disposition, there is still a bitter, thrumming of guilt, and still a palpitating, hammering heart.
Josh falters, winces, as his thighs clamp inwards. Tyler is slotting his fingers there, just between his legs, and smoothing his palms against the stretch of freckled skin.
Perhaps shorts were a terrible idea. They leave far from much to the imagination, and the fabric is simply too thin to conceal the growing firmness of his cock. He curses his desperation, his eagerness, his yearning – Tyler has scarcely even touched him.
He forces a laugh from deep betwixt his lungs, “hah – I’m ruining you.”
Tyler disagrees; “you are curing me,” he says, as his fingers sanction his knowing, cave into their desire. They claw at the meat beneath their minacious touch, “you are curing me, you are showing me… let me, let me have this – let me…”
Their positioning shifts, Tyler slotting his hips atop the flesh of Josh’s thigh, and rutting himself tersely, tentatively against the supple, plentiful flesh.
Josh is gasping.
“Ty, baby, holy shit,” an inconceivable pressure. Hopelessly, it is mutiny. Josh is victim to his exigency, his need to hold this man, his desperation, his unruly want to bring Tyler closer. He slips a hand against the swell of his ass – he does not recall signalling the movement. He has wholly no recollection of letting this happen.
Still, he squeezes, and Tyler does jolt. This time, he jolts, stuns, quivers at the unabashed grip. “I don’t – I can’t, I can’t do this unless we… we need to keep our pants on, Josh,” he implores.
This particularity appears to fall on deaf ears.
“I’m ruining you,” Josh repeats in ignorance, “I’m ruining you, I’m forcing you to–” he groans as Tyler touches him, a preliminary hand atop his fattening, clothed erection. It is very nearly nothing – it doesn’t really matter. Josh is tilting his head, and exposing his neck, behaving almost as if he is buried deep within Tyler’s insides. It simply feels as though he is, “Tyler, Tyler, I feel awful – I want you so fucking badly, none of this is fair.”
“We can… mh, we can do this, we… I can do this,” Tyler doesn’t understand. This is what Josh has been wanting, “I want you, too, I do – I hate you, it’s not fair, you’re forcing me – forcing me to say it aloud.”
“No, no, Ty, you don’t have to say anything,” he heaves as Tyler initiates in movement, a gentle, unrushed rub, a tender, consoling massage. Josh is guilelessly humping his fingers like a dog, “I’m sorry, I don’t want to force you into anything, I didn’t want to force you into – into all of that… everything that happened earlier, everything that made you uncomfortable, I didn’t…”
Tyler falls to exacerbation.
He bears his palm downwards, heavy, forcing it hard against the rigid protuberance beneath, “can you stop with that?” he asks. Josh can only groan, raising his hips in answer, “I’m getting really tired of that word.”
Uncomfortable.
He hungers for the feeling to will itself away. Perhaps this is why he is accordingly fatigued by its continual usage.
Unmistakably, he is terribly uncomfortable.
Yet, simultaneously, he is terribly aroused.
It is harrowing. Once again, he is split, ruptured, and this bitter tug of war is savagely resuming, reoccupying the headspace where it had once been left abandoned. Josh is falling to silence, aside from the stuttered, panting breathing he is continuing to emit.
Tyler’s hand is stilling. “I’m sorry,” he heaves, as his shoulders droop in shame, “my brain is screaming.”
“You’re…” concurrently, Josh is pathetically attempting to lessen his amativeness, “you’re still not ready for this,” he decides.
Tyler grimaces with the promise of rebuttal; albeit, he simply cannot find a fault. Josh, by now, is wise to the conflict. Tyler is glass, and his skeleton is visible. “I’m not,” he admits, with his chin against his chest, “no, I know I’m not… but, you’re not forcing me, Josh.”
“I’m not trying to,” he silently pleads, beseeches the skies in hopes that Tyler will understand, “it just keeps happening. Maybe it’s more like… coercing, pressuring?” perhaps these are better descriptors.
Still, Tyler is shaking his head. Josh cannot help but raise a hand, slotting its benignant hold into the silky strands of his hair, “I want to do this… I do what I can, I go as far as I can – until the screaming in my head grows louder than your voice.”
“Tyler…”
“That’s when I stop.”
Evanescent quiet.
Then; “we need to stop now,” Tyler says, “this has nothing to do with God, it has nothing to do with… I just – I think I need to… I think I need some time, and we need to stop now.”
Despite the bitter taste of the disheartening subject matter, Josh is finding himself rather prideful. He is utterly delighted to discover that Tyler is asserting his needs, “we do, and that’s okay.”
It is okay.
Tyler is making headways towards a comfortable kind of intimacy.
Josh does not need to will his arousal to naught – blessedly, not this time – the abundance of his adoration is easily displacing his fervour.
It is all far less onerous, now.
He does not mind.
“I can wait for you, Tyler,” he says, a somewhat smile as he leans to peck at the other’s pinkened cheeks, “it’s okay… anything within the feasible realm of possibility.”
Tyler enjoys a plain, cheese pizza, and he is always victorious, always placing first.
Whereas, Josh enjoys a variety of toppings, and he is admittedly, unmistakably terrible at Mario Kart.
He yearns to stay the night. Tyler is full of ebullience, he is wonderful company, when Josh is not urging him towards substantial misery. His grin is infectious, his blooming flush vehement as Josh continues cracking tabs, and continues placing them happily into the curvature of his palm.
He yearns to stay the night – it is almost embarrassing. Josh is forever craving to remain within the warm, coddling embrace of Tyler’s gradually ameliorating hold. It seems as though Tyler is improving in acting upon these undeniably sweet displays of affection.
Although, it is futile. Mark is returning home, and Josh understands that it is hopeless; it has never been easy for Tyler to divulge the intricacies of his faith to his closest friend. Josh simply cannot imagine, envision his angelic Tyler delineating the details of this, or coming to explain why on earth he is laying in bed, cuddling, snuggling with the likes of a man.
It is better this way.
It is easier – if not for the swift return home, Josh is fearfully certain that he would never have been able to resist the temptation; would have come to beat Mark to an unrecognisable pulp, and furthermore spit on the swell of his broken, fractured nose.
He does not even know him.
He does not wish to know him.
Josh is disregarding this magnificent daydream, this hungry, bloodthirsty fantasy. In spite of his utmost craving for violence, he is forcing himself to shower.
The water is cold, freezing, dial flicked downward to its lowest, most chilling temperature – lest he begin to think of Tyler, and his skin grow lustfully heated.
It is better this way.
If Tyler is needing time, then time it shall be.
Time will be acting as Josh’s pitiful oblation.
Drumming to the gospel of The Killers is not a pleasurable task.
It is difficult to find a track that is suitably uptempo, something that will parallel this self-loathing tantrum.
Still, Josh is trying his very best. He brings his palms against the curvature of his steering wheel, violently, assailing, it is plainly absurd – the lyrical content of the saccharine melody is seldom matching his unsolicited fury.
Work has not been the easiest of endeavours. Chris has been so desperately attempting to aid, and it has mostly been for naught. He is continually peeved by Josh’s spontaneous daydreaming, and he is always haphazardly throwing Red Bull cans his way, in anguished hopes it will alleviate the tension.
It does.
Somewhat.
Confessedly, Josh is warming to the taste of the energy drink.
It is ever presently reminding him of Tyler – not that he is needing to be reminded. His brain is invariably persistent in thinking of him.
He wishes that it weren’t.
Turn-signal crash; Josh is rapidly plummeting his hand against the indicator, striking its protuberance with a cruel, heinous vengeance. He is stringent, rigorous, as if it is deserving of the torture, and his car is swerving sidelong as he pulls into his favourite place; the gas station.
Joyous.
It is six o’clock.
On the dot, it is six o’clock, and Tyler is predictably cradling Red Bull.
His chin hovers lightly above the cans beneath his grasp – Josh can see, his face is drooping, his pretty, doe-like features entirely out of line, and his cheeks are reddened, hot, with the antecedent evidence of tear stains.
Tyler has been crying, again.
Josh contemplates his upcoming course of action. Had he been the cause of this? If that were to be the case, then undoubtedly, Tyler would not appreciate the sprinting topple of a nourishing embrace. Still, this is all that Josh is wanting to do, and all that Josh is wanting to have – he is selfish, and disgusting, and he is tugging the handle to his car door with haste.
His head peeks from beneath the vehicle roof, “Tyler!”
Tyler starts, lifting his skull, craning his neck. He very nearly smiles as his eyes encounter Josh. “Hey…” his voice is cracking, warbling, “I was hoping you might, uh… be here… if I stood here long enough.”
Josh heaves a heavy sigh of relief. Thank goodness, he is not the cause of Tyler’s upset – only the propitiation of his subtly returning joy, “you could have texted me, baby,” he hushes his tone as Tyler approaches, lest he cause the poor boy any further discomfort.
“I could have,” Tyler says, a rueful, saddened curving of his pretty mouth. His expression is screaming what is remaining unspoken; I didn’t want to bother you.
Josh is answering the voiceless statement, “you could have, you should have, you never bother me, Ty.”
Tyler sniffles, “thank you,” and his bottom lip is trembling. “I… can I get in?”
Fumbling to unlock the doors, Josh is nodding, smiling, soothing as he pats the seat beside him, “course you can, you don’t need to ask,” then, “gimme those,” he says, with his arms outstretched before him.
He envelops Tyler’s cold cans into the warmth of his embrace. His eyes falling quickly to the jut of the other’s left wrist. It is wholly coincidental, not at all intended – Tyler is sporting a rubber band, hanging loose beyond the cuff of his shirt. The skin beneath seems red, raw, as if pinched, or scratched at, entirely mantled.
Josh does not understand why, and his brows are furrowing lightly.
Although, he does not push. Perhaps now is not the time for this, “d’you wanna drive somewhere, buzzbug?” he asks, in lieu.
Tyler stares, a ponderous expression. “I like when you call me that,” he hums, before he sets foot to the opposing end of the car, popping the handle, and clambering inside, “I like that I’m your buzzbug. I don’t know why you call me that.”
“It’s cute,” Josh states, as he lines the cans of Red Bull, orderly, neatly atop the dashboard. Tyler is already scrambling to grasp at one of the drinks, listening to it hiss as he unbolts the bitter beverage. “It’s cute, and you’re cute.”
The taste of corrosion appears to be of help, “I need to think of a name for you,” he says. His disposition appears to be softening. It seems as though he feels a little better, “uh… ‘Gas Station-Man?’” he giggles at his very own idiocy, “or… heh, what about ‘Tyler Enjoyer?’”
“Enough of that,” Josh tuts, as he slips away from his vehicle. He brushes himself off as his feet hit the asphalt beneath, “let me fill ‘er up, we can go wherever you want to.”
Tyler supplies a haphazard answer; “anywhere,” he says, with a comforted smile, “anywhere, I don’t really care, as long as I’m with you.”
Josh is beaming.
“Sounds perfect.”
“Mark says I’m a hoarder.”
Of course.
Tyler’s dismay is making much more sense, now.
Josh clicks his tongue, “he made you cry,” he surmises.
“I made myself cry,” Tyler corrects, “and I’ve been crying so freakin’ much… I think I’m getting dehydrated, keep getting so many headaches.”
It is very nearly comical, “are you sure it isn’t, I dunno, the six, seven Red Bulls you’ve been drinking a day?”
“Hey, it’s not that many!” Tyler is terribly in denial. Josh is grinning apropos the sight; he is wonderfully cute when he is flustered, frustrated, “I cut it down to four.”
The grin morphs to a smirk. Josh spies a glance towards Tyler’s perturbed expression.
His grip on the steering wheel tightens, and he remains silent.
Tyler groans, whines in frustration, “you’ve seen my room, it’s clean, it’s tidy, everything is fine, I’m not a hoarder.”
“You’re a collector.”
“Exactly,” he seems to settle down. He relinquishes his exasperation to the clement of the seat cushions, and his expression comes to soften, “I’m glad you understand me.”
“I try to,” Josh exhales. He could really do with a smoke. Tyler looks divine, as his head lolls to his shoulder, and he cracks his knuckles quietly, “I really fucking like you, so I try to.”
Tyler blinks, quizzical.
Josh cannot help himself, “you look beautiful, today.”
“I’ve been crying,” Tyler flusters, “keep your eyes on the road – I’ve been crying, I’m a mess, Josh, what are you saying?”
“I’m saying you look beautiful,” he deadpans, “am I not allowed to say that?”
“No, no,” exposure therapy; “say it again, Josh, again.”
“You look beautiful,” the sweet release of an embedded urge. Josh is always wanting to tell him, “you look beautiful, Tyler.”
The desensitization is a little too much to handle. Tyler attempts to distract, “Mark is gonna trash my tabs again.”
Josh does not seem to care, “you’re beautiful.”
A complete diversion, “he’s gonna trash my tabs, and I don’t know what to do, I – I don’t know where to hide them, I think I need to–”
“Tyler,” Josh halts his utterance. He evidently knows what Tyler is attempting to do, “you’re the most beautiful creature I have ever laid my eyes upon.”
Tyler sniffles, hiccups, falters, “alright, okay, okay, I get it,” he sighs, pressing the heat of his cheeks into the mitigation of his hands, “the screaming – yeah, you can stop, now.”
Tapping lightly, a meandering beat against the leather of the steering wheel – gentle now, “felt good,” Josh says, “it felt good, it feels good to let you know.”
“I’m sorry,” a semblance of contrite, Tyler feels plentiful remorse. In fact, It is very nearly matching the penitence regarding his oscillating values, “I wish it didn’t scare me.”
Albeit, Josh is quick in consolation, “s’okay, baby, it’s okay,” in the wake of simply needing Tyler to feel somewhat alright, “I don’t blame you, I know… I used to struggle, too.” He switches lanes, flicking his turn-signal to right – Tyler recognises this familiar stretch of road.
“You’re taking me home?” he asks, displeased expression, utter dejection, “did I piss you off?” Tyler had quietly hoped for Josh to drive him somewhere nice, quaint. Take him out to eat, where they could have a little date, have a little smooch, have a little fun, “I don’t really…”
“I know,” Josh hums, calms, “I know you don’t wanna go home.”
Perplexity only deepening, “so… why?”
Bless his sweet, forgiving nature.
Tyler does not hold a semblance of a clue.
“We’re gonna take your tabs,” Josh states, his voice looming with demanding, assertive, it is blatantly a fact. There is no query, and no indecision. “We’ll move them to my place,” he affirms, “if he’s so damn pissed off, we’ll just move them all to mine.”
Tyler very nearly chokes. He gurgles his Red Bull before coughing, swallowing, “you’re serious?”
“Deadly.”
There is a beat, a meter, a rhythmical, throbbing artery.
Josh breathes inwards, long, slow. He lowers the temper of his tone; “If you trust me with them,” he adds. “If that’s what you want.”
“I trust you,” Tyler is nodding long before the words escape his chest. “I do, I trust you, you’re…” he seems to find difficulty in searching for a turn of phrase, something purposeful, significant, an utterance that will convey the abundant feeling laid deep beneath the confines of his stomach – this buzzing, fluttering reverence.
It takes a little while.
Somehow, he wades amongst the water of his sentence without the threatening drenching of tears; “you’re the best damn thing to ever happen to me.”
Josh can only crack a smile.
“Anything within the feasible realm of possibility.”
“There’s a box in the closet, we can use that to – Josh, be careful!”
“Shit, sorry,” thankfully, only a handful of can tabs escape the bijou, glass jar – the one that Josh is holding, previously bumped, knocked over, “fuck.” He fumbles to scrape the miniature, metal scraps from where they have fallen, scattered brazenly across the surface of Tyler’s desk.
Tyler winces; a sudden realisation that causes Josh to scowl, falter amidst confusion, “no, wait,” he says, as he rushes to his side, celerity to his pace, haste beneath his action, “let me, Josh – please, let me…”
It is far too late.
Josh has already come to notice.
“Is that… a heart?”
It is – a tiny, aluminium heart, haphazardly pieced together with translucent hot glue. Two conjoined can tabs, resting peacefully, tranquilly against one another; one blue, and one red. Josh grins, as he lifts his admiring gaze, where his eyes eventually meet Tyler’s startled, frightened own.
It is so unbelievably sweet. Josh does not seem to understand why Tyler is so apprehensively jolted, “a heart… made from can tabs?”
“You weren’t supposed to see that,” Tyler blurts. He hastens, urges, with a jittering hand against Josh’s lower back, “away, put it down, you’re not supposed to–”
“Is this for me?” Josh effuses, and he simply cannot help it. He promptly, undoubtedly hopes so. It would be rather embarrassing if he were not the intended beholder, “Tyler, it’s so cute…”
Tyler halts.
“You think so?” he asks, a sugary tilt to his queried head. He continues in his prattling, and his lips are bitten pretty, shiny as he babbles, “I just thought, y’know, my favorite colour is blue, and – and yours is – yours is red, right? I thought it might be nice to…”
“I’m going to kiss you.”
Josh does not embody the benevolence to ask, only this selfish resolve, with a semblance of decency – at the very least, he bothers to warn.
“What?”
Striding, shifting, greedy hands, Josh is cowering Tyler into the corner of the room, “you look so fucking beautiful, I mean it,” he says, smiling as Tyler’s backside hits the drywall, his skull knocking gentle against the white-painted surface resising. “I mean it, Ty, you’re so fucking cute, I’m going to kiss you, now.”
Tyler can only manage a faint, consenting squeak; “okay,” he whispers, “okay.”
It happens quickly, easily, it is nothing like before – accordingly, Josh pounces, ambushes, with his mouth planted firmly against Tyler’s spit-slicken lips. He kisses slowly, truly brimming with intent, a keen, unyielding purpose to his actions. It is the very first time that he is granted this level of control, this level of authority over Tyler’s prepossessing body, and he is taking full, unfiltered advantage of the adorational contact.
Truly, he is worshiping Tyler.
Malicious introspection be utterly damned, Tyler seems to be enjoying this. He softens, liquifies, he may as well be a puddle, allaying his process of thought to the favour of this adulation. He does not quite understand – this has all come to transpire in light of a heart-shaped, poorly-crafted, can-tab amalgam. Regardless, he can seldom complain. Josh is licking into his mouth, sliding his tongue against his own, and there is nothing he can vocalise in the way of a protest.
Not that he has anything to criticize. The act of kissing Josh is worth more than anything the skies could undoubtedly offer. Verily, the screaming beneath the rattle of his skull is gently acquiescing, and it is slowly coming to diminish. The agony simply dissipating to the tender-meaning touch of Josh’s exalting fingertips.
Josh squeezes, kneads at the jut of Tyler’s hip bones, before he reluctantly slips away, “how much time, Ty?”
Tyler is panting, shifting his weight. Josh continues to touch, continues to fondle. He slides his palms upwards, and they slowly come to embrace the soft, pliable pudge residing at Tyler’s sides, “Mark comes home in… I dunno, thirty minutes, something like that. I really don’t know, I really don’t care.”
Josh hums, placing a gentle, dutiful peck to Tyler’s lips, “get your tabs,” he says, “put ‘em in the box, and I’ll shove ‘em in the trunk. We can make out all you want once we’re back at my place.”
“I…” there is apprehension here, “I’m…”
Interrogating frown, Josh is taking a wide step backwards, “you don’t want to?”
Tyler shakes his head, “no,” he says, curt, resolute, “just scared, I think…” He slips away from the wall, acting coy, awfully diffident, “I want to, really badly, Josh. I want nothing more.”
Josh grins, “so, get your damn tabs,” he implores, “and, I’ll be keeping this.” He plucks the alloy heart from its resting place atop the desk, assessing its uneven bend, its bumpy, jagged curvature, “I can have it, right?”
“It’s yours,” Tyler professes, “I made it just for you.”
Josh’s apartment does not offer much in the way of shelf space.
Although, Tyler does not seem to mind.
He hums a gentle tune, an easy, joyful smile curving lightly at his lips. The jangling of tabs is comforting, calm, as he raises to the tips of his toes. His fingers shift, maneuver with grace, and he sighs with contentedness as he aligns the jars of aluminium – neat, linear rows against the white-paint of the wall.
Josh is grinning, as he stares from afar, seated atop the carpet as he rummages through boxes, “s’lookin good,” he says, as he stretches, and he oggles, “you’re lookin’ good.”
Tyler tuts, “enjoying the view?” he asks, although a giggle does escape him.
“I am,” Josh smirks, as he raises to his feet. The culminating jar to Tyler’s utterly stupendous collection lays happily beneath his grip, “s’the last one, baby.”
He presses the object into Tyler’s patient hands, watching as Tyler tilts his head with curiosity, “really?” he asks, as he accepts the humble offering, “not as many as I thought there were…”
Josh can only chuckle; there must be twenty, thirty jars. The length of their longrunning column is impressive, substantial.
He watches as Tyler reassumes. The room is falling to a comfortable silence, and realigning, organising, Tyler is happily sorting – the task at hand appears to bring him solace, comfort. Josh has never seen him so peacefully serene.
It is almost baffling.
Who would dare to take this away from him?
“Mark - on the way out,” Tyler begins, after the lengthy pause of momentary quiet comes to outstay its welcome, “he said that he was worried about me.” He takes a stride backwards to behold his newly assembled collection. He smiles, albeit rueful, in regards to his handiwork, “he thinks I have a problem, he told me again, Josh. He thinks I’m prone to hoarding.”
Josh clicks his tongue. He continues to remain indignant respecting the circumstance. Still, he has reluctantly come to soften by way of realisation; it had never been Mark’s intent to cause this much harm, nor inflict this much unbidden distress – he is simply concerned for his friend.
Nevertheless, Josh is always poking fun, “maybe we should buy him a dictionary,” he tuts, as his arms come to encircle Tyler’s lithe waist, “we should force him to read the definition of hoarding.” It causes Tyler to giggle, smile, as Josh places his chin against the slope of his shoulder. His chest is resting happily against the swathe of Tyler’s back, “I told you this already, but I don’t think you’re hoarding, Ty.”
“I know, I know you don’t,” Tyler turns beneath the weight of his arms. He tilts his head, pressing tentative kisses to Josh’s freckled cheeks, “you understand me, everything I do.”
Josh is offering a startled, enraptured gasp – he grins, heaves a laugh, as Tyler’s nose tickles lightly at his temple. Tyler would never have done this only days ago, “I just want you to be happy.”
“I am, I am, all thanks to you,” he giggles between these interspersing kisses, these provisional, wanting touches. His hand is lifting with grace – it gently brushes against the underside of Josh’s stubbled chin, “I’m so happy, and you let me… you let me do this,” he says, “you do so much for me, Josh.”
Crinkling eyes, a scrunching nose, “because, I like you,” Josh hums, with his hands placing pressure against the small of Tyler’s back, “my little, caffeine-addicted gremlin, I like you.”
“I like you, too…” Tyler blinks. His lashes flutter briefly, and he chews his bottom lip as he ponders for a stretch. An epiphany seems to dawn, emerge, beneath the triumphant progress of his fearless, daring touch, “I like you too, Josh, and… I think that…”
He pauses.
His utterance is tapering, and his movements are stilling.
Josh is merely smiling, awaiting.
As long as Tyler needs; for now, Josh plainly smothers his jaw into the heat of Tyler’s palm, and he patiently, enduringly awaits.
It is only the briefest juncture in time. Still, it feels as though it is years, decades, before Tyler ultimately speaks, “I’m ready,” he says, with his adamant eyes, a look of abundance, simply filled to the brim with intention. His gaze is resolute, as it meets the other’s addled own.
Josh gawps, stunned, “what?”
“I’m ready, now. I’m ready,” Tyler repeats as his feet begin to stumble. He pushes, clambers, until the surface of Josh’s back is knocking lightly against the wall, “I said I’m ready, Josh, please.”
His hands are falling easily to the swell of Josh’s chest, smoothing their touch against the clothed skin residing. His face is inching closer, and their noses brush in conjunction, the promise of a kiss that Tyler finds himself indulging in. He closes the miniscule gap between their waiting mouths, eyes slipping shut as he savours the solicitous taste of Josh against his palate.
Josh is rapidly losing composure. His chest is aching, yearning, and he is quickly forgetting how to breathe. Tyler envelops his every sense, overabundant with the need to simply touch. He suckles, bites lightly against the obtrude of Josh’s bottom lip, tugging with his teeth, laving with his tongue, and all that Josh can do is merely heed to his desire.
It is entirely unexpected, yet it is entirely evoking. Josh groans, sighs. He pathetically cannot help but fall victim to the carnality of the touch – this is thoroughly uncharacteristic – or, perhaps it is not. Perhaps Tyler has simply been concealing this hedonism, this salaciousness beneath the guise of his pretty, virtuous face.
They tug away to breathe; it is more gasping than steady, even suspiring. Josh is thoroughly baffled; Tyler is lunging inwards for more, “Ty, baby, wait–”
“No,” Tyler heaves, with an exhalation hot, unsteady, “I’m done with waiting, nothing makes sense.” He pecks at Josh’s jaw, in lieu of their make out. “Church didn’t make sense, and God doesn’t make sense, and Josh – you’re the only fucking thing that I can seem to make any sense of.”
“Tyler, I…”
“Every single time, Josh, it feels so good,” he continues, interrupting. His chest is pressing closer, pressing inwards. Sublime, smothering heat, enveloping Josh’s frame, “everything you do to me, every time you touch me, it feels good. I wanna chase that. I wanna chase that feeling.”
Josh is selfish. He always has been, and his hands are falling southward in pitiful spite of his wording, “Tyler, I don’t wanna make you–”
“Uncomfortable?” Tyler tuts, as he raises his brow. He bears his hips against the meat of Josh’s thigh, whimpering softly at the jolt of his arousal, “I want to have this, Josh. I want this. I have never been more comfortable in my entire fucking life.”
The noise is titillating, deluging, it is all that Josh can hear, “fuck, Tyler… oh, fuck, you sound so pretty…”
“Yeah, yeah, so, I’m ready,” he whines as he repeats the ungodly action, rutting his growing erection into jean-laden flesh – too much denim, there is not enough skin, “you can have me now, you can have me,” he says, and then he pauses with a clarity. His face is flushing terribly apropos his unmistakable fervour, “if… if you want to, that is.”
Josh is faintly grinning. He grips at Tyler’s hips, and he pushes with objective, “fuck, yeah, I want to – all I’ve fucking wanted since the first time I saw you.” Tyler yelps, expression falling to bewilder as Josh ushers him along, forces him backwards. The hallway towards the bedroom feels inexplicably extensive, “holy shit, you have no idea, none – none at all, do you, baby?”
He does – at least a semblance of an understanding. Still, he pleads for an explanation; “tell me,” he implores, as Josh fumbles with the handle to the door; his bedroom is sparse, empty, Tyler realises, and it is severely lacking in the embellishment of can tabs. Tyler is finding that he simply cannot wait to be a burden, and decorate the barren shelving with his growing collection of metals, “Josh, please.”
“On the bed,” Josh demands, with patience to naught, and forbearance nonexistent. He presses Tyler’s calves into the creak of the bedframe, watching as his back hits the blankets with a thud, “shuffle up, head on the pillows… that’s good, baby, ’s good.” Tyler is shifting, just as lovingly instructed. “You’re so sweet, you know that?” Josh asks, as the mattress dips beneath the bulk of his weight. He crawls atop Tyler’s frame, slotting his knee between the flesh of his thighs, “no idea… you have no idea how many times I touched myself, how many times I though about you – though about having you like this.”
“That’s…” Tyler trembles, his fingers quivering lightly, “no you didn’t, no, you’re just saying that.”
It is a bold assertion to make, especially considering Tyler’s prior apprehensiveness. “I mean it,” Josh affirms, “I mean it, c’mon, take this off,” he says, as he tugs at Tyler's shirt, lifting at the hem with his vigilant hands.
Tyler’s antecedent confidence appears to be wavering – it falters beneath the authoritative demeanor that Josh is wholly embodying. Nevertheless, he allows for the removal of his clothing, eyes striving to evaluate the reaction to his body. His insecurities are incessant; Tyler has never been particularly fond of himself, nor his shape.
It is not as if he is hideous, merely plain, and uninspiring. In striking comparison to the muscle, and the colourful artwork that Josh entrancingly harbours, Tyler lays here blank, and thin. He simply does not understand the unashamed zealousness – Josh is worshiping his skin as if it is holy, leaning his head downwards to kiss at his chest, and bite at his tummy with his perfect rows of teeth.
The little, can tab necklace lays loose against his clavicle, the silver glinting merrily atop the light tan of his flesh.
Josh could frankly cry.
“You’re gorgeous, Tyler,” he breathes, “you’re gorgeous, wanna see you,” and the words are only working to worsen Tyler’s quandary. He frantically squirms beneath the heat of the other's tongue, whimpering lightly as Josh suckles at his abdomen, “wanna see you, let me…”
Josh noses at the button to Tyler’s jeans, deft, nimble fingers slowly tugging at his zipper. His gaze is shifting upwards as he assesses Tyler’s state – disheveled, frenzied, unfiltered desperation.
He pauses.
“Is that okay?” he asks, with abating to his voice.
“I’m not… I’m not all that,” Tyler informs, as if the information is scrupulously factual.
It is not. It is prejudiced, and biased, and Josh is bitterly scowling, “I disagree.”
“You – you haven’t seen all of me,” Tyler rebuts, as the jitter of his fingers shift to cover his heated face. He raises his hips in involuntary craving, an uninvited yearning for the warmth of Josh’s touch.
“So, let me,” Josh tuts, as he resumes in his removal. He shimmies Tyler’s jeans downwards, just beyond his knees, “let me see you, baby – let me, and I’ll make that decision for myself.”
Tyler’s cock is straining, shamefully rigid beneath the confines of his briefs. He nods, and he nods, and he nods a little more – until he is dazed, and until he is reeling, “okay, okay.” His nervousness pervasive, he shudders as Josh caresses him, a tender, amatory hand against the firmness of his erection.
It is intoxicating.
Still, Josh is an angel, and a saint. He glances to Tyler’s face, chewing lightly at the inside of his cheek – a silent request for consent.
“Yes, yeah,” Tyler whines, terribly ashamed. He is certain Josh can feel it – his cock twitching faintly, and his tip omitting an easy spurt of pre, “please, please, Josh.”
The flame licking lightly at his groin is inextinguishable. Josh is seldom slow, contrarily he is gluttonous, voracious, as he tugs at Tyler’s briefs with a swift, and eager hand, watching with a keenness as his cock slaps his tummy.
“Fuck, Ty…” Josh is gawping. It is almost as if it is his very first time bearing eyes upon nudity. Tyler is an ethereal creature, wonderful, heavenly, simply incomparable to partners of the past. “Tyler, I…” Josh heaves, his fingers encircling the heated skin of Tyler’s erection – in the stead of finding words to describe his unwelcomed bewilderment.
Tyler’s insecurities are imprudently imbecilic, to put it lightly.
“Mh,” Tyler shimmies as his hips buck into the nefarious contact. Josh may as well be drooling at the sight of his cock.
“How far…” Josh murmurs, as his hand massages slowly, his thumb against Tyler’s cockhead where precum drools obscenely. His mouth falls lasciviously dry as Tyler spreads his pliant thighs, “how far can I…?”
“Anything,” Tyler cries, flustering, faltering. He forces his knuckles against his crooked bottom teeth, gritting them harshly, lest another terribly lewd noise slip free, “as far as you – ah, as far as you want to, whatever you – fuck, Josh.”
There is no delay in movement. Josh is far too ravenous to await the culmination of the assenting phrase, simply forcing his head between Tyler’s unfurled thighs, and darting his tongue beyond the enclosure of his mouth. He licks a slow, deliberate stripe across the plane of newly exposed flesh, from the tight pucker of Tyler’s hole, to the pinnacle of his perineum.
Tyler truthfully mewls, cries as the other’s nose bumps lightly at his balls, and his forehead knocks carelessly against the sensitive underside of his cock.
“S’okay?” Josh queries, although his speech is ultimately slurred, cerebrum clouded beneath heavy arousal. He can scarcely find the words to speak - the taste of Tyler is practically inebriating, causation of the slow, languid grind his hips begin to partake in. He slowly rubs himself off against the soft cotton of the duvet.
“It’s… yeah, mhm,” it is new, and unfamiliar. Tyler is not opposed to the sensation, only jarred, befuddled by its candid obscenity, “I’ve just never had anybody - ah, Josh, you’re…” insatiable, and needy, and entirely covetous.
Yes, Josh is well aware.
His tongue is pressing lightly into the heat of Tyler’s opening, his lips curving upwards as it tightens beneath the unconversant pressure. He inches deft fingers across the expanse of Tyler’s thigh, eyes slipping to closed as they encounter his weeping cock.
“I could make you cum like this,” Josh realises, speaking hot against Tyler’s hole. He lavishes with expertise, grinning as Tyler thrashes, squirms – caught between two differing pleasures, he simply cannot decide on his preference, “wanna cum like this, baby?”
“No,” Tyler practically yelps. He bears his tractable hips against slick saliva, the autocratic tongue devotedly debauching his anatomy, “no, no I don’t, I want – Josh, it’s filthy, it’s so much, I can’t…”
“It’s perfect,” he negates the diffidence with a squeeze of Tyler’s cock, thumbing at the sensitive glans, truly devouring the consequential moans. Tyler’s noises; they are so undeniably sweet. Josh desires to collect them, amass them – if Tyler gathers can tabs, then Josh will gather whimpers. “You’re perfect,” he murmurs, as he sets a languid pace, stroking, fondling, venerating, “tell me, Tyler, tell me. Tell me what you need.”
Bashful, yet driven by his pining, Tyler tremors eminently; despite his temperament, he seems to rationalise his wanting. “Fuck me,” he cries, “Josh, fuck me, please, please – you should… your clothes, you should take them off,” and his hands are operational, moving with haste from his face to the textile of Josh’s shirt. His fingers can scarcely reach the offending fabric, “yeah, take them off, take them off, and then we’re – we’re even.”
Josh heaves a faint laugh beneath his adoration, “even, we’re even,” he echoes, as he leaves a final, wet kiss against Tyler’s sullied opening, a gentle swipe of tongue before he ultimately slips away. He shifts, settles back onto his knees, and admires his bedmate’s sinfully ruined appearance. His awfully libidinous handiwork. Tyler’s cock is resultingly flushed.
Lifting his arms, Josh easily tugs his shirt from his frame. He studies Tyler’s countenance with a grin, thinning eyes, this egocentric complacency – Tyler’s lips are parting, panting hot regarding the sight. It is an unspoken approbation that Josh is truly relishing.
He is contarily dissimilar to Tyler; he is confident, and sultry, and disgustingly proficient in sex. The dawning realisation clobbers bluntly at Tyler’s skull, and his thighs are clamping shut as his insecurity overwhelms.
“Josh, you’re…”
Godlike?
Empyrean?
Perhaps he is an angel.
Or, perhaps he is not; “I’m gonna fuck you,” he declares, with his hand beneath his pants. He tugs, and he fumbles, and his cock is slipping free, “I’m… gonna fuck you, I’ll fuck you, Tyler – is that what you were saying?”
Teasing is his strong suit. He has always been adept in this playful sort of ridicule, although he softens his ludic mockery as his gaze meets Tyler’s expression – he is terrified, astonished, a staggering mix of the two.
“Holy shit…” Tyler quivers with might. He shrinks into the duvet, cowers, as if a bodily deity has simply laid itself bare, unveiling its beguiling intangibility, “Josh… fuck, Josh, it’s big.”
Josh breathes a quiet laugh, and he shakes his head, tossing his clothing to the carpet, “you flatter me,” he mutters, as he crawls atop the other. His messy tip catches at the skin of Tyler’s tummy, besmirching the supple skin with the tincture of his arousal, “s’okay, it’s okay, m’not gonna hurt you.”
Exhorted into ineluctability, Tyler blatantly cannot stand this. He forces a hand between the heat of their bodies, and he smothers Josh’s cock beneath the tremble of his fingertips. The touch is slow, tentative, as his index gently traces the protrude of a vein, gasping with befuddled mirth as Josh’s hips stutter hastily above.
“Tyler,” Josh heaves, forcing his chin against his chest. He gazes downwards, watching Tyler’s fingers frolic, dance across the plain of his erection. His eyes come to squint, thin regarding the sight – a familiar rubber band is hanging loose, draping nonchalantly, and encircling Tyler’s delicate wrist, “Tyler, baby, y’gonna take that off?”
“What?” ceasing movement, with a raising of his brow, Tyler appears entirely bewildered.
“The rubber band,” Josh breathes, nodding broadly towards the hand sandwiched between their stomachs, “is there a reason you’re–”
“Oh,” Tyler eventually comes to register the ask, “yeah, uh – yeah, I can take it off. I don’t think I really…” he sucks his lip between his teeth, gnawing uncomfortably, chewing haphazardly. “I don’t think I need it anymore.”
Josh, even now, teems with uncertainty apropos the elastic – still entirely confused as to why Tyler is so vehement on fostering the object. He adjusts his positioning, grasping Tyler’s wrist beneath the benevolence of his fingers, “here,” he says, as he pulls at the flexible loop. It slips from Tyler’s arm, and it settles into his palm, “here, we’ll put it away, I’ll toss it when we’re done. You don’t need it anymore, right?”
“Right,” still, Tyler remains an oddity. This confusing eccentricity that Josh is greedily claiming – he wants to understand, and he wants to hold omniscience, needs to comprehend every facet of this man, “you’re right, I don’t need it.”
Then, quiet.
The mood has fallen.
Josh is quick to aid the atmosphere.
He claws his way towards the edge of the bed, discarding the rubber band atop the night stand. He tugs at the handle to the drawer residing, and rummages blindly for the necessary preparation.
He procures a small bottle of lube, and an unfurling length of condoms. He tears one from the gathering, and Tyler swallows heavily, brutally, so loud it can be heard.
The cartilage atop his larynx is bobbing with unease, “y’use a lot of those?” he asks.
“Tyler…” Josh scowls as he unlatches the cap to the lubricant. He squeezes an abundant amount onto the tips of his fingers, rubbing his digits, cordially warming, “don’t be like that, c’mon.”
“No, you do, you do, don’t you?” Tyler stammers, sharp inhale as Josh clutches at his knees, parting his acquiescing thighs, “you sleep around, I know you do, and – and, with a body like that, yeah… maybe I would, too.”
Josh is slotting his fingers against Tyler’s tense hole. He soothes at the pucker with a gentle massage, “I haven’t in a while, not since I met you,” he hums. Still, Tyler remains entirely unamused, “don’t be like that, Ty… c’mon, pretty boy, you don’t sleep around with girls?” – unlikely. Tyler does not fit the profile of a philanderer, despite his abundantly charming appearance.
“Mh, Josh, are you kidding?” his hole is clenching as he speaks, complementing his terrible vexation, “you’re the only person I’ve ever wanted like this,” he sighs, whines. Josh is nuzzling at his cock with the tip of his nose, “I mean – I’m not… I’m not a virgin, I don’t… yeah, I just… I don’t really like people.”
Grinning, proud, overspilling amour propre, “but, y’like me,” Josh beams, as he presses a kiss against Tyler’s drooling tip, “y’like me enough to let me do this.”
“I do, yeah, I like you,” bearing his ass against the threatening breach, Tyler warbles, and he sniffles, and he whimpers, and he whines, “show me, Josh, show me – wanna feel you, please, show me you like me too.”
Josh tuts, and he rolls his eyes, “you already know I do,” he says, as he presses an easy finger into Tyler’s assenting heat. The tight ring of muscle slowly comes to succumb, and with the plethora of lube, the stretch is only faintly burning.
“God,” Tyler scrunches his nose, expression contorting, his hands beneath his neck – he fiddles with his can tab chain, and Josh heaves a doting sigh. His lungs are simply brimming with adoration, “that’s – woah… jeez…”
“I know,” Josh soothes, feeling Tyler twitch against him, “s’weird, weird feeling, isn’t it?”
“Mhm…” he nods, with his teeth atop his lip. His head falls to the pillows, and his shoulders tense with struggle – the encroach is pushing further, promptly beyond the digit’s second knuckle. His rim is lightly squeezing, once again, a chokehold against the rapidly approaching third.
Josh is shifting weight. He presses his chest into the jut of Tyler’s shoulder, and he slots himself into place. He resides here, he decides, against the heated, pretty flesh of Tyler’s barren, naked form.
“Feelin’ okay?” he breathes, the exhalation blazing, setting Tyler’s skin alight, “okay if I move it?”
“Yeah, please,” Tyler nods without a moment of hesitation, without a semblance of deliberation, “please, please do.”
Josh does; dragging outwards, and sinking inwards, he sets a leisurely pace. He watches with keen intent as discomfort slowly comes to abate – Tyler’s breathtaking features are relenting to the pressure, the grimace to his profile steadily evaporating to naught.
He is beautiful.
Josh is quickly heeding to his insatiable urge; “you’re pretty,” he babbles, as his cock pulses desirously, smothered between the warmth of his weight, the supple meat of Tyler’s thigh, “you’re so fucking pretty, Tyler.”
“Just sayin’ that,” he heaves, moans, as Josh teases the tip of a second, soothing digit, “you’re just sayin’ that, because – because your fingers are in my ass.”
“Finger,” Josh corrects, whilst he assesses the yield of Tyler’s slackening opening. He seems to be relaxing, “you want another, baby?”
“I… I think so,” Tyler concurs, “I think… yeah… yeah, I do – I do.”
“I won’t hurt you,” Josh reminds – however, the searing stretch of the second infringement is aching far less pleasant than the first – an additional finger slots inwards, and stills, ultimately stalling as Josh awaits with resolute patience, the anticipated arrival of Tyler’s further consenting.
Tyler whines, whimpers, as his knees attempt to huddle. He grits his teeth amidst the foreign sensation, doubling in malaise, and doubling in width, “s’okay,” he tremors, “s’fine, I’m fine.”
“You’re doing good, Ty,” then, movement, the strained parting of digits, muscle resisting, withstanding the ache. Josh is growing fervorous, impatient, causation; Tyler is continuing to muffle his abhorrent noises from beneath the palm of his hand. Josh can only rut against his thigh in quick, shallow pushes, an outlandish display of his yearning, “s’gonna feel really good, really good, Ty, I promise – just… when I…”
“Josh!” – there it is.
“Yeah,” Josh grins as he curls his thickset fingers, rubbing slowly, tenderly atop the situated bundle of nerves. He is always able to find them – elated to have had the preparatory training. Each and every preliminary lay has simply been practice, a lesson, entirely utilised to please Tyler’s temple of a figure, “yeah, s’that good?”
Tyler’s cock is drooling. It begins to form a puddle, thick, viscous pre atop the well of his navel. His erection prior flagging, now jolting with an interest, it twitches, and it weeps, and Tyler hiccups as though he is crying.
Fortunately, he is not.
He has cried plenty already; rivers, Josh thinks.
He is only deserving of rapture, now.
“S’good, good, Josh, again,” he implores. His legs are spreading further, wider than before, exhibiting, and displaying his pretty opening. Josh undeniably craves to dive back inwards, and to drive his wet tongue against the newly procured gape.
Although, he does not. He could never, in fact – not with Tyler begging as though he has never truly eaten, as if he has never come to devour a meal so sublime. Josh fucks him with his fingers, and he seems to be much happier, much more comfortable amidst the pleasure carefully procured, digits shifting, kneading lightly against his sensitive prostate.
In the fullness of time, Tyler’s patience disassembles. It is only taking a moment, maybe three minutes, or four; “enough, enough now,” he cries, blubbers. Tears are beading at the corners of his eyes, and Josh thinks that mayhaps he has been tortured amply, “enough, I… Josh, God, fuck, so much, too much, I’ll cum – m’gonna cum.”
“The mouth on you,” Josh marvels with simplicity. He stills his nimble fingers, and they slip from Tyler’s hole. “Who knew? Get the little Red Bull rascal into your bed, and he’ll suddenly start spitting blaspheme.”
“Jo – o – osh,” Tyler whines, thrashes, lamenting the loss of his satiated innards. He suddenly comes to feel terribly empty, “you’re teasing, you’re mean, I hate you. It’s not - it’s not fair.”
His opening flutters around the intrude of nothing. It is begging without a word, without a noise, without a phrase. Josh is prompt to lift himself up, and reassemble the conjoin of their forms. Meanwhile, Tyler’s ogle is awfully hankering for the imminent course of action. It is boring a hole into the skin of Josh’s hand, as he rolls on a condom, and he slicks himself up – not that he has been particularly sexually active, not as of late. He would much rather enjoy the searing heat of Tyler’s insides without the offending rubber, although better safe than sorry, he thinks.
“Keep ‘em spread, baby – that’s it, that’s good.” Tyler does not need to be told twice. He will abide by any delineated ruling, as long as it is spoken by Josh, by the chorus of his timbre, by the comfort of his articulation. Tyler will do everything, anything to remain within the comfort of his bed.
Anything within the feasible realm of possibility.
The blunt edge of Josh’s cock, tapping lightly, rubbing sweetly, appraising the wonderful stretch that his fingers have created – Tyler ponders whether this feeling rivals the joy of cracking a Red Bull.
Admittedly, the taste of Josh is inherently sweeter.
This much, he can admit; “please, Josh… please, I waited, I waited so long,” and Josh, too, is sweeter, far more candied than the bitter taste of Tyler’s blindsighted credence. It is almost baffling how quickly the tables have turned. This man is intoxicating. Perhaps he is an incubus, some kind of wicked, dishonourable creature, intended to tempt him into sinful wrongdoing.
It doesn’t matter.
Tyler does not quite remember why it is that he cares. It is never as if he has blindly followed every prevailing rule. He hasn’t. Feasibly, it is something instilled, administered deep within his skull, and something pervading the sulci of his brain; he has been ordered not to want this, and he is wanting anything but.
He inhales sharply. Shaking his head, he dispels his bitter disquietude. Not a thing beneath the benignant nature of the clouds is capable of ruining this, especially not a futile process of thought.
“Tyler,” Josh catches sight of his silent dwelling. Impressive, considering it is not at all visible to the mortal eye, “baby… having second thoughts?” he asks, “we can stop, buzzbug – we can stop if you need to.”
Tyler nearly folds. He laughs, intrinsically heaves, “you’re still calling me that…”
Josh simpers, uncharacteristic, “you said you like it,” he recalls. His hand grazes lightly against the skin of Tyler’s pecs, thumb brushing against his nipples, his index at his sternum, “I can stop that, too, if that’s what you want.”
“God, no,” Tyler hurries, essentially spits the phrase, as if his life is dependant on the speed of its delivery, “no, I do like it, and I like this, too,” he shifts himself down against the other’s slickened cockhead, smiling triumphantly as Josh encircles his member, a tight, warning grip against the girth of its base. “I like this, I still want this… my brain isn’t screaming, it’s just…”
“Buzzing?” Josh queries, with a gentle, jesting smirk.
Tyler chews at his lip. He fruitlessly attempts to stifle his amusement. “Buzzing,” he agrees, although his grin is coming to conquer.
The emergence of his crooked bottom teeth to not go unnoticed, “you’re pretty, God, you’re pretty, Ty,” Josh murmurs as he lowers his torso, pressing skin against skin, pressing chest against chest. It is funny; his heart appears to be thrumming meteorically, faster, more arduous than Tyler’s own – and Tyler is presumed to be the one brimming with nerves. “I’ll… I’m gonna…”
“Yeah,” Tyler nods, unstated, unavowed. He is already assenting to what he already knows, “yeah, Josh, yes.”
Nothing more. It is all that needs to be spoken. Josh is aligning himself, a slow inhalation before he submerges the tip of his cock into Tyler’s tense heat, observing with a gasp as Tyler’s muscles attempt to relax, slacken against the intrusion.
“Holy shit, you’re tight…” Tyler’s innards are sacred, untouched. No wonder they grip at his cock like a vice, “Christ, Tyler… s’okay, you okay?”
Tyler laughs. He ruefully regrets his hasty desperation, “hah, you’re – you’re splitting me open,” he admits, through the gritting of his teeth and an unsteady hand, haphazardly placed atop the other’s silky curls. “I knew, I knew that you would, but – I mean it, you’re huge.”
“I’m sorry,” Josh heaves, “I’m sorry, I told you I wouldn’t hurt you.” His hips stutter lightly with the insatiable need to rut. His eyes are quickly shifting to evaluate reaction – he catches sight of Tyler’s scarlet face, restless, uneasy as his cock sinks further inwards.
“It’s okay,” Tyler breathes, determined, unswerving. He fiddles with the pretty curls beneath his frightened grip – a wonderful distraction. “Wanna be full, so full of you,” he says, panting hot, hurried, against the straining muscle beneath the skin of the other’s neck, “waited so long, waited long enough. I can take it, gimme more, Josh, just a little more…”
Forging onwards, Josh is readily satiating Tyler’s onerous pleading. He inches further inwards, until their needy hips are meeting, and he slowly nestles his heavy member into the cavity of Tyler’s interior; entirely seated, he is stationed, and unmoving. He patiently awaits further instruction, shuddering faintly as an involuntary groan escapes the incarceration of his throat.
“It’s so much,” Tyler whimpers, experimental as he veers himself down against Josh’s girth, “never had… never, never had anything like this.”
“I know, baby, I know,” Josh is kissing at his cheeks, eyes doting, utterly brimming with concern as Tyler’s nose crinkles lightly. His lip, once again, is quivering with the tender threat of tears, “how’s it feel, Ty?”
Peculiar. Greater tension, and far more demanding than the prior stretch of fingers; still, Tyler continues to squirm, to twist, eventually recommencing the slow grind of his ass against the encroachment, “s’okay, yeah, m’okay, I think… I like that you’re inside me.”
“Fuck...” it is taking everything, the aggregate, the defiance of the world not to grasp at Tyler’s hips, and not to fuck his perfect hole, “can’t go sayin’ stuff like that, you can’t.”
“I can,” Tyler pants, as a smile tugs at his lips, “I can – I will, I know you like it, Josh, I know.” He clenches his opening with a purpose this time, and he shifts his cushioned ass until Josh is groaning noisily, slow, elongated, a drawn out noise – it sends a pulse of arousal throughout Tyler’s sullied core. He whimpers longingly, and Josh’s hips are twitching, yearning, needy with the want to impel, “yeah, yeah, move, Josh, you can – you can move, now.”
Tyler intends for a plea to escape him, decamp alongside his perverted phrasing – Josh is quick to invalidate the need. He forces his mouth onto Tyler’s silken own, where his spit has dampened skin, and where his moans unfetter with pity. He slips the rigidity of his length from Tyler’s hole, allowing him to twitch against his sensitive glans before he presses back inwards with a slow, deliberate thrust.
Tyler is reeling, faltering to pressure, his lips acquiescing to the heat of Josh’s tongue. He simply cannot believe the dwindling strength of his prior devotion – the remainder of his vitality is forced into this; into pleasing, into gratifying, and into thoroughly surfeiting Josh’s peculiar predilection.
Even now, he is befuddled by the way that Josh adores him.
Fidelity has always proffered to the incorrect divinity. It should have always been designated to Josh; each and every inch.
It doesn’t matter.
Devotion is utterly meaningless without an ample cause. It is quickly becoming apparent – the ample cause in question has been hidden in plain sight, just beneath the jut of Tyler’s ignorant nose. The feeling of Josh, splitting him open, ravishing his mouth with his teeth, with his tongue – it is as if the two of them are dying, and this is their final, culminating, communicative message. Josh is providing the ideal rationale, the quintessential reasoning to ultimately surrender.
In due course, Tyler does. He surrenders without caution; “harder,” he cries, as he slips away to breathe, “harder, Josh, mh, you’re not gonna break me.”
“Fuck, Tyler, you’re like a doll,” Tyler is pleased to find that Josh is wholly matching his verve, his spirit. He quickens his leisurely pace, slipping hands, nimble fingers to the recessions of Tyler’s hip bones, dipping his thumbs into the ticklish incurvature, “that’s it, baby, feeling good – feeling good, now, aren’t you?”
The tip of his cock knocks brazenly, adroitly against Tyler’s tender prostate, cohering a moan, and a threatening pleasure. “Mhm,” Tyler nods, before his head lolls to the pillows, whining unabashedly, now entirely unreserved, “good, so good – really good, and I made you wait for this, m’sorry, I'm sorry.”
Josh is quick to quieten the unnecessary apologies. He hushes, gentle, a slow, sibilated sound, “s’okay, it’s alright, Ty,” he murmurs, as his palms slip to the underside of Tyler’s quivering knees. He pushes at them lightly, grinning as they bend, and he forces his muscled weight against the meat of Tyler’s thighs, “look at you, look, it doesn’t matter, look, you’re sucking me in, just taking me, now – greedy, Tyler, like you were made for this.”
It feels as though he is – created with intent, purpose, solely to receive the fattened width of Josh’s member.
The newfound positioning is marvelous. Josh is fucking deeper, vigorous, belabouring Tyler’s sweet spot, “I won’t last,” he cries, “not like this, not – not with you…”
His voice is trailing away, simply surrendering to a whimper – Josh is slotting his hand against the weeping tip of his neglected cock, thumb against the head where it dips into the slit, then encircling and fondling, a slickened, sensitive drag. “I don’t care,” Josh groans, palm abating, soothing Tyler’s insistent ache, “I don’t give a shit, cum whenever the fuck you want, I don’t care, you deserve it, deserve everything, Tyler.”
“Mh – Josh, I want you to cum, too,” he blubbers at the touch, and his gut is clenching fiercely. The gratification of his orgasm is imminently teetering, “I wanna make you feel good.”
“You are – God, you are, don’t be silly,” the particularly harsh thrust that follows appears to only elucidate the statement, “been trying not to cum this entire time. You’re perfect, so fucking tight, and you’re so fucking pretty, Tyler, you’re perfect.”
The unexpected praise forces Tyler’s cock to jolt.
It dribbles sticky pre into the palm of Josh’s hands, and Josh can only grin regarding the sight; he promptly recognises what needs to be done. “Doing so good, Ty, you’re so good – taking every single inch of me, takin’ it like a pro,” he mutters the plaudit, the acclaim into the skin of Tyler’s neck, fervently kissing, tentatively biting – just to test the waters.
Amidst an evidential moan, Tyler appears to be enjoying this, and taking pleasure in the gentle scrape of teeth against his flesh, “gonna cum, m’gonna cum,” he whimpers, sniffles. Josh is having none of this.
His free hand shifts to Tyler’s face, thumb beneath the swell of his under eye where tears are threatening to spill with malice, “don’t hold yourself back, stop that,” Josh whispers. Tyler’s lashes are wet, dewy as they brush against his skin, “wanna see, wanna see you cum on my cock. You’re gorgeous, so pretty, aren’t you, Ty?”
“Josh, ah…” beneath the doting, and the worship, it is impossible not to falter. Tyler throws an arm atop the heat of his face, “I’m cumming, cumming now – Josh!”
He spills easily, carelessly beneath the worship of the vocables, leaking his load into the reverent veneration of Josh’s grasp. He bedaubs his clenching abdomen, smearing the searing skin with semen as Josh continues to pound into him, stuttered movements that eventually come to halt, before Josh is following suit, cumming hot, swiftly into the enclosure of the condom – Tyler momentarily wishes they had never even bothered, would simply love to experience the vulgar feeling of Josh finishing, spilling against his insides.
Goodness, how far has he fallen?
He is intemperate, now.
He is corrupt.
Inconsequential, unimportant – he is content. This is all that is mattering, as Josh leans himself inwards to place a chase kiss to his lips.
Sanctuary.
Josh is feeling like home, “you're perfect,” he says, as he pecks against his cheeks, noses at his temples, “everything you do is perfect.”
He tugs his softening cock from Tyler’s opening, soothing as the man below winces at the loss. He removes the affronting condom, and knots it with surprising expertise, forcing Tyler to falsify a scowl.
“Don’t look at me like that,” Josh grins, “turns out you’re just as filthy as I am.” He shuffles towards the edge of the bed, plucking his shirt from the carpeted floor. “Filthy mouth, I didn’t know you had it in you.”
Tyler is continuing to pant, heavy exhalations that never seem to culminate, “I’m not gonna lie…” he heaves, as Josh swipes at his dirtied tummy with the cotton of his clothing – it is disgusting. Tyler is scrunching his nose, “I wasn’t expecting… all of that.”
Josh tilts his head, “too much?” he queries, an apologetic smile.
“No, no, it was…” perfect, in all abundant honesty, as Josh seems to continually yearn to voice. “I liked it,” he settles on, as he clears his withered throat, “m’mouth is dry, though.”
Josh is wonderful, pampering.
“I’ll get you some water.”
Tyler does not even need to ask.
He pushes his luck beneath the stretch of a grin.
“Actually,” Tyler begins, as he sprawls atop the duvet, groaning with serenity as his bones crack with fatigue. “I could really use a Red Bull,” he suggests, “think I saw some in the fridge.”
Josh is beaming, snickering, as he arises from the bed.
“Never change, Tyler. Never ever change.”
Tyler is finally home. Beneath this cohort of blankets, and this mountainous pile of cushions, he is home.
Atop the cordial sheets that are always smelling of Josh, Tyler lazes, and he lounges, and he stares towards his wrist.
Fresh ink, black lines. The sting of the tattoo – linear underscoring beneath his palm, encircling the delicate skin beneath his carpus – it had been much less painful than initially expected.
The culminating searing of the needle had been kind, an adieu, a farewell, to the twang of rubber band.
There is no need for the elastic, now.
Now that Josh is invariably present.
It is late into December. Every so often, Tyler will find that the weather is far too frigid, and far too biting to perform his daily Red Bull run. Today is not too dissimilar – the heat of Josh’s duvet provides a comfort unrivaled, and it is simply undefeated by the bitter taste of energy drink.
Not that it matters.
Josh is bringing him Red Bull, regardless.
He slips into the bedroom, with a bag betwixt his fingertips, nose flushed in consequence of the exterior cold. He has just come home from the record store. “Hey, buzzbug. New flavour,” he murmurs, with an utter devotion to his gaze.
His voice is soft. It remains quiet, lest Tyler is resting, or attempting to sleep. He is always so attentive.
“Hey,” Tyler smiles, as his arms come to outstretch. Josh slots himself between them as he clambers onto the bed, “how was work?”
“Tedious,” he sighs, as he nestles into Tyler’s hold, “hours too long, and I missed you a bunch.”
“I missed you too,” Tyler echoes, then, “look – y’like it?” he queries, as he forces his wrist against the jut of Josh’s nose.
Josh chuckles, fumbles, until his fingers grasp at the skin of Tyler’s arm. He assesses the delicate lines, never touching, only marvelling. The precision is ample, “shouldn’t it be wrapped?” he complains, as he leans himself inward to kiss at Tyler’s palm.
“Probably,” Tyler does not currently concern himself with instructory aftercare. He is far more interested in can tabs, and Josh, “what’s in the bag?”
Josh shrugs, hums, entirely nonchalant.
“Have a look.”
It is ominous. Josh is always bringing Tyler Red Bull, yet it is never this impending. Still, Tyler takes the rustle of the bag into his awaiting hands. He slots his fingers inwards, rummaging momentarily – yes, there are two cans of Red Bull, as is ordinarily customary.
However, there is also a sharp, jutting edge; it is almost like cardstock, thick, weighted paper that catches at his skin. He glances to Josh, with confusion to his features.
“Go on," he says with simplicity.
“You’re scaring me,” Tyler breathes a laugh, as he plucks the papery object from the confines of the bag.
He looks down towards the entity.
He stares.
He squints.
He glances to Josh, once more.
Josh is unabashedly beaming.
“You in?” he grins, beneath a twang of unwelcomed nervousness.
“No way,” Tyler scrambles, clambers towards his lover – as if they had not already been conjointly seated, “no fucking way, Josh, you’re kidding.”
“Perks of working at a record store, I guess,” he is humble as he speaks, lifting Tyler into his lap, “don’t make me ask again, baby," he laughs, "you in?”
Tyler nods. He nods, and he nods, and he nods until he dizzies. “Yeah, yeah, I’m in - what the fuck, Josh? Did you really think that I wouldn’t be?”
“You’re cussing like a sailor,” Josh notes beneath amusement.
He watches as Tyler shifts, placing the rectangular cardstock carefully atop the bedsheets, “well, yeah, it's because… it's because I love you, you dumbass.”
Josh heaves another laugh, this time brimming with shock, “Tyler…”
“I love you,” he repeats, with concurrent, blithe giggles, “I love you, Josh.” He kisses Josh’s nose, and then he kisses Josh’s cheek – it tickles, and Josh is scrunching his eyes, with his teeth on full frontal display.
“Tyler, baby,” beneath the joyous pressure of his lover’s pretty mouth, Josh is ultimately exuberant – it is the very first time that Tyler is admitting this, “I love you, too,” and, concurrently, it is the very first time that Josh is echoing the sentiment. “I love you, too, I–”
Tyler interrupts; he kisses him. He plants his lips firmly, possessively atop Josh’s bitten own, and he kisses him as though the world may soon come to a crowning extinction.
He slots his hands into the fluff of Josh’s hair – blue hair, dyed, and it feels a little dryer, now. Still, it continues to remain bountiful in beauty, and Tyler is continuing to tug at the lengths of the locs, persistent in pulling his partner even closer, and brazenly untroubled beneath the laving of his tongue.
It is wonderful.
Tyler is always finding it funny; he has so easily come to will away his prior agony, alongside the understanding presence of this terribly patient being.
Albeit, it has not been entirely effortless.
Nonetheless, it doesn’t really matter.
Nothing really matters.
Josh is all that he will ever certainly need.
Everything is wonderful, and two, precious tickets to Death Cab for Cutie lay dormant, forgotten atop the surface of the mattress.
dansvoidd Sat 06 Sep 2025 02:10AM UTC
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