Chapter Text
Tyler’s ass hurts when he wakes up, but Josh is there with a Tylenol and a glass of water. He’s on the edge of the bed when Tyler rolls over, proffering the tiny white pill in the palm of his hand. Tyler blinks and groans and curls his fingers over Josh’s palm, feels the ridges there and remembers how he spit into it last night. He already feels awkward.
“Must fuck guys with no lube a lot, huh?” He says, to diffuse the tension, pops the pill in his mouth and chases it down with the cool water. It soothes his throat, which is also feeling raw from where Josh choked him last night. He tugs on the choker he’s still wearing and grimaces.
Josh laughs with his head thrown back, light playing in his cobalt hair. “I just know how it is.”
Tyler quirks an eyebrow.
Josh shrugs. “Even you said you’d bottomed a couple times before.”
“I’m sure any self-respecting gay man has, just to see if they like it.”
“Some of us more than others,” Josh intones, and when he leaves to take the glass back to the kitchen Tyler sees that he’s gathered the clothes Tyler lost throughout the apartment last night and piled them neatly on the desk.
He sinks back down to the pillows and has nothing clever to say to Josh’s joke, just watches the stack of clothes, his leather jacket thrown over the back of the chair, for a long time until Josh reappears.
“You ready for that shower?”
-
He lets Josh shampoo his hair and wash his back with a gentle hand on his waist. It reminds him of when he was little and he and Zack used to take baths together. Not in a weird incestuous way, just in the fact that it’s comforting, having someone do that kind of stuff to you. Especially because Tyler hasn’t bathed or showered with anyone since he was about 6 years old.
Josh turns him around and Tyler sees him smile through the gloom of the water misting around them. “Not so bad, is it?”
Tyler shrugs and reaches forward, where Josh’s cock is hanging flaccid between his legs. “You want me to-“
“No.” Josh jerks away from Tyler’s touch, but he’s back in close proximity soon enough, with a hand on Tyler’s shoulder. “No sex today. One of my rules.”
Tyler sighs exaggeratedly. “Probably should have told me that before inviting me to stay the night, yeah?”
Josh looks hurt so Tyler rolls his eyes and runs a wet hand up his arm, the one with the sleeve of tattoos. “Joking.” Then he brushes the backs of his knuckles over the row of bottles along the shower wall and inclines his head toward Josh’s hair. “You got anything special for that?”
Looking a little more relaxed, Josh grabs a bottle of something labeled color lock and plants it in Tyler’s outstretched hand before turning around.
Josh is actually a bit shorter than he his, so it’s easy for him to squirt the shampoo in his palm and suds it into Josh’s hair, massaging his scalp and earning himself a quiet moan for his efforts.
That makes him grin, walking forward carefully atop the porcelain and pressing himself along Josh’s back. “You sure you don’t wanna break that rule? Gotta say, seeing you like this makes me wanna try the other way around.” To prove his point, he grabs gently at the swell of Josh’s ass, which is pale and supple and screaming for Tyler’s dick in it.
A laugh as Josh turns back, quickly, and starts to rinse the shampoo from his hair. “Even if I were interested in breaking a rule, I don’t bottom. Ever. So.”
“You really hate it that much?”
“Doesn’t get me off, so yeah. Why would I try again?”
Tyler shrugs and sets the bottle of shampoo back on the shelf just as Josh leans in, brushing damp lips over Tyler’s. They aren’t touching anywhere else, Josh’s hands still in his hair, but Tyler feels a warmth that seeps all the way down to his toes.
“I hope that was okay,” Josh says, and it’s so low Tyler can barely hear it over the thundering of the shower. “I just didn’t want you to think…like, because of the no sex thing. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t want you or-“
“No, you’re good.” Tyler shakes his head and slips forward falteringly, winds both arms around Josh’s shoulders, rippling with water. “Can we do it again?”
Josh nods and Tyler kisses him. They stay like that under the scalding water until Josh is pink and Tyler’s flushed a deeper shade of golden brown, until neither of them can breathe and they’re swallowing more water than saliva.
Only then does Josh turn the shower off and step out, hand outstretched to help Tyler over as well.
Tyler goes for the rack of towels he sees in the corner, but Josh is gone when he turns.
“Josh?”
In the bedroom, Josh is pulling his clothes on still soaking wet, shirt sticking to him as his head pops out through the neck and water sprays everywhere.
“What the hell?” Tyler laughs.
Josh gives a lopsided smile and blushes high on his cheeks, like he knows what he’s doing is weird.
“You probably should have warned me you were a serial killer before inviting me to stay, too.” Tyler has his towel wrapped securely around his waist, idling by the bathroom door.
“Dude, there’s literally no point in drying off. Air drying is a thing.”
“Okay, psychopath.” Tyler nods slowly and makes sure to go slow while he dries off, getting every nook and cranny of his body dry before flinging the damp towel at Josh.
“Forgot your ass crack, asshole,” Josh says good-naturedly.
“You wanna get that for me?” He’s only half kidding.
But Josh just gives him a small smile and leaves him to get dressed in his clothes from last night.
-
“Do you wanna stop by campus to get your homework?”
Outside, the leaves change color with every passing tree. A few oranges and yellows flutter down onto the windshield, stuck by morning dew, and Josh has to turn the wipers on.
“Sure. Then we can eat at the dining hall?”
Josh shakes his head. “I was thinking of taking you somewhere off campus actually. One of my favorite places.”
Tyler doesn’t have much money to be spending on food off campus (the little he does have goes toward the pack of smokes he buys each week) when he could just use a meal swipe in the caf, but he doesn’t want Josh to think he’s cheap. So he nods and when they pull up outside of Tyler’s residence hall Josh lets him climb out.
“No chickening out, okay? I will stake this place out.”
“Okay, Jesse James.”
Josh makes finger guns at him.
“I’ll probably be a few minutes packing my shit so if anyone pulls up you can pull around-“
“I know the campus, Tyler. I go to school here, too. If you come out and I’m not here I’ll be around the side.”
“Cool.”
In his dorm he packs all his books into his bag just to be sure and because he remembers there’s a History quiz he also has to study for. He decides to change as well while he’s at it, brush his teeth and try his best to fix his unruly hair.
It’s as he’s spitting a mess of toothpaste into the sink that his phone rings. The caller ID says Josh, even though he can’t remember giving Josh his number last night. Or vice versa.
“Hello…?”
“You’re taking quite a while up there. Do I need to gas the place?”
“I decided to change my clothes so I wouldn’t look like a total hobo while we got breakfast. How did you-“
“I’m an IT major,” Josh says before Tyler can even ask. “I unlocked your phone last night, I hope that’s okay. I only did this, I swear.”
By all means, Tyler should be pissed. Or at least scared out of his wits that Josh is going to become a crazy stalker who just unlocks Tyler’s phone whenever he wants and puts peoples’ numbers into it because he’s afraid Tyler won’t call him back. Instead, he feels oddly flattered. No guy has ever tried that hard before.
“I, um…is that the kinda stuff they teach you in IT? I need to switch my major.” He hopes the delight isn’t too obvious in his voice, though he knows it is.
“I learned in one class how to unlock my own phone if I forget the passcode, and we were given express instructions not to use it on other phones because people can sue for breaches of privacy and all that, but. I had a lot of fun last night, so.” A pause as Tyler slips his shoes on. “You really changed for the date?”
“Date?” But he’s smiling as he grabs his bag and slings it over his shoulder. “I wasn’t aware that’s what we were calling it.”
There’s a grainy laugh down the line. “Well, what would you call it?”
“I’d call it breakfast.”
“Breakfast it is, then.”
-
“I really hope it didn’t creep you out that I put my number in your phone,” Josh says as he holds the door open for Tyler to step into the restaurant. “You can delete it if things don’t go well today…if they aren’t going well.”
Tyler gives Josh a conciliatory pat on the arm. “They’re going fine. You can relax. I’m actually having fun so far.” Which he never thought he’d say about an actual date.
Breakfast. This is just breakfast.
A peppy hostess who recognizes Josh seats them at a booth in the back and lets Tyler know her name is Carlie and if he needs anything to let her know.
As she flounces away Tyler looks at Josh. “Come here often?”
Josh laughs and opens his menu and all of a sudden Tyler can’t help but imagine Josh here with every other guy he’s ever taken home. Which is quite hypocritical of him, he realizes, because he does the same thing. He just doesn’t take his conquests out in public.
He opens his menu as well just as they’re joined by a guy with floppy dark hair, full lips, and dark brown eyes. His name tag says his name is Brendon and - wouldn’t you know it - he knows Josh, too.
“Josh, man!” Is his greeting, and he extends his arm for that one-handed not-quite-shake all bro’s do.
Tyler watches with a grave expression.
“You just get here?” Josh asks.
“Hell no. I’ve been here since midnight. Got me pulling them graveyard shifts.” Brendon rolls his eyes and they fall on Tyler. “And who do we have here?”
“This is Tyler.”
“Hi, Tyler. I’m Brendon. Friend of Josh’s.”
But when Brendon extends his hand for Tyler to shake Tyler ignores it.
“Uh,” Brendon says, and curls his fingers into a fist. “Can I get you guys something to drink?”
“The usual,” Josh says, just as Tyler says, “Coffee. Black.”
Brendon nods and then leans in to lay a hand on Josh’s shoulder. “It’s so good to see you, man.” As he turns away his fingers brush the top of Josh’s bicep, under the sleeve of his Thrasher tee.
“Wow,” Tyler mutters, before Josh can say anything. “Is he obvious or what?”
Josh gives a little confused shake of his head. “What’re you talking about?”
“You fucked him, too?”
“Excuse me?”
“You took him here after and he loved it so much he just had to get a job here? Or - lemme guess - this is where you two met. While you were on a date with another guy. That’s so rich.”
Josh’s eyebrows knit uncomfortably together. “Pardon me, Tyler, but you really have no room to talk.”
“You’re right. I don’t.”
Tyler is up and out of the booth in less than two seconds, headed for the door, pulling his phone from his pocket to delete Josh’s number. Then he’ll call a cab and head home and forget this ever happened. Maybe he’ll pick up again tonight and Josh will become just a distant memory, something that could have happened.
“Tyler, wait.”
“Tyler?”
Josh is calling to him from back in the restaurant just as Tyler, nose buried in his phone, is barreling into someone in the entryway.
“Tyler,” the person says again, an affirmative, and Tyler sees that it’s the kid he fucked the other night. It’s glasses.
Fuckity fucking fuck. He knew they should have gone to the dining hall.
He makes to push around the guy, but glasses plants a hand on Tyler’s shoulder and shoves him hard. He stumbles back, almost dropping his phone, and then there’s a flash of blue out of the corner of his eye and Josh is there, shoving the guy back.
“Hey. Leave him alone.”
“This is amazing,” glasses says loudly, and by now half the people in the restaurant are looking at them. “Are you his boyfriend? You know he cheated on you, buddy? With me. So if I don’t kick his ass, someone should. Teach him a lesson.”
“Is there a problem here?” This from Carlie, whose gaze is flitting from glasses to Tyler to Josh and back.
Josh looks like he wants to say something else, but thinks better of it. “No. No, Carlie, there’s no problem. Tyler and I were just leaving.”
“But you just got-“
Josh is hauling Tyler up by the armpits and dragging him from the restaurant with glasses glaring after them.
In the parking lot Tyler brushes him off. “I’m fine.”
“That guy-“
“I slept with him two nights ago. Didn’t get his number, didn’t call him back, same as I do every time.”
“Except this time.”
Tyler puts his head in his hands and groans. “I don’t do this. And this is exactly why.”
Josh tilts his head. “Why?”
“Because then shit gets all fucked up and makes me feel like…like…”
“Like you actually have emotions? Like you actually care about someone other than when you’re pushing your dick into their ass?” When Tyler looks up Josh is grinning. He spreads his arms wide. “All I’m saying is that I’ve slept with a lot of people, you’ve slept with even more. But this doesn’t have to be about that-“
“How can it not?”
“Easy.” Josh shrugs. “We make it not. We go get breakfast somewhere else and then we go back to my place and you do your homework and we try. That’s all you can do, really.”
“But there are-“ Tyler coughs and tries to make his heart stop beating so fast. “-there are guys like that all over campus, all around campus. Guys who wanna smash my face in because I never called them back or because I kicked them out after we fucked. Guys who’re gonna make this way more difficult than it needs to be.”
“This might be overstepping my boundaries, but you don’t strike me as the type of guy who quits things easily, Tyler. And I’m not either.”
“What about your guys, then? When we see guys you slept with it’s gonna be even worse because you’re nice. You actually made sure they had a good time and I’m sure half of them fucking fell in love with you. And I’m a jealous fuck, Josh, I can’t just-“
“Tyler.” Josh advances carefully, afraid of scaring Tyler. “Jealousy is like, a thing. Everyone gets jealous. Not many people own up to it, but you do. So that’s a step. You just have to trust that all the guys I’ve been with before? That’s done, no strings attached.”
“Well, what if-“
“Stop making excuses.” Josh finally puts a hand on Tyler’s shoulder and squeezes. “You still want breakfast?”
Tyler thinks. And then nods.
-
They get breakfast at McDonald’s and Tyler licks at the remnants of his McFlurry as they sit on Josh’s couch watching Black Mirror.
“You ever notice there are no gay characters in these shows?”
Tyler shakes his head. “Hetero culture, man. It’s a disease.”
A few minutes pass and Tyler leans forward to put his empty McFlurry cup on the coffee table. When he leans back he glances at Josh and finds him already staring.
“What?”
“I’m…regarding you.”
“I feel like I’m being analyzed.”
Josh tilts his head. “You wanna do your homework?”
He very much does not want to do his homework right now. “No. We can keep watching for a bit.”
“Can we, um. Would you mind if. Could we cuddle? I know that’s weird because it hasn’t been that long and earlier we kinda fought, but-“
Tyler anchors himself with the toe of his sock on the floor and pushes, sliding his body along the cushions until he’s pressed to Josh’s side. He curls his legs under him and butts his head against the underside of Josh’s jaw. “Get with the program.”
“Right,” Josh says, and winds an arm around Tyler’s shoulders.
They stay like that for a while, Josh’s breath rustling the hair at the top of Tyler’s head, until Tyler feels his eyes starting to slip closed, his mind wandering off. Back to the restaurant Josh had been so excited to take him to, before Tyler ruined things and got pushed around by glasses and they were forced to leave.
“Thanks for taking care of that guy,” Tyler mutters into Josh’s chest.
He feels Josh shrug. “I’m sorry you have to deal with guys like that.”
Tyler makes a small noise. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
Struggling to sit upright and wrench himself back from the edge of sleep, he blinks. “Don’t make it seem like I didn’t deserve that. It was my fault. If I wasn’t such an asshole to every guy I-“
Josh kisses him. Hard, on the mouth. His hands are in Tyler’s hair, palms stuck to the sides of Tyler’s head. Holding him there. Tyler balls a hand in Josh’s shirt when they part. “What-“
“We agreed not to talk about that. The past. You have guys, I have guys. They don’t mean anything.” Josh presses his forehead hard to Tyler’s. “Okay? They don’t mean shit.”
“Okay.” Tyler’s next breath is shaky, lungs rattling against his ribs.
Josh can tell. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, I’m…just…this is new. For me. I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” Josh gives a sweet kiss to Tyler’s forehead that makes his eyes sting. “You should do your homework, though.”
He starts with the studying he has to do for History. Josh helps him make flash cards and quizzes him on the information while they lay in bed, and Tyler earns a kiss for every one he gets right (and a few he doesn’t).
And then he pulls out his monologue and tells Josh not to laugh.
Josh doesn’t, as Tyler stumbles through the lines and bites at his lip and blushes wherever he has skin showing. Josh just kisses him, on his neck, the fingers not holding the paper, the apple of his cheek.
He finally gets it all down as the sun is setting, performs it with his back to Josh at the foot of the bed, wringing his hands together.
Josh claps and drags him back by the waist, flips him over and kisses him hard once more.
“You’re gonna get an A.”
“Or a D.”
Josh frowns.
“For this dick.”
Josh makes him wait to have sex again until after midnight, when it’s technically the next day, holds him down and fucks him within an inch of his life again.
Josh is right, he realizes as he lays beside him, drool seeping from the corner of Josh’s lips. He’ll never want anything other than this.