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“I’m gonna leave in 30 for the airport, are you coming?”
Tyler pouted, and then tried to not seem like he was pouting. It didn’t really work.
Josh looked over at him. “Tyler?”
“Um. Yeah, dude. I’ll go.”
Josh broke into an easy smile. “Cool. I think you’ll really like him.”
Tyler did not think he would really like him.
“How’d you know this guy again?”
Josh scrunched his eyebrows. “We met in highschool, I think- at some state championship or something. He’s from Cincinnati. And then after we graduated, I saw him a lot while I was touring around, you know?”
Tyler did not know. Actually, Tyler’s only experience with becoming friends with Josh was meeting him once and then latching onto him like an octopus. They didn’t need any highschool or college bar gigs to keep them close. And in Tyler’s opinion, clearly his method worked better because Tyler was Josh’s best friend and Tyler had matching tattoos with Josh and Mr. LA guy wasn’t even here.
Tyler tried to sound neutral. He really did.
“So why haven’t I met him?”
Josh glanced back at him from where he was idly scrolling through his phone. Watching traffic patterns, probably. What a thoughtful guy.
“Oh, we fell out of touch after he picked his major and I started that thing with House of Heroes… and he had his own stuff going on.” Josh looked vaguely guilty, shifting his eyes from Tyler and off into space. He ran his hand through his fading pink hair, something he only really did when he was feeling badly.
“I think he was going through something, and I meant to reach out… but with the band, and then work, and then touring-” With you, Tyler heard.
“So I only managed to reconnect with him last year, and he told me he’d just moved out to LA. But that he’d visit the next time he’d come back.”
Los Angeles. Tyler’d spent some time there. Debby lived and worked there, and she was nice. Josh seemed to like it, too. To Tyler, it felt like the polar opposite of Ohio. Sprawling, but in a different way. He’s never really sure how to feel about the place.
“So, I figured I’d pick him up. Kinda owe him a couple, I think.” Tyler hummed noncommittally.
“Heading out in a few?” Josh stood, looking down at him expectantly. Tyler really, really wanted to say no. But also, he couldn’t not say yes, really.
“Lemme get my coat.”
The way to the airport was familiar, at least. Josh kept sending him glances about as much as he was glancing at the GPS, and Tyler was staring at the passing scenery in a completely normal, calm way.
“I think you’ll like him, you know. He’s like us, in a way.”
Tyler chose to put his automatic defensiveness aside to consider the statement.
“How so?”
Josh shrugged, eyes on the road.
“Driven.” He took the turn for Arrivals. “A creative. Was ready to do it solo.”
“A musician?”
Josh squinted his eyes. “One time we decided to brush off our trumpets together. We were about at the same skill level.”
“So. Not a musician.”
“Hey! You wanted me on We Don’t Believe! I just agreed!” Josh laughed. “He probably could’ve been, if he wanted to. But he kinda has his own thing going on right now, and I think it’s been going pretty well for him.”
For a little bit, the only noise surrounding them belong to their car and the planes overhead.
“We were… similar when we were younger,” Josh continued. “Angry, dumb. Looking for an out. He really helped me out, then.”
Tyler didn’t know how to feel about that. They’d talked about their childhoods extensively, but for every uncanny similarity they found in their close-but-not-intersecting pasts, there was another difference. There was somewhere in the pit of Tyler’s mind that told him that if he and Josh had really known each other as teens, or even kids, they wouldn’t have gotten along. Not that he was ever going to voice that to Josh, of course.
They made the final turn towards the airport, past the kiss-and-go, past the parking lots.
“Ok; game plan,” Josh said, focusing on the colorful airline logos up ahead. “I’ll idle and get out. You should get out too, but keep near the van. We’ve gotta find him and get the luggage and go to minimise any chances of recognition.”
“Is this why you wanted me to come along? Shuttle luggage?” Tyler griped, only half sarcastic. It was a good plan, though. They were getting recognized more and more out and about, especially in their home state, and while Tyler always loved talking to fans, it just kept getting more and more frequent. He wondered if the release of Blurryface would make it worse.
Josh ignored the jab, too focused on the hustle and bustle, the cars stopping and starting, and the shrill whistle of some poor underpaid traffic cop.
“I’ll go look for him, but you should keep your eyes peeled too, just in case.”
“Okay,” Tyler agreed. “What am I looking for?”
“Um. Short-ish, glasses, dyed hair..”
Tyler tried to add it up in his head. It just came out looking like Josh.
Josh swung into an opened space by the curb with a lurch, put the car in neutral, and snatched his phone, scrambling for his seatbelt with the other hand. Tyler figured that was his cue and started fumbling for his seatbelt, too.
Tyler turned around to get a faceful of stale car air blown back in his face as Josh slammed the driver’s side door shut too forcefully.
“Wait- what’s his name?”
The shrill whistles and tearful reunions drowned out his question, and Josh disappeared into the crowd in a flash of pink. Dammit.
Dutifully, Tyler slid out and closed his side’s door, then went round back to pop the trunk. It was midday and there were people swarming everywhere- hugging, rolling wheely bags with absolutely no caution for toes, generally being nuisances…
No sign of Josh, either. Tyler leaned back on the car, trying to scan the crowd. There weren’t that many guys with dyed hair besides Josh, right? Besides, he thought he’d be able to pick out an LA guy from a crowd with relative ease.
Nothing. Tyler considered straying from his post, but decided against it. Maybe Josh had been stopped by a fan in all this chaos. Serves him right. The car ahead of him was loading egregious amounts of matching family suitcases into the back of a family van- it looked big enough to rival the behemoth that he and Josh had shared a few years back, in the early days. Just the two of them, and whichever combination of their friends decided to tag along on this gig. It didn’t feel that big on the inside, though. It always felt way too small with Josh next to him. On that stupid mattress.
Still nothing. Tyler checked his phone. Nothing. Stop thinking about the stupid van, Tyler.
“Tyler!” His head snapped up. For a second, he thought he’d imagined it, but then Josh came barrelling through the crowd, pink hair flopping in his face, grinning from ear to ear. He shoved a roller bag into Tyler’s hand, practically shouting instructions at Tyler.
“Toss em in- we gotta go!” The last bit came out like a whoop as Josh sprinted around towards the driver’s seat. Tyler chucked the stupid roller bag into the back like it personally offended him and reached up to slam the trunkdoor, not caring to look where the thing landed. He twisted over just in time to see the passenger’s seat door slam shut- oh for the love of- and then the engine shifted out of neutral, so Tyler ripped open the backseat door and practically dove in.
He barely managed to right himself before the car started moving, peeling out of the Arrivals zone about as fast as possible. He heard giggles from the front seat.
“Whew, that could’ve been bad, dude. We were seriously boned.” The guy’s voice was stupidly deep. And also who was he to call Josh dude?! And also who even says boned?!!
Josh was practically wheezing behind the wheel, which was probably not road-safe.
“What are the chances- recognizing both of us-”
“Next time,” Tyler interrupted, “Let me put on my seatbelt first, Josh?”
Josh met his eyes in the rearview mirror, which did not make Tyler feel better. Not one bit.
“Sorry, Tyler. It was an emergency.”
“Oh, right.” Josh’s mystery friend finally leaned around from the shotgun seat to properly greet Tyler. His hair was pink, like Josh’s. More of a douchey-hipster cut than Josh’s punk rock, but it looked like it’d seen its fair share of bleach jobs, like Josh’s. His eyes were dark, and crinkled like Josh’s. He was broad-shouldered- maybe broader than Josh, and he was wearing some stupid tee shirt that made his biceps bulge as he awkwardly twisted to extend a hand to Tyler. His skin was closer to Tyler’s shade, probably from that stupid LA sun. Even his teeth were white and sharp, like Josh’s.
“Sorry about that. Tyler, right? Josh’s told me a lot about you.”
Dammit. And he even had that thing about him that made him seem eternally genuine. Like Josh did. Tyler accepted the hand to shake.
“I didn’t gather that much about you,” Tyler responded. “You were highschool friends?”
“Oh, yeah,” The guy laughed. “We hung out a lot. But, you know, life and work got in the way.”
“Right, right. And what’s work, for you?”
The guy’s face legitimately widened into a comical O shape.
“Oh, geez, my bad. Sorry. I’m Mark. Mark Fischbach. And I, uh..” His face scrunched up a bit. “Well, I make videos, basically….”