Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Tyler didn’t know where to put his head first.

It would have been so much easier if Spooky had answered right away, instead of waiting almost an entire day to reply. If he had answered the night before, or even the next morning, this whole conversation could have happened on Tyler’s day off. He could have sat with his phone in hand, read every message properly, and thought through every answer before sending it.

He could have actually enjoyed it.

Instead, their conversation was being threaded through one of the busiest days of the tour, squeezed between stage setup, crew briefings, soundcheck, and everything else that needed to happen before a show. Tyler’s attention was scattered across too many places at once, split into tiny pieces as he tried to keep up with all the different corners of his life demanding something from him.

But no matter how much work filled the day, no matter how many people called his name or handed him something to approve, he still couldn’t stop checking his phone. Every spare moment, his hand found its way back to his pocket, fingers waking the screen before he even realized he was doing it.

Technically, he could have told Spooky he was busy.

He could have sent a quick apology, something polite and reasonable, and asked if they could continue the conversation tomorrow when his brain wasn’t being pulled in seventeen different directions at once.

But he didn’t want to.

Now that Spooky replied, now that they were actually talking, actually circling the idea of his tattoo, something in him had sparked awake. It left him feeling strangely light and alive, like some part of him that had been dormant for days had finally been touched, and he couldn't hold himself back from it even if he tried.

Especially since Spooky turned out to be quite an intriguing person to talk to.

And Tyler didn’t find people intriguing all that often.

Last night, it started slow and careful, both of them still holding something back at first, keeping the conversation clean and professional. But after the first few messages, once Tyler had a chance to read Spooky a little better, to feel the tone behind his words and the weight of his thoughts, the energy between them shifted.

Tyler got hooked faster than he wanted to admit.

And once he realized Spooky wasn’t judging him or treating him like some impossible client with a half formed idea, Tyler let himself loosen up a little too.

He still remembered how awkward that first message felt in his body. How he reread it at least three times before sending it, convinced it sounded dumb, or embarrassing, or like he had no idea what he was doing.

Which, honestly... he kind of didn’t.

Because when a tattoo artist asked a client to explain what they wanted, people usually had something more solid to offer. Or at least some kind of clear starting point. Tyler had none of that, and he was painfully aware of it.

So when Spooky asked him to send a little about what he had in mind, Tyler cringed at his own answer.

"hello again. good to hear you do customs.. i do have something in mind, but it’s still more of a feeling than a finished design."

"what would you need from me to start?"

He sent it with the immediate, sinking certainty that Spooky was going to think he was a weirdo. Or a tattoo virgin. Or both. Because who asked for a custom piece and then admitted they didn’t even have a proper design in mind?

He didn’t even get the chance to panic delete it, because the message went read almost instantly. And a few seconds later, the little typing dots appeared at the bottom of the screen.

Tyler watched them with a shallow breath.

The reply he got, however, made him feel more validated than he could have expected. It was as if Spooky was telling him that this was perfectly normal, and Tyler felt something inside him unclench immediately as he read it.

"That’s actually a good place to start.

”Send me whatever you have... references, symbols, placement, size, style, colors if there are any... literally anything.”

”We can work through it and find it a shape together."

Tyler stared at the message for a moment longer than necessary.

Because not only did it validate him, not only did it make him feel like maybe he wasn’t being impossible after all, but that last sentence sent a small, dangerous flutter through his stomach. It was a confirmation of what his intuition had been telling him ever since he’d first seen Spooky’s work.

Spooky got it.

He understood.

And for a moment Tyler forgot he was talking to Josh’s doppelganger. He forgot about the face and focused on the strange, electric connection between them as artist and client. A man with a raw, formless idea, and the man who could help give it a solid shape.

He didn't hesitate to type his next reply.

"should I go one by one, or do you want me to dump everything on you in one message?"

Spooky replied instantly.

"Whatever you prefer, I'm fine with both."

And then, only a few seconds later, another message appeared.

"We can go one by one since we're both online now. Discuss it little by little if you like..."

And... okay.

Okay.

Tyler could work with that.

It took some of the pressure off at least. The idea of having to gather everything into one perfectly coherent message had been starting to feel impossible before he even tried. It sounded like exactly the kind of task that would make him overthink himself into a corner and eventually give up before sending anything at all.

This way was definitely easier for him.

Maybe not as much for Spooky though, who was about to receive a whirlwind of random pictures threaded with stray thoughts and abrupt shifts in direction, and probably long, unnecessary ponderings about design and size somewhere in the middle of it all. But for Tyler, breaking it down piece by piece made the whole thing feel less like standing at the bottom of a mountain and more like taking one careful step at a time.

Still, he felt the need to warn him.

"are you sure? knowing myself, it might get a little chaotic."

He stared at the message after sending it, immediately wondering if that was too much self aware information, but Spooky replied before Tyler could sink too far into that thought.

"Haha no you're fine. Just go for it!"

And so Tyler did.

He started sending things one by one, exactly as they came to him. A reference first, then another that didn’t match it at all, then something about movement, then another image, then a thought about how he didn’t want it to feel too clean, immediately followed by a correction to his own wording because that wasn’t quite what he meant either.

It was probably disorganized, maybe even a little hard to follow, but Spooky never made him feel like it was.

He replied with these little acknowledgments that somehow made Tyler feel understood instead of ridiculous. Sometimes it was just a quick comment, a note that he liked the direction of something, and other times, he paused on a specific detail and asked a follow up question that was so precise it made Tyler sit up a little straighter.

Because it meant that Spooky was actually paying attention.

And once they got past that first awkward layer, that initial phase of trying to read someone through a screen and figure out whether they were safe to be strange with, the conversation shifted and became one of the most natural Tyler had ever had with someone he still considered a stranger.

But natural didn’t mean clear.

Because as much as Tyler gave him, as many references as he sent, and as many little fragments of thought he tried to place carefully in front of him, the shape still wasn’t there. He could feel it too.

There were gaps between the images, empty spaces where the idea should have connected, and questions Tyler didn’t know how to answer. Pieces that made perfect sense inside his own head, but probably looked scattered and incomplete from the outside.

And luckily, or maybe unfortunately, Spooky clocked it before Tyler could pretend otherwise.

It was late by then. The room had gone quiet around him and the glow of his phone felt too bright against his face. Tyler had already moved from the table to the bed after making sure the project on his laptop was saved, dragging the conversation with him under the covers while Josh’s soft snores filled the dark space across the room.

And after Tyler had exhausted his visual ideas and their conversation had hit a wall, Spooky sent a message that made Tyler’s heart seize in his chest.

"ykw, maybe just tell me what it’s supposed to mean? Sometimes that helps more than pictures."

Tyler stared at the words for a long time. They were sitting there on the screen, simple and harmless and absolutely devastating.

He really hadn't thought this through, had he?

He should have expected it.

Of course Spooky would ask about the meaning. He was an artist. And a good one. He clearly cared about what lived underneath the lines, not just the way they looked once they were placed on skin. If he was going to make this piece properly, if he was going to understand it at all, he needed to know what he was working with.

Tyler should have anticipated that from the beginning.

But somehow, in all the adrenaline of finally finding him, of finally talking to him, of feeling the possibility of the tattoo becoming real for the first time, he had let himself forget that eventually he would have to explain why it mattered.

His eyes lifted from the phone.

Across the room, Josh was only a shape in the dark, curled beneath the blankets, his breathing slow and steady. Tyler could barely make out the rise and fall of his chest, or the mess of his hair against the pillow.

His throat tightened.

Normally, this probably wouldn’t be such a disaster.

Normally, if the artist were anyone else, Tyler could probably tell the truth. Not all of it, not in a way that left him completely exposed, and definitely under an NDA, because that information could never see the light of the day. But he supposed he could swallow the shame and embarrassment of being a grown man in his thirties, still pining after his bandmate, and say it once so they could move on.

And then the piece would be great because it would be understood.

But in this case?

An NDA wouldn't solve a damn thing.

Because how the hell was he supposed to tell an artist who looked like Josh that he wanted a tattoo about Josh? How was he supposed to explain that he wanted something permanent on his skin, something private and sacred and humiliatingly honest, something that stood for a love the real Josh didn’t even know existed?

How was he supposed to say that without making the choice of artist look deliberate and intentional? Without making it sound like he had found Josh’s face somewhere else in the world and reached for it on purpose?

Tyler didn’t know.

He couldn’t possibly tell Spooky the truth. At least not specifically.

But after everything he had just unloaded, he couldn't leave the question unanswered either. Not if he wanted the tattoo to mean anything. Not if he wanted Spooky to understand the weight of it.

Because that was the whole point.

The tattoo wasn’t supposed to be pretty. It wasn’t supposed to be cool... It was supposed to be a place for the feeling to go.

He needed to say it without saying too much.

He thought about it for a long while. Long enough for Spooky's icon to go offline, probably having fallen asleep while waiting for Tyler's reply. It took some of the pressure with it, somehow making it easier to think when he knew the answer wasn’t being watched in real time.

It was almost two in the morning by then, and Tyler was tired enough for his thoughts to feel soft around the edges, but not tired enough to let it go. He knew if he waited until morning, he might lose the nerve entirely.

So he shot one last look at Josh's dark silhouette across the room, watching the slow, steady rise and fall of his breathing, and then he lowered his gaze back to the phone and finally started typing.

"it’s about keeping something close for so long it becomes part of you, even if it was never really yours to keep. something important."

"something I don’t really know what to do with other than make it mine through that tattoo."

Tyler couldn't help but feel a little exposed.

Which was stupid, because he hadn’t really said anything too revealing. Not enough for Spooky to know what it meant, or who it was about, or why the words had been sitting so heavy in Tyler’s chest before he finally sent them.

Still, the feeling was there, prickling under his skin.

For a moment he waited with his breath held, watching to see if Spooky’s icon would turn green again, wondering what he would think once he read it. If he would understand, or if he would think Tyler was being too intense or too dramatic.

But Spooky stayed offline. And the message was left hanging there, suspended in the chat like the most devastating thing Tyler had ever told a complete stranger.

Eventually, with that same suspended feeling, Tyler locked his phone, placed it on the nightstand beneath his bed, and slid fully under the covers.

There was nothing left to do but face the night.

…

When he came back to the chat the next day, there was already an answer waiting for him.

The chaos of the rushed morning didn’t let him read it right away though. It wasn’t until he was seated in the back of a shuttle bus with Josh and a few crew members, being transported from the hotel to the venue, that he finally had a few minutes to spare.

He opened the chat with a small flutter in his stomach, nervous despite himself about Spooky’s reaction to what he’d sent.

And to his surprise, there wasn’t only one message waiting.

There were four.

"Wow"

"Wow... ok."

"You don't give simple answers do you?"

The flutter in Tyler’s stomach deepened. If it had been anyone else, maybe the question would have made him defensive. Maybe he would have bristled, because what was that supposed to mean? Of course his answer wasn’t simple. Nothing about this was simple.

But somehow, coming from Spooky, it didn’t feel like judgment. It felt like recognition. As if Spooky looked at the few careful words Tyler allowed himself to give and still understood that there was something larger sitting behind them.

And then there was the fourth message, which softened the whole thing so easily that Tyler actually had to fight back a small laugh.

"Also sorry I kind of fell asleep on you last night."

He couldn't fight the small smile off his face as his fingers typed out a reply. He answered them one at a time, tapping back to Spooky’s message about the simple answers before typing the smallest, most honest reply he could manage.

“nope.”

Then he moved to the apology, his expression softening as he sent another.

“and it’s okay. can’t imagine many tattoo artists working with me until 2 am.”

And that was the truth. Tyler could barely imagine anyone working with him at all, considering the chaotic information and the snippets of ideas he was able to provide, let alone someone who would try to make sense of them until the early hours of the morning.

But this already felt different from any professional exchange Tyler had ever had. Not like a friendship exactly, not yet at least. It just felt... right.

Tyler didn't have time to wait for an answer this time, not like he could the night before. There were other duties demanding his attention, and he was pulled into the current of the day without warning.

It was during stage setup that he finally found another small pocket of time to check his phone.

His crew had just disappeared offstage, heading up the backstage stairs toward the top level of the venue to time how long it would take him to get there and back later for the little disappearing act during Car Radio. For a few minutes, Tyler was left alone on stage, if he didn’t count the local crew dragging cables and marking positions with tape.

They didn't demand his attention though, so he could peacefully slide back to the chat with Spooky.

The message waiting for him almost disarmed him with a feeling he didn't quite expect.

"Yeah.. I'm not like any other tattoo artist though ;)"

It was the winky face that undid Tyler a little.

It felt almost... flirty.

Not like any other tattoo artist.

Tyler felt heat rise into his face before he even realized it was happening. He was pretty sure it was just Spooky’s humor, something sarcastic and easy thrown in to keep the conversation light.

Surely it wasn’t supposed to mean anything else.

But knowing that didn’t do much against the traitorous reaction in his body, especially not when his eyes kept finding Spooky’s little profile icon beside the message, and his brain still couldn’t stop translating it into Josh’s face.

Luckily, he couldn't overthink it for too long, because there was another message right beneath it.

"So am I getting anything else from you or is that all you're gonna give me?"

Still caught in the slightly playful headspace the previous message had pulled him into, Tyler hit reply almost instantly, typing before he could think himself out of it.

"that's it. sorry. you'd have to sign an nda if i were any more specific."

His stomach fluttered when the message went read immediately. There was something about the two of them landing online at the same time again that made Tyler feel all jittery inside.

His crew still wasn't back, so he allowed himself to linger in the chat, waiting for the reply. It came just seconds later.

"Oh no we can't have that. My name looks terrible on legal documents."

Tyler actually giggled out loud.

He liked Spooky’s sense of humor. It had that dry, sarcastic edge to it, something ironic and slightly ridiculous in a way that landed close to Tyler’s own. But more than that, he liked how easily Spooky had lifted the weight from the conversation.

He didn’t dig deeper, or pry for answers Tyler wasn't able to give. He didn’t make the meaning of the tattoo feel like an open wound Tyler had to keep explaining. Instead, he made Tyler feel like what he’d given him was enough.

Before Tyler could reply, the little typing bubble appeared again.

"But it's alright, I can definitely work with this. That information actually helped more than you think. :)"

Tyler melted slightly inside, relieved that Spooky didn't twist the knife, that he was genuinely okay with the little information he had.

Then a third message came through.

"What about the placement, have you thought about where you want it?"

Tyler lifted his eyes from his phone, thinking for a moment. He did have a placement in mind. A pretty obvious one, actually. There was nowhere else he wanted this tattoo to live than close to his heart, right where the meaning belonged.

Still he gave it one last thought before typing it out.

"yeah. i’d like it just under my heart, i think. i already have a chest piece, so somewhere it won’t clash with that."

As he sent it, his mind tried to fit the imaginary piece into place, picturing it on the left side of his chest, close to the place where the feeling was most intense. It was difficult to visualize without a solid design, but it was like he could already feel it on his skin, right there.

And it felt right.

He almost got lost in the thought before his phone pinged again.

"Got it. Private placement for a private meaning :)"

Tyler swore his heart skipped a beat. For a moment, he just stared at the message, phone frozen in his hand.

Jesus.

The emotional intelligence of this guy.

Spooky didn’t know him. He didn’t know Tyler at all. And yet somehow, with one simple sentence, he managed to press right against the truth Tyler had been carefully trying to hide between the lines.

A private placement for a private meaning.

It was so accurate it almost felt rude.

Tyler didn’t know how to feel about it. Part of him hated being seen through that easily, especially by someone who was supposed to be a stranger. But another part of him knew that maybe this was exactly why he’d chosen Spooky in the first place. Because for this tattoo to work, someone had to see through him a little. Someone had to understand what Tyler couldn’t fully say.

He should probably be grateful that Spooky found the shape of it himself, that Tyler didn't have to spell it out for him.

Still, he couldn’t decide what was worse.

That Spooky, a random stranger, could see so much while knowing almost nothing, or that Josh, who knew him better than anyone on earth, still somehow missed the one thing Tyler had been laying at his feet for years.

“Ty?”

Josh’s voice appeared right beside him, almost like Tyler had accidentally summoned him with the thought alone.

Tyler jumped where he was leaning against the wooden piano case, his free hand flying instinctively to his chest.

“Jeez,” he breathed. “Warn a guy.”

“Sorry,” Josh said, sounding genuinely regretful, but his face held something more curious than apologetic. His eyes flicked from Tyler’s face to the phone clutched in his hand. “Everything alright?”

Tyler followed his gaze down just as the screen went dark.

“Yeah, of course,” he answered, frowning slightly as he realized how far out of the room he’d drifted, how easily Spooky had managed to pull him out of his own life for a few minutes.

Josh nodded, a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

“Cool,” he said, stepping closer and leaning beside him against the piano case. “You’ve been kind of glued to your phone all day. I was worried something was going on back home or something.”

Oh…

Tyler let out a deep breath.

Of course Josh noticed. Of course he’d been worried. Because that was what Josh did. He saw a shift in Tyler and immediately reached for the kindest possible explanation.

Somehow that made Tyler feel worse.

Because here he was, losing track of the world over a conversation with a guy who looked like Josh, while the real Josh stood beside him, concerned for all the wrong reasons.

“Oh,” Tyler said quickly, flipping the phone in his hand in a useless little gesture. “No. No, nothing like that. It’s just...”

Just what, Tyler?

His mind scrambled for the safest version of the truth.

“...the art piece I told you about.”

Right... If you're going to lie, at least keep it consistent.

Josh’s expression brightened almost immediately, interest sparking in his eyes.

“Oh! Are you any closer to finding it?”

Tyler bit his lip. He loved how Josh could get excited for him so easily, over something that had nothing to do with him, simply because it mattered to Tyler. Because Tyler being happy was apparently reason enough for Josh to care.

Tyler looked down at the messy stage floor for a second, unable to fully meet his eyes as a small smile pulled at his mouth.

“I... yeah, I think so.” He glanced back up at him. “Your advice was actually helpful. I think I might’ve found the artist.”

“Really?” Josh beamed. “That’s awesome.”

Tyler just nodded.

"I'm glad to hear that," Josh said, giving him a genuine smile. Then he nudged Tyler's shoulder with his own playfully. “Just promise you’ll come back to earth before soundcheck.”

"Yeah, yeah... whatever," Tyler rolled his eyes, but he actually did stuff his phone back into his pocket, abandoning his conversation with Spooky while he continued to feel guilty for losing track of his surroundings so easily.

It still didn’t stop him from checking his phone the first chance he got, during a short bathroom break later.

But luckily for him and his shattered attention, Spooky had wrapped up their chat with one final message.

"Okay. I've got a client coming in soon, but I think I've got everything I need for now.”

”I'll get back to you with some sketches later."

Tyler let out a soft breath.

It was probably for the best. At least now he could focus properly on show prep. The knowledge that somewhere out there in Cleveland, his tattoo might finally be taking shape under someone else’s hands was enough for now.

…

The first picture dropped when Tyler was finishing his shower.

They were still inside the venue, taking turns in the dressing room bathroom to wash the sweat and stage grime from their bodies after two intense hours of performing. They had to move on tonight, which meant there was no hotel room waiting for them, no long shower, no clean bed with too many pillows. Just the usual post-show rush of packing their things, getting back to the bus, and sleeping in tiny bunks while the road carried them toward the next city.

That was the life.

And Tyler loved it.

Unfortunately, today it also meant he was steadily growing out of his skin with every minute that passed while he couldn’t open his phone and study the picture in peace. And to make it worse, another file came through shortly after. And then another.

Three pictures... and there was nowhere near enough privacy for Tyler to look at them without someone inevitably getting into his business.

So he waited.

He waited through the last bits of post show chaos, through the movement from dressing room to hallway to bus. And by the time he finally crawled into his bunk a few hours later, curtain pulled shut around him, phone clutched tight in his hand, he was buzzing with anticipation.

Only then did he open the chat, holding his breath as the first image loaded.

For a moment, he didn’t even understand what he was looking at. Not because it was wrong, but because seeing it outside his own head felt strange in a way he hadn’t expected.

His eyes moved slowly over the simple sketch, following the lines, the curve of the shape, the sense of motion Spooky had managed to pull into it even though it was still rough. Tyler zoomed in without meaning to, tracing the details with his gaze like if he looked carefully enough, he might find the exact place where his own thoughts had become someone else’s art.

Then he opened the second.

This one was different. The same idea, shifted into a different motion. He stared at it for a long moment, eyes dragging over the clean direction of the lines, and all the small choices that made it feel alive instead of just decorative.

By the time he opened the third, his chest felt tight. He wasn’t sure he was breathing properly anymore.

The third sketch hit differently again, and Tyler found himself sitting there in the darkness of his bunk, completely still, while everything around him blurred into the background. All the sounds of the bus, the voices somewhere up front, someone moving past the bunks, the low hum of the engine beneath them... all of it faded.

Somewhere in the middle of him staring, Spooky’s icon turned green.

Tyler noticed it immediately.

The tiny dot of online presence made his stomach tighten, because suddenly it felt like he wasn’t looking alone anymore. It felt like Spooky was there on the other side of the screen, watching him turn the pieces over in his head while Tyler’s own thoughts refused to arrange themselves into anything useful.

The wild cocktail of feelings storming inside Tyler's chest, combined with the idea of being watched, suddenly made the whole thing overwhelming.

Because as much as Tyler was mesmerized with these, there was one significant problem…

The sketches were remarkable.

They were still far from finished tattoo designs of course.. rough, unfinished, and meant to be shaped further, but the style, the cleanliness of the lines, and the way every mark seemed intentional, truly impressed Tyler more than he expected.

All three of them were beautiful.

All three of them were something he genuinely liked.

But…

For some reason, he couldn’t imagine a single one of them as his tattoo.

Now that he had a clear visual in front of him, even if just a rough one, it was easier to picture it in the placement he had chosen.

And it just…

didn’t click.

He found himself in a strange, uncomfortable place between satisfaction and disappointment.

Because the designs were good. They were exactly the kind of work that had made him reach out to Spooky in the first place. They had the movement, the intention, the strange living quality Tyler had been chasing from the beginning. Looking at them, he knew he had been right about the artist. Spooky understood more than Tyler had even realized he was giving him.

But now that the idea had a solid shape, Tyler couldn’t imagine wearing it.

He stared at the phone for a long time, thumb frozen against the screen, one of the sketches still open in front of him, and it wasn’t until his phone vibrated in his hand again, when Spooky tore him from the trance.

"Okay."

"Please say something."

"I can see you're online and the lack of response is making me nervous."

And then, a few seconds later…

"Does this meet your idea or did you imagine something else completely?"

Tyler’s stomach sank.

It was two in the morning again, and here they were again, both awake, both online, both sitting at opposite ends of their phones with something unfinished hanging between them.

Tyler felt terrible. He felt like an asshole. He felt like a loser.

Because this talented, strangely intuitive human being on the other end of the line spent his time making something beautiful for Tyler. He followed Tyler's weird wishes and instructions, and somehow managed to turn all of it into actual designs.

And he’d fucking aced it.

That was the worst part. Because Spooky hadn’t misunderstood him, the designs didn't feel wrong because they were bad, they felt wrong because Tyler’s body, and the place he had chosen for them, suddenly didn’t seem to know how to receive them.

And now he had to say that somehow.

He had to tell Spooky that he loved them, but not enough. Or not in the way that mattered.

Tyler’s thumbs hovered uselessly for a second before he finally typed the first thing he could manage.

"sorry..."

Then, because that sounded awful on its own, he added..

"i just couldn’t stop looking at them."

Which was the truth. At first, he couldn’t stop looking because they were so close to what he’d imagined. And then he couldn’t stop because his traitorous mind kept trying and failing to picture them on his own skin in a way that made his chest settle instead of tighten.

He typed another message.

"these are all so beautiful."

Then he paused, genuinely unsure how to continue, because as much as he was telling the truth, it wasn't the whole truth.

Spooky beat him to it, though, sending a message that cut right to the heart of it.

"why do I sense a "but" coming here?"

Tyler let out a heavy breath from somewhere deep in his chest.

Of course Spooky noticed.

There was something deeply irritating about how easily this stranger kept finding the seams in him, how quickly he seemed to notice every truth Tyler failed to say out loud.

Then, before he could overthink himself into silence, Tyler started typing.

"because there is one"

He stared at the message after he sent it, already hating how blunt it looked. How ungrateful, and sharp, even though he hadn’t meant it that way at all.

So he sent another.

"i’m sorry."

And then another, because once the apology opened, the rest came out too fast to stop.

"really.. i love them so much."

"the design is literally what i imagined. better than that actually."

"i think my head just forgot to consider how it would actually fit on my skin."

"and now that i’m looking at it.. i don’t think it would."

His stomach twisted harder with every message.

He could feel the spiral forming in real time, each little bubble of text making him look more frantic, more ridiculous, more like the exact kind of client Spooky would never want to deal with again. But even knowing that didn’t stop his thumbs from moving.

"i’m so sorry..."

"this is something i should’ve taken into account before i made you draw these."

"i feel so bad dude."

The second the last message sent, Tyler closed his eyes.

God... He wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

The bunk felt too small around him suddenly, the curtain pulled shut too close to his face, the air too warm from his own breathing. All he could think was that he ruined it. Spooky made something beautiful, and thoughtful, and Tyler rewarded him with a meltdown about how it wasn’t right after all.

Then the phone vibrated in his hand again.

Tyler opened his eyes.

"You don't have to feel bad, Tyler"

Another message followed before Tyler could even fully process the first.

"This is why we do this."

"This is literally the point of a sketch. You look at it, you sit with it, and then you tell me what feels right and what doesn’t."

"It’s not final. It can be easily changed."

Tyler read the messages twice.

The panic didn’t disappear immediately, but something in him loosened a little. A small wave of relief washed over him as he realized that Spooky didn’t sound annoyed or offended. He didn’t sound like Tyler had wasted his time.

He sounded like this was normal. Like this was simply a routine part of being a tattoo artist that Tyler had somehow turned into a personal moral failure.

Tyler swallowed and typed again, slower this time.

"but that's the thing.. i don't really think it needs to be worked over"

"because i genuinely love it."

His fingers hovered above the keyboard after that, waiting for more words to come.

But they didn’t.

He wanted to somehow make Spooky understand that there was nothing wrong with the design, that the discomfort had nothing to do with the work itself. He wanted to say that he could look at every line and feel how right it was, and still, the second he imagined it on his own body, something inside him pulled away.

But he didn’t know how to put that into words without making even less sense. So he stayed there, thumbs suspended uselessly over the screen, while the chat remained quiet and the seconds stretched around him.

Then Spooky sent another message.

"But you just can't see it on your own skin?"

Something in Tyler’s chest gave a small, painful squeeze.

Because once again, Spooky had somehow reached straight through the mess of Tyler’s thoughts and pulled out the one sentence Tyler couldn’t find for himself. Tyler didn’t know whether to feel relieved or unsettled by it. He didn’t know how this person, who barely knew him, kept understanding what Tyler meant before Tyler could even explain it.

He typed the only genuine answer he had.

"yeah..."

Then he stared at the word, wondering if it even made sense at all.

It felt impossible...

How could something be right and wrong at the same time? How could he love a design and still feel his body reject the idea of wearing it? How could he ask someone to fix a problem when he couldn’t even point to what was broken?

But when another message appeared after a few seconds, Spooky didn't ask him to explain.

"Ok.. may i make a suggestion?"

Tyler, feeling defeated and utterly drained, didn't even question it before he answered.

"sure"

Spooky started typing again, and Tyler watched the dots move, his heart beating a little too hard for something as simple as a tattoo conversation.

"I believe a different placement could help."

Tyler frowned faintly at the screen.

A different placement...

The thought didn’t land easily. The placement had always been one of the few things he felt certain about. Under the heart, close to the feeling, close to where it hurt... It made sense.

But before he could respond, Spooky continued.

“The meaning can stay the same, but the piece doesn’t have to sit directly over the feeling to carry it.”

”Sometimes it actually works better with a little distance.”

Tyler stopped breathing, and for a moment, he could only stare at the message.

How dare Spooky be so fucking accurate about everything? How dare he send a sentence that was supposed to be about ink and skin and somehow make it feel like he had reached into Tyler’s chest and pressed his thumb directly against the bruise there?

Sometimes it actually works better with a little distance.

Tyler’s heart squeezed sharply, almost as if it were confirming the words.

Distance... Wasn’t that the whole foundation of his life with Josh?

The careful space Tyler kept between them for years. The line he never allowed himself to cross. The distance that let him stay close enough to love Josh, close enough to keep him, without ever risking the truth destroying everything they had.

Maybe distance was the only reason the feeling had survived this long. Maybe some things really did work better that way.

Even if Spooky had meant it purely by accident, Tyler still felt horribly called out.

He dragged in a slow breath, forcing the air all the way into his lungs before letting it out again. Then he loosened his grip around the phone and made himself read the next message waiting beneath it.

“I think it might breathe better somewhere with more room for the shape to move.”

Tyler went quiet.

He scrolled up to look at the sketches again, trying to imagine what Spooky meant. More space... somewhere the design could breathe instead of being tucked into a crowded place just because Tyler had decided the symbolism demanded it.

The meaning would stay the same, they would just add more distance. Just like in real life, apparently.

Maybe that was another thing Tyler was afraid of. That moving it away from his heart would make it less true, less devoted, less connected to the feeling it was supposed to hold. But Spooky was saying it wouldn’t. He was saying the meaning could survive the move.

Still, it was hard to imagine.

Another message pulled him out of the thought, and Tyler actually scoffed when he read it. It was like Spooky could read him like a fucking book.

"I completely understand if you feel hesitant about that."

"But this is really nothing to feel bad about. It happens more than you think."

Tyler let out a slow breath, the shame in his chest loosening.

It was still hard to imagine, right there in the dark of his bunk, where else one of those beautiful designs could possibly fit. For so long, the spot under his heart had been part of the idea itself. Changing it felt like touching the foundation of the whole thing.

Tyler typed carefully.

"i don’t know."

"it was always that spot for me. it's hard to imagine it anywhere else."

Spooky’s reply came softer this time, or maybe Tyler only read it that way because he needed it to be soft.

"Totally understandable."

There was a small pause before another message came through.

“What we usually do in cases like this is print a few stencils in different sizes and try them on the body. Move them around, let you see them in the mirror, figure out where the piece actually wants to live.”

Tyler stared at that, something small and cautious shifting inside him.

Of course…

A tattoo didn’t have to become permanent the second the design existed. He knew that, obviously. He had tattoos already, he knew how the process worked. But most of his other pieces had come with such certainty that he had never needed to think about this part before.

This one didn’t have any kind of certainty around it.

It was different from the beginning, and maybe it needed to be found differently too.

The thought sent a thin thread of hope through the disappointment. Maybe Tyler wasn’t impossible, maybe the piece just hadn’t found its place yet.

Then the rest of Spooky’s suggestion caught up with him…

Trying stencils on the body, moving them around, looking in a mirror... that wasn’t something they could do through a phone screen.

Tyler’s stomach tightened as the realization settled over him. It would mean stepping inside Spooky’s tattoo shop, standing in front of him, letting him place those designs against Tyler’s skin with his own hands.

It would mean actually meeting him. In the flesh…

Before Tyler could let himself panic properly, another message appeared on the screen, confirming everything that just flashed through his mind...

"You’d need to come to my studio though."