Work Text:
Tyler’s a viper.
Always observant, dark gaze inescapable. His muscles move fluidly behind the piano but there exists a deep tension promising quick action when needed.
Smooth. Deadly.
Tyler is only a viper when Josh needs him to be.
And Josh needs him to be one right now.
Josh’s grip on his drumsticks is too tight. The wood chafes his palms. The beat he’s trying his best to play correctly isn't as loud as his thoughts of anxiety berating him non-stop this whole weekend and particularly this sound check.
The piano stops. Josh stops drumming a second later.
“Josh," Tyler says. "You’re off.”
His gaze is a scythe in Josh's periphery and with every analytical sweep of his eyes over Josh's body, Tyler is effectively flaying him alive.
Tyler's waiting for that metaphorical green light he can sense Josh will give him shortly that will permit him to go, go, go.
Josh looks up.
All remaining skin falls off Josh's body under Tyler's unrelenting stare. He's left exposed, vulnerable.
And in a way, he's liberated.
There is nowhere to hide from Tyler. He's there ahead of Josh but he's simultaneously everywhere.
Something flashes in Tyler's eyes, something soft and questioning, asking silently if Josh is okay, does he have this or does he need Tyler to help?
Josh gives the smallest of nods.
Go.
Everything soft and familiar about Tyler melts away at Josh's command. He's slipping into character, no longer a friend but now a viper wielding Josh's own brand of venom.
If it’s too much, Josh has a safe word.
“From the top,” Tyler says and he sounds so uncaring that it makes Josh’s next exhale shaky.
Josh starts in first with a rhythm as shaky as his emotional state. He weaves in between each small silence of snare and cymbal messily, shoulders catching on the corners of beats that drag and rush.
A part of him wants to scream. Another part wants to hold himself and hide.
He can't make sense of any of this but he hopes Tyler can.
Just as he goes to drum harder, Tyler stops.
Josh stops too and that's only because Tyler does.
“Off again. Focus.”
Josh doesn't answer. He doesn't even look up.
They start again. It's just as sloppy as last time. Josh's arms vibrate. They feel weak.
When Tyler stops, he asks Josh if he even knows the beat he's supposed to be playing.
“Y- Yes.”
There's a tense pause and then Tyler is slapping his hands on the top of the piano, flawlessly executing the drumbeat that Josh has been floundering over.
He ends it with slamming both of his hands down hard enough for it to echo throughout the venue.
“It’s easy.”
Josh swallows saliva, sweat. He nods.
“You know that?" Tyler says. "You know it’s easy? Then what's the problem?”
“I- I-“
“You better figure it out quick because I don’t have time for this.”
It sounds like he whispers ‘bullshit’ after but Josh can’t hear it over the hiss of anxiety rushing up his neck and curling up just behind his ears.
Tyler snaps his fingers and they’re starting again.
Josh keeps up for a while but then he’s tripping over his own feet. The beat speeds up too fast for him to control it and he’s sputtering, panting, whimpering.
Tyler stops. It takes everything for Josh to not throw his drumsticks down and cry.
“So what? You don’t care about this?”
Everything is dangerously still.
"What?" Josh murmurs.
Tyler’s every next word is laced with a growing annoyance.
“You don’t give a shit, right? All of this is stupid to you? The music. The crew. Every fan that spent money on a ticket. You just say, ‘Who cares? Fuck everything.’”
“No-“
”Yeah, because if you did care, you’d actually do your one job and hit the drums like you told me you were able to.”
“I- I’m trying-“
“No you’re not.”
It isn't Tyler standing from behind the piano and walking toward him.
It's a conglomerate of the entirety of Josh's racing thoughts made physical.
Josh feels like a young puddle of wax, melting in slow motion.
Tyler stands before him with his arms crossed. Josh places his drumsticks down and fidgets with his hands minutely.
Every blink burns. His eyesight's going blurry.
“Oh God," Tyler groans, "are you really going to cry?”
Josh blinks hurriedly.
“N- No.”
“You’re not?” Tyler’s voice lilts upward, mocking. “Why not?”
Josh drops his head.
He’s sinking deeper, deeper. Every second passed is another second he’s drowning.
He’s addicted to the light-headedness.
“You want to hit me.”
Josh’s eyes shut.
“You’re balling up your fists like you want to hit me. Look at me.”
Josh looks up immediately. A thin film of tears quiver on the surface of his eyes.
Tyler frowns dramatically. He cocks his head.
“Uh oh,” he coos. “Jish is upset.”
Tyler stands up straight. He bows his spine backwards and throws his head back to address the entire empty venue.
“Everyone, Josh is upset!”
Josh sucks a breath in through his teeth. The echo of Tyler’s voice pierces his ears and sets his every nerve on high alert.
It’s too much. He can’t escape.
“If you were shit, you’d hit me, Joshua.”
Tyler’s back in his face. He’s close but not too close. He’s an arm length’s away and that is a conscious decision on Tyler’s part because he knows how this ends.
“But you won’t, will you?” Tyler says. “Because you can’t commit to anything. Not college. Not a shitty retail job. Not even the drums. You won’t commit to hitting me either because you know why?”
Invisible needles dip into every inch of Josh's body. He sweats ice.
“Because you’re a pussy.”
Josh’s nostrils flare. Each heaved breath shakes his entire frame. The fat tears sitting in his waterline finally spill over down his cheeks.
The dark, uninterrupted glare Josh gives Tyler as he carefully stands from the drum kit makes something excited flicker deep in Tyler’s pupils.
Tyler steps up to him. He’s smiling.
“Cry, pussy,” he taunts in a voice like the nastiest song. “Cry!”
Josh does cry as he throws a punch directly into Tyler’s jaw.
Tyler’s head is thrown to the side and Josh can make out the way his eyes clear of the scene, almost as if Josh’s fist has exorcised the antagonizing spirit from within him.
Josh’s knuckles are hot. His hand aches all the way up to his wrist. His fingers throb and he’s trying to catch his breath and he can’t stand for a second longer as every emotion in his body overwhelms him.
A red spot on Tyler’s jaw is the only evidence of the climax of the hurt. He looks dazed, drunk on the lingering feeling of Josh’s hand against him.
Tyler needs this too in his own weird way. But today is not about him.
The singer shakes his head, gathers himself in record time and rushes forward to hold Josh in his arms just before he can collapse.
Tyler slowly leads them down onto the floor.
Josh is a boneless mass of oversensitivity as he sobs uncontrollably into Tyler’s shoulder.
Standing up to himself has sapped every last bit of energy that had yet to be consumed by the shadows plaguing his mind.
He's reduced to a live-wire bristling with what remains of the fury, fear and resentment he's held toward himself.
The sobs he chokes out now release the uncomfortable pressure previously within him.
“Shh,” Tyler coos, this time genuine. “Good boy, you’re so good. Do what you need.”
A hand strokes the soft hair at the back of Josh’s neck. The arm around his torso holds him tight.
Tyler’s shift from a nasty character to his true, caring, protective self makes Josh dizzy. The scene is over but Tyler’s arms are around him are a constant, grounding pressure that borders that of the hug of a python.
Josh does what he needs for the next five minutes and breaks down in Tyler’s arms.
There’s snot and saliva and a torrent of salty tears cascading down his face and off his chin. Tyler is not at all deterred by the sight. It only makes him hold him closer.
Tyler holds aftercare to the utmost importance.
Josh knows how it goes, how Tyler will eventually lead him to the green room after this, give him water and wipe his face and neck down with a cool rag.
He'll dress him sweatpants and a tank top, bundle him up in a blanket and hold him on the couch so he can shower him in constant affection and true words of his worth and value.
For now though, both Tyler and Josh are content to sit here for as long as they need for Josh to calm and catch his breath.
The thoughts previously terrorizing Josh begin to quiet.
Suddenly nothing else exists other than Tyler.
It’s just Tyler, Tyler, Tyler in Josh’s head and on the tip of his rambling tongue but he’s too wrung out to voice his quiet prayer aloud.
Tyler’s sweatshirt smells so good.
It’s like a mix between a warm stove and the wind on a cloudy day. Josh’s fingers cling to it loosely and the cheap material feels like cashmere against his trembling palm.
Exhaustion creeps over him. Breathing is easier with each subsiding cry now turned to a body-shaking hiccup or abrupt grunt originating deep in his chest.
“We’re calming down now, sweet boy,” Tyler soothes. “Slowly...slowly...slowly.”
Blissful tears fall from Josh’s eyes as he sinks into the blanket of warm safety Tyler provides him with his arm around him and a hand rubbing circles between his shoulder blades.
The entire venue is silent, nothing but Tyler’s soft voice in Josh’s ear whispering to him a never ending current of reassurances.
Josh melts at the feeling of Tyler’s lips dragging along the shell of his ear as he promises that Josh is worthy, talented, capable, loved.
“I-“
Tyler perks up at the quietest murmur fallen from Josh’s lips after a full eight minutes. He hums in question with his hand sliding up Josh’s back to hold his head.
“I’m sorry,” Josh whispers with a voice raw with the extent of his weeping. “I’m sorry for hitting you.”
Tyler chuckles lightly. He holds Josh closer and breathes an adoring sigh that sounds like a wordless, ‘ aw .’
“That’s the whole point, Josh,” Tyler says, “but I’ll forgive you if that’s what you need.”
And it is.
Josh’s eyes flutter closed. He refuses to get up or even release Tyler’s sweatshirt from his hand.
Tyler kisses his head softly and doesn’t ask him to.