Author's note: Sorry I've no idea what i've done. My first fanfiction I ever post anywhere. I know it's kinda angsty but.. I hope you enjoy!
Ps. This contains few OC-characters. They're only mentioned like twice so dont worry.
Watermarks
Tyler was the one who didn't like talking about his emotions at all. He had no words or then there were too many things suffocating him, tying his tongue and leaving him alone with a silent act. Not that Josh even asked what the man was feeling, it was Tyler's own business and Josh didn't want to be nosy. Besides, the man's eyes tend to silently tell everything and Josh was the master at reading every little detail hidden between the lines. Nonetheless he never asked about the things he saw in Tyler's eyes. Sometimes he opened his mouth like he was about to say something, but ended up just clearing his throat and uneasily looking elsewhere. Sure he had managed to blurt out the question couple of times and found himself regretting his words straightaway. There was no proper answer nor point of asking anyway. Then again - from time to time - words were overrated. The way how Tyler bit his lip and scraped his left arm was enough; it told Josh how defenseless the man felt.
But that wasn't the main point of Josh's thoughts. The main point was that Tyler was there, once again standing behind the door of Josh's apartment. He was probably gazing down at the door lock, waiting for it to turn over and let out a small clicking noise. It didn't need any mathematical theories for Josh to know it was definitely Tyler knocking on his door. Even when Josh was still sitting on a sofa, not even close to door, he knew it was Tyler and not for example his brother. Josh usually listened to the certain rhythm of knocking for a moment, slowly dousing his smoke before walking to the door and opening it. And the view was always the same.
Whenever Josh opened the door and let Tyler step inside, he needed to just look into the man's eyes to see what was wrong. Though, now he already knew and there was no need to look at the agony in Tyler's eyes time after time. Yet he sometimes happened to look, only to see how the misery was growing like a field bindweed choking out blossoms and forbs. At times Josh thought that Tyler was like a blossom and source of his agony was like a field bindweed, the climbing and creeping weed plant that was also known as possession wine. It's difficult to get rid of and keeps choking out other plants until they are decaying and drained dry. Tyler's suffering was like a seed of the bindweed, growing faster and faster and Josh kept wondering, how there still weren't any sharp leaves coming out of the man's orbits or mouth. Or maybe the plant was cunningly intertwined around his guts, slowly killing him from the inside until he's too tired to get up anymore.
And since Josh knew all the grounds, why would he try to speak, only to see the man holding back tears, biting his bottom lip and looking nervous and uncomfortable? That'd mean only a threatening silence and it'd be hard for Josh to decide, what to do or not to do next. It was easier not to talk nor even think about reasons and grounds. Josh knew them all over and he knew why the other man kept coming back, thus it was only pointless to offer a cup of tea and sit at the kitchen table. Particularly since there was never much time to use. So when Tyler once again took the conclusive step over the threshold between the entry and platform - Josh, just skipping the soft talk and tea cups and not giving a fuck anymore, pulled the man into a lusty kiss.
Things had been like this for almost a year and after hearing the certain way of knocking for the third time, Josh had started expecting and waiting for Tyler to show up behind his door and ever since that time, he had quit trying to talk about things. Tyler didn't need his words, he needed to know Josh was there for Tyler, ready to feel Tyler's pain and carry half of its weight through the time they had together. And just like that, Josh was always there, always opening his door and waiting for Tyler to step over the threshold. And always when the door behind them closed, Josh took all things that were collapsing Tyler, he took everything he could, because that was his way to comfort the other man and that was what Tyler wanted. That was what Josh wanted. So whenever Tyler stepped over the threshold, Josh gripped the man's shirt and digging his nails into its fabric, he kissed him. And Tyler responded to every kiss Josh gave, leaning into every touch not saying a word when he was pushed against the wall and Josh took over the situation. Because that was what they both wanted.
Over time, Josh had got a strange feeling inside him. It was no longer so easy to just turn around and start making a coffee when Tyler put his coat on and opened the door leaving Josh alone in the kitchen. First it had been a simple routine, Josh woke up, started making his morning coffee, Tyler opened and shut the door and Josh drank his coffee, looking at the sky through the window.
Now it was different. When Tyler turned around and put his coat on, Josh looked at the back of the broken man, cursing his thoughts when the door closed and the apartment became tacit again. The coffee machine was the only voice and Josh looked through the window, not at the sky, but at the man walking down the street, hands buried in his pockets and head turned down. The coffee was too strong, because Josh certainly couldn't concentrate at counting when he was silently looking at Tyler's shaking hand on the door handle. When the door closed, Josh stood at the window until he couldn't recognize the man anymore. By then the coffee mug in his hands was already cold, but Josh couldn't care less as he drank his strong coffee and missed the warmth of the man walking away down the street.
Josh wasn't sure when things had changed. He wasn't even sure how they had started. Two years ago Josh had been the one watching the other's happiness as Mark and Kate had moved in together and Adam had taken Tyler to restaurant on their second year anniversary. Josh had been happy for his friends, smiling for them. That was the time when Tyler had been still lively and laughing at his own jokes and Josh had been silently watching the singer on stage, at the studio. He had seen Adam opening an umbrella above Tyler's head so the man wouldn't get soaked. Tyler had smiled and Josh had opened his own umbrella, walking alone back home, not being able to understand the choking feeling in his chest. A year and half ago, Tyler had come early to studio and found Josh drinking his morning coffee while working. They had been the only ones there at that time; Tyler had come alone, without Adam, and that had been odd.
Tyler had been wearing a scarf and trying to cover his arms with long sleeved shirt. Josh had - of course - asked where the man had left Adam, laughed a bit and stopped when Tyler's guitar had let out a wheezy voice. For a while there had been only silence until Josh had stood up and walked to Tyler. He had seen the bruises and how the man had kept looking away. Josh hadn't known what to say so he had wrapped his arms around Tyler's body and hugged the man.
Josh still wasn't sure, how he had ended up kissing him.
He had apologised, muttered 'I'm sorry' many times and turned around walking out of the door, then starting to run like a teenager after his first kiss. One month after that incident, Tyler had appeared behind Josh's door for the first time. By then Josh had offered a cup of tea, they had sat at the table and Josh had tried to ask. The only answer he had got after the awkward silence and Tyler biting his lips was - "Kiss me."
And Josh had kissed, waken up in the morning, made his coffee and Tyler had left.
Everytime Tyler came back with new bruises and every time Josh carefully kissed every sore spot he found. Yet Tyler was wearing more and more of those bruises and time after time it took longer to go over each spot. Violet and bluish marks covered Tyler's body making it look like some sort of incomplete puzzle game, but the man kept wearing them undeniably. Bruises on Tyler's skin and in Josh's heart were like watermarks they put on to their artwork. Unnoticeable watermarks they both tried to hide the best way they could. Tyler wearing long sleeves and various excuses, Josh concentrating on his work and smashing his knuckles against the wall before leaving the home.
Josh knew each one of Tyler's watermarks. Tyler - only part of Josh's and the man would probably never know all of them since they all were about him and Tyler wasn't with Josh. They weren't a couple like Adam and Tyler were and somehow that made Josh bite his lips, smoke over twenty cigarettes in a day and sit at the balcony for hours. Yet he was the one comforting Tyler when the man knocked on his door, eyes red and swollen due to crying. Josh was the one kissing Tyler's bruises and he was the one who held the man tightly through the nights they had together. Josh was the one who drank the cold coffee, yearning for the man walking away in the morning. He was the one who did his best to fix every broken part of the watermarked man. But Tyler was like a old mechanical toy about to break down. Once you got one part fixed, there was already a new broken component, but Josh truly tried to do his best.
He never refused to open his door for Tyler.
Lately Tyler had been coming over more often, once or even twice in week. A year and half ago it had been only once in month or once every two weeks. Josh wasn't fool, he saw what was happening in front of his eyes, but he couldn't spill even one word out. The amount of Tyler's watermarks was growing faster than the bindweed inside the man and sometimes Tyler couldn't even walk properly, it was no longer a surprise to see him quite desperately hobbling around, but Josh didn't say a word, just let the man hobble into the apartment, before pulling him into a kiss as they both stumbled their way to Josh's bedroom. He wasn't sure why, but somehow seeing the man at the door felt even more different this time.
Tyler was looking down, not saying anything nor showing his face, but Josh knew that he was biting his lip and saw how one tear dropped off on the floor. Except that it wasn't tear or then Tyler had turned into a vampire.
"You're bleeding..." Josh noted quietly, reaching his fingertips to touch a wound on Tyler's brow. The man said nothing. Josh sighed, taking his hand and guiding him into the entry.
"We need to disinfect that wound, you know. Sit down." Josh muttered, scrabbling his hair. He got a disinfectant from the bathroom and returned back to the kitchen where Tyler was just standing. Another sigh was let out.
"I said, sit down. Please Tyler, we need to take care of that wound." Josh repeated. It was odd. Usually Tyler didn't have any kind of cuts, just bruises. This was the first time Josh saw him with open wound and thin bloodline streaming down along the man's cheek.
"You don't have to." Tyler muttered, finally sitting down at the table. Josh shook his head and carefully cleaned the wound, wiping the blood away with a small swab. Tyler hissed and gritted his teeth. How could the man have got such a deep cut? Well, actually Josh knew, but couldn't believe it.
"You almost got your eye pierced, Tyler", he sighed, accidentally looking into the man's eyes. Seeing how dim Tyler's dark eyes were made Josh wince. It hurt to see how broken the man was, covered by countless amount of iridescent watermarks, the field bindweed peeking from corners of dim eyes.
Josh band-aided the wound as Tyler looked up at the shorter man. His lips were slightly parted and only his eyes were whispering, secretly telling him how tired the man was. And Josh heard every repressed whisper and kissed him gently, obeying orders of whispering eyes and his own heart.
As usual, Tyler responded to a kiss and soon it turned into rough, intensive fight of lips and tongues. Though, Josh didn't want to hurt the man. Not even one of the kisses and touches Josh gave to Tyler were forcing or violent. Every time he kissed the man deeply, his thoughts were tender and soft and his touches never left even one watermark to Tyler's skin. Josh felt like he was some kind of herbicide, regularly used for good, but the persistent bindweed kept recurring since its roots were strong and long and Josh wasn't the most powerful weedkiller. He wasn't capable enough to demolish the main-root that kept the bindweeds inside Tyler growing and reappearing again and again. Still, Josh thought he was doing at least his best as Tyler's herbicide.
They found their way to the bedroom, lips incessantly connected until Tyler fell on his back in the bed and Josh walked to the window, closing the black curtains. He looked at the other man who was motioning him to come closer and Josh did. Crawling on the top of Tyler and bending down to kiss the man who moaned into kisses, quavering. Josh unbuttoned Tyler's shirt carefully, letting his fingertips cautiously run over the man's bruised and sore skin. And Josh went over each spot, giving light, gentle smooches as the man kept his eyes closed, shivering under him. Josh was always careful and even if he felt lusty, he took his time slowly and gently undressing the man, making sure he didn't accidentally weigh down on any of Tyler's sore watermarks. Whenever Tyler hissed in pain, Josh returned back to kissing the man. Somehow it always worked, like if Josh was a morphine as well as a herbicide.
As soon as Josh had completed undressing the man and was going to take his own clothes quickly away, Tyler reached his hand up and starting to unbutton Josh's plaid shirt. Watching how skinny fingers and shaking hands slowly stopped by each button of the shirt, exposing more and more of his skin, Josh wondered, what Tyler was thinking while undressing him little by little. How Tyler felt when touching and kissing Josh. He couldn't see the man's eyes so he had no idea and for some reason he wanted to know. Maybe he was just entertaining the hope that he was something more than only a dose of morphine or a herbicide. Josh's long buried feelings and desires had been dredged and picked up on the table like a cat. But maybe Tyler's were too dim to be able to see it. Thus Josh tried to desperately bury them again, failing miserably. Sometimes he'd ponder if there were someone else digging everything up again after he had finished shoveling.
There was a short moment of an absolute silence and a stasis where Tyler looked at Josh's naked torso. Fingers running along the skin, reaching the most sensitive part and touching as Josh gasped and moaned, leaning into the touch. He bent over and kissed Tyler again, his red hair almost hanging above the man's face as their tongues fought and twisted around each others. Their bodies rubbing against one another - though Josh was still careful not to hit moist watermarks. One hand was going down between Tyler's legs and his digits curling around the flesh, making Tyler groan in pleasure. Another hand reaching the nightstand next to bed, taking a tiny tube of lube and opening it. At times they switched places, but usually it was Josh taking over the situation. Not that Josh was too proud to submit, not at all. Their odd friends with benefits relationship was quite even-handed and fifty-fifty, but usually Josh was on the top. It wasn't that he didn't like being on the top, he did, naturally, he was a man like they both were. There weren't roles of a man or a woman in their relationship, because neither one of them felt like a woman nor were too proud of their manliness. Yet there was a balance regardless, only when Tyler was with Josh. Because Adam was too proud, Josh knew it.
Maybe when his lube coated fingers slid one by one into the other man, Josh was trying to prove that there was someone making love and not only dominatingly fucking Tyler. And maybe when his fingers were moving in and out as Tyler moaned, Josh was trying to tell him that he was there together with Tyler and not using the man like the roots of the bindweed. With all his touches Josh tried to spell out that Tyler wasn't owned by anyone.
Nevertheless Tyler wasn't free. Josh knew that the man couldn't feel free, not when being owned by the bindweed root which constantly emphasized and told everyone. Yet Josh was the flash of Tyler's freedom, crammed into several hours before the sunrise. But when they woke up and Tyler left the apartment, every step took the man further away from the freedom of Josh's arms and closer to a captivity waiting for him after few blocks. Or that's how Josh thought about it as he pulled his fingers out and looked at Tyler who nodded quickly.
Whenever Josh thrusted into Tyler, gasping and at the same time almost unable to breath, he knew that he wasn't hurting the man. Because Josh knew Tyler's knowledge about many sides of a pain and while it was normal for anyone to feel a slight pain when making love, Tyler had seen the reverse side of its beauty. There were bold lines between brutal and natural, but some people tend to just cross them without thinking furthermore. That made Josh wonder, what in earth provoked people to even cross the line. Josh could never do that, never hurt the man he was making love and sleeping with. Not even when the pace got faster and harder and they both almost screamed in pleasure. Tyler's nails digging into sheets as the man came between their bodies, groaning and Josh keeping on. His hands on Tyler's shoulders till his own release. And they looked at each others, gathering the breath they had lost as Josh stayed still for a moment before pulling out.
Collapsing next to Tyler and keeping his eyes closed before opening them again to watch the other man. He reached his hand to touch the cheek of the broken man next to him, saying nothing. They kept silently looking at each other and Josh felt how his chest was burning under the uncertain gaze of dim eyes. And when Tyler turned around like he always did and Josh looked at the watermarked back as usual, he felt like he was being smothered by the burning feeling inside his chest. Tyler moved a bit, snuggling closer to Josh who gently wrapped his arms around the shivering body, the face buried in the man's neck. Either one of them said nothing and Josh breathed in the scent of Tyler, holding the man tight.
"I want you to leave him..." Josh finally whispered, fingertips tenderly petting the skin under them. He hoped for any kind of answer, but Tyler said nothing nor reacted in any way.
"I want you to leave Adam." Josh repeated a bit louder and now Tyler had surely heard it since the man winced and snuggled even closer. Next Josh felt how their fingers settled between each others and Tyler squeezed his hand tight.
"I wish I could." Tyler's voice was heartbreakingly feeble. Josh sighed, placing feather-like kisses on the man's shoulder.
"You can fight him."
"We can't lose the studio or the help Adam's giving to us... I don't want to lose the band."
"Honestly, I don't give a fuck about the band if you could just leave him and stay here. I don't wanna see you unconscious in a damn hospital. God dammit you're getting yourself killed this way, it's been way too long, he's not gonna change anymore, you know it..." Josh spoke up, feeling how Tyler's hands suddenly stopped shaking.
"Just stay." Josh - for once - requested quietly. And maybe those two words were enough afterwards, Tyler pressed himself even more tightly against Josh's chest. So tight it felt like their warmth became one and Tyler's watermarks melted into Josh's skin like Tyler was part of Josh and Josh part of Tyler. Sheets twisted around bodies, a blanket covering half of them and prolonged the night dancing around two men. Josh watching the broken man sleeping, fingertips drawing imperceptible figures and lines between watermarks until he restlessly fell asleep.
And I'll be holding on to you.
And it was odd to wake up in the next morning. Get up and expect to see Tyler putting his coat on as usual while starting to make a coffee just to drink it cold later, but instead hear the coffee machine whirring, Tyler sitting at the kitchen table and gazing down at the wooden surface. It was a different morning and though Josh knew it'd end sooner or later, it felt like having a normal life. Living in the present and first time for months drinking the coffee when it was still hot, Tyler sharing the coffee with him and not walking on the street. Josh didn't mind any of it. Smiling at the man he loved over the edge of his coffee mug and seeing how the bindweed slowly began withering away. Because even the strongest roots can be eradicated. It'd just take time.