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Even standing just behind the metal exit door of the club, Tyler is chilled by the freezing air slipping through its cracks. Tan hands grow pale and knuckles redden. A similar flush is dusted over his nose and cheeks, blotchy and unforgiving.
Josh is pressed against his side, shoulder to shoulder through thick coats, searching for warmth.
It’s been ten minutes since Mark dashed out, sacrificing himself to the cold to start up the van.
“Okay,” Josh breathes. His hand naturally finds Tyler’s, both regrettably ungloved, and interlocks their fingers. “Ready?”
Tyler swallows, shudders, then nods. There’s a reassuring squeeze to his hand, to which he grips back.
Hand-in-hand, they swiftly shove open the door and are slammed with the harsh bite of winter. In tandem they sprint towards the glowing tail lights and spilling fog of their van, across the parking lot.
The pavement is slick with patches of ice and bordered by piles of snow. It’s lit only by the few stray street lamps, one flickering.
In their haste, Tyler catches himself slipping once, twice, and Josh has to tug his hand to keep him from falling flat on his ass.
The rush, paired with post-show adrenaline, has them afflicted with giggling fits. Childlike, as they run to escape the bitter cold. Crisp breeze stings what little skin they have exposed. Rapid panted breaths leave puffs of vapor.
They make it to the van in mere seconds. Rear doors swing open with such speed that Mark is heard gasping, and they’re diving inside. They tumble against the makeshift mattress and Josh shuts the doors with the same quickness.
Airy laughs and loud inhales are shared between the two as they roll around, shivering and giddy.
“C’mere, c’mere,” Josh is urging playfully through giggles. His arms are already wrapped around Tyler, though, dragging him into his body. “‘S cold.” He slurs, lips numb.
Tyler gives a dramatic chatter against him, arms bent and tucked up between them. He buries his nose into Josh’s chest and pulls a blanket tight around their shoulders. He’s still grinning into layers of fabric.
Josh is sure Mark is squinting in the rear view, scoffing at their self-absorbed display of affection. There’s something mumbled under his breath, and then a yawn. It’s forgotten as he shifts the van into drive and steers them out of the parking lot — to find somewhere to get four hours of sleep.
They’re somewhere in northern Ohio, closer to Cleveland than Columbus. Tyler loses track, show after show blurring together. On this stretch, he’s grown impossibly into Josh, abandoning his inhibition.
Josh became something of a guilty pleasure. Tyler takes his timid bites in between furious rushing moments — in cramped dressing rooms, gas station bathrooms and cheap motels.
Most often, though, is hidden hushed and dim beneath blankets in the back of the van. Starving times in which he forgets himself. Somewhere along the way, in his fatigue, he’d forgotten God, too.
Or, rather — relinquished Him. Just set Him aside, relieved Him from the liability Tyler is, unburdening Him. It’s a favor.
Something like, out of sight, out of mind. Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Tyler’s partial to proverbs.
So, naturally, when an icy hand slides under Tyler’s shirt, his squeal is played up and thrashing exaggerated. Like a teenage girl flirting. It’s pathetic.
He half-heartedly squirms away from the touch with a whined ‘stooop’. Josh laughs at him.
The sound alone makes Mark’s nose scrunch in disgust.
Josh’s palms flatten on Tyler’s chest, unrelenting. His face softens into bliss opposite Tyler’s faux pout.
“Warm,” Josh smiles. Shoulders draw up and drop down with a satisfied hum at the petulant noise he earns.
Tyler groans at the sting of freezing hands siphoning heat from his skin. He lets them rest there, anyways, feigning defeat.
Josh, of course, sees right through him — as if his racing heart isn’t indication enough. He’ll play.
The rest stop Mark pulls into is near empty at this hour of night. There’s a few trucks parked in the back, but it’s otherwise stranded. Almost eerie, liminal.
Both Tyler and Josh have been trained into finding comfort in these spaces, though. Dopamine gushed through many nights spent entangled with one another in such places. With the low chirp of crickets and wind beating into the windows, it rushes back, igniting them.
Tyler doesn’t handle it well. His brain malfunctions at the flood of unspecified emotion, wires crossing, and he trips. Excitement spills into frustration’s container.
The driver’s seat squeaks and clicks when Mark throws it into a recline.
“Welcome home,” Mark announces sarcastically. He leaves the keys in the ignition and heat blasting.
Tyler props himself up on his elbows to peer over the second-row seat that separates them.
They’re in the corner of a parking lot. Barren oak branches loom over the top of the van. Moonlight filters through them, catching Mark’s profile as he’s slipping a sleeping mask over his eyes.
“Gonna run the van all night? What about gas?” Tyler prods, defiant.
Mark’s head lifts up off the seat, and though his eyes are still covered, Tyler can feel his glare.
“Rather pay for gas than freeze to death. Sell more CDs.” He grumbles.
Tyler scoffs. “Don’t be a dick about it,” He’s mumbling. “Can’t we just get a hotel?” Stupid question.
Josh grimaces at the venom in his words. Tyler’s arguing just for the sake of it, disoriented mind craving conflict. It’s a common occurrence — he’s pettish, impulsive when short-circuiting. Josh will reel him back in.
Mark groans, head hitting the seat. “Sure, Tyler. We’ll get a hotel for three hours then hit the road again. Great financial decision.”
Tyler squints.
As he’s opening his mouth, Josh’s hands run down his torso. Over his chest, fingertips grazing his nipples, then lower, thumbs tracing the curve of his ribcage and settling at his waist. Lazy circles are rubbed against his stomach.
“Tyler.” It’s whispered.
Tyler’s face slacks, lips touching back together. He swallows.
Guilty. “Sorry.” He resigns.
Mark hums. “Goodnight.”
Tyler drops his weight back onto the mattress. He faces Josh, and from what he can make out of his expression without light, he’s concerned. Tyler desperately needs him to get over it, or he’ll let the shame swallow him whole.
It wasn’t even a big deal. He didn’t let it escalate.
Josh is staring at him. Fingers still heavy on his skin, idly tapping and soothing. Tyler tugs the blanket up over their heads.
“What?” Tyler drawls under his breath, slight annoyance muddying his tone. He can hear the worried thoughts whirring in Josh’s head.
“You’ve got to relax.” Josh keeps his voice low, nearly inaudible.
Tyler’s own hands cover his face, as if Josh could see it anyways. He feels scolded.
“It’s fine,” He speaks into his palms, muffled. “Just let it go.”
Josh exhales through his nose. It hits the back of Tyler’s hands.
“No,” Josh’s leg slots between Tyler’s. “Seriously.”
“Oh,” Tyler breathes. Hands slowly lower from his face and he catches a thumb between his teeth.
He’s half hard, pressed against Josh’s thigh. He’s blinking dumbly into the darkness. Winter fades into the back of his mind as simmering heat stirs up in his core.
Josh rolls forward. His thigh drags up Tyler’s crotch, with his own against Tyler’s hip. Tyler chokes back a gasp.
One hand finds Tyler’s other hip, grasping and pulling him closer. The other pulls out of his shirt, finding a more comfortable position bent under Josh’s head, like a pillow.
Josh noses at Tyler’s brow bone, shifted just slightly above him. “What’s wrong?”
You.
“Nothing.” Tyler lies. His cock twitches in his jeans. He gives an experimental swivel of his hips, searching for friction as Josh stills.
“Liar.”
Josh’s whisper is spat, sharp off his tongue, all in one breath. He grinds back rough against the younger and his neck bends down to rest his forehead against Tyler’s.
A whimper pulls from Tyler’s throat, one revealing and much too loud. Though as pleasure begins to swirl and distract his busy mind, he can’t find the time to be embarrassed. He bites hard on the thumb in his mouth to quiet himself.
“I swear,” Tyler’s free hand slips into Josh’s curls. He rocks against Josh’s thigh, torturously slow, sucking in quiet stuttered gasps. “swear to God.”
He says it knowing his addition will get him sent straight to Hell. At least there, it’s warm.
Josh squeezes at the flesh of his hip. Fingers dig into the bone.
Tyler writhes. There’s too many layers of cloth, a coarse drag against his cock — he presses in harder. Eyes roll with each harsh rut, deliberate yet mindless. Like it’s just a thing they do, and it is.
Nails scrape against Josh’s scalp.
“Why do you have to be like this?” Josh is muttering against his skin. It’s accentuated as he meets the other’s thrusts. It’s not enough.
He reaches down and grabs the back of Tyler’s thigh, just below his ass, and hoists him up. Their clothed groins press into each other, then, and Josh shudders. Instinctually, his hips roll out of sync with Tyler’s, and there’s a strained expletive before he bites down on his lip.
“Like- oh,” Tyler sputters. Their cocks brush each other, and it’s hot enough that he may soak through the fabric. His arm latches around Josh’s waist, clinging to him, nearly burrowing. The leg he has over Josh’s weighs down, tightening. Trembles with the pressure.
Still, he can’t get close enough — needs to crawl into his skin.
“Like what?” He manages to finish, but in speaking around his thumb he drools, slicking it with spit.
With their bodies flush, Josh takes his chance to control the pace, quickening and stuttering. He grips at Tyler’s ass, and it’s nothing short of dirty, animalistic in nature.
It’s far from pornographic, though — absolutely unpolished, fumbling and gauche, rutting their hard-ons together without grace or rhythm, or purpose. Not that they need one.
In a way, purity peeks through, claiming their inexperience an innocent act, as it’s only natural. Only they could remain decent in such filth.
“Attention starved.” Josh answers.
Tyler’s grinding falters, jerking, body sparking at the harsher friction.
He does consider it for a moment — briefly lets himself be conscious, wonders if it really is attention he’s lacking. Maybe.
It doesn’t matter now, because he’s fucking Josh’s thigh like a dog, and he’s not missing a thing.
He shoves his face into Josh’s neck to suppress a whine.
“Shut up.” He nips at the skin.
“Really,” Josh is panting. His voice shakes but all he can think to do is ramble quiet into Tyler’s ear. “You gotta stop.”
Unthinking, deaf to Josh’s words, Tyler shakes his head with fervor. Drool smears across the skin of Josh’s neck. Tyler claws at it desperately, leaving hot red lines. His cheeks burn the same.
“Stop,” Tyler repeats it back to him.
He’s humping Josh in earnest, unashamed, hoping the whir of the van’s heat drowns out the hitching of denim. Hoping they’re quiet, that Mark has dozed off. Just that, though — hoping.
“Just, God, don’t,” Teeth graze Josh’s skin as Tyler babbles. Nonsensical words mean a million things.
“Don’t what?”
Tyler’s restless fingers come up and pry at Josh’s lips, slipping inside, hooking over his bottom teeth and padding over the wetness of his tongue.
Josh is dizzy, recklessly rocking into Tyler, and he knows nothing but the burning knot in his stomach as their cocks press. He sucks around Tyler’s prodding fingers. He wants, he’s overcome by it, but he’s unsure what. So, his hand slides down and tugs at Tyler’s waistband.
Hastily, he’s popping open the button of Tyler’s jeans and shoving his hand down the front.
Tyler swears. Sopping fingers withdraw from Josh’s mouth to find purchase on his shoulder instead, and if his coat was any thinner, he’s sure Tyler’s grip would draw blood.
Hips buck hard into his palm. If it wasn’t dark enough, Tyler’s vision blacks out, and he’s spinning, back arching impossibly closer to Josh — maybe he’ll cry. Or pass out. Something drastic.
Josh is trying to wrap his fingers around him, trying, but it’s an awkward angle and his wrist aches and Tyler is just fucking his palm, useless and needy.
“I wanna- Can you- just, Ty,” Josh stumbles over his words, and in his frustration grabs Tyler instead, flipping him over. Gently, though, with a strong arm curled over his stomach where hip bones jab in.
Tyler’s back is pressed to him now, and he whines, high and broken and thoughtless. He grinds his ass back against Josh, impatient, begging.
Josh almost wants to just let him. Get himself off like this, keep his hands clean. It’s amusing, and he knows Tyler would, and wouldn’t ask for anything more.
He’s kinder than that, though, and admittedly finds his own thrill in getting Tyler off.
He slides back into Tyler’s pants, under his briefs, and is unreserved in taking his cock into his fist.
“Please, God,”
The plea falls shamelessly from Tyler’s lips, and this time it is a prayer. Tonight, his mouth is spilling sacrilege — he can’t seem to keep that word out of it. Perhaps He does reside in his mind, in some capacity.
Josh is in his ear, shushing him as he strokes, steadily pressing his own aching cock into Tyler from behind.
It’s a dry drag, trapped beneath the tension of clothing and slightly uncomfortable — but it’s how Tyler likes it.
A little off, unsteady, clashing and not quite fulfilling. It’s Tyler’s own way of expressing selflessness, in a lopsided sense it keeps his rectitude: to not entirely enjoy. If it’s not all the way pleasurable, then there’s still something safe, not completely gluttonous.
He can be both self-indulgent and devout — proverbially, have his cake and eat it too.
Pre-cum beads from his tip and dribbles down — Josh catches it on the upstroke. It slicks him just enough to let Josh’s twisting hand glide smoother, and Tyler moans. Gravelly and full, sincere from his chest.
“Tyler,” Josh squeezes light pressure around the base of his cock.
“Sorry, ‘M sorry, sorry,”
Tyler’s not sure if it’s Josh he’s apologizing to.
“Tyler.”
And it’s sweet, purred against the shell of his ear, not a warning.
A hand is coming around the front of Tyler’s face and clasping over his mouth. He feels Josh’s bicep twitch against the back of his neck.
“You’ve got to,” A gentle bite at his lobe. “hush.”
Tyler’s spilling incoherent apologies in damp breaths against his hand. He’s tense, coiling, chest heaving.
“Come on,”
Josh gives a flick of his wrist. His thumb catches the ridge of Tyler’s head, meets it with a rut of his own.
He buries his face into the short hairs on the back of Tyler’s head. Lies a kiss there. Drinks in his cedar scent. Sinks into him and imagines them as one, as if the blanket encasing them will constrict, leaving them a pod, bodies fused together.
Maybe then, he could bear Tyler’s stress as his own.
“Just, relax. Relax.”
Tyler does.
He squirms, fucks up into Josh’s fist desperately and rocks back against him, and it’s so much. Hard press of Josh against his ass, then into fingers teasing over his slit, and he’s trapped in a loop of pleasure far too good to ever be justified.
There’s nothing saved, he’s split open and spread out, showcasing his greed, utterly godless.
“There,” Josh is leaving open-mouthed kisses down his neck. “That’s good.”
No, Tyler thinks, there is nothing good about this.
But Josh is snapping his hips in time with jerking him off, digging fingertips into Tyler’s cheek, rasping praises into his flesh.
And it makes Tyler sob. Tearless, just a heavy shudder wracking his body. He loves it. Whatever it is, this thing he takes and releases himself into, he loves it. He really does.
In this moment, buried under the humid air created by the friction of their bodies, he decides he can have it. Good or not.
For the first time, Tyler chooses autonomy.
“Tyler,” Josh is saying again. “Tyler, Tyler.”
Yes.
Tyler is giddy, his name a reminder that he is his own self. Yes, he thinks. Whimpers a response into Josh’s sweaty palm.
Josh’s hips stagger, grinding relentlessly but losing any concept of a rhythm, his hand the same. Pumping Tyler the way he needs, nestling close into him.
“C’mon,”
Tyler grabs at the sheets. Blows a thick, shaky breath through his nose and relaxes, the way Josh told him to. Rolls his hips steady.
“Come on,” Again, straining to keep his voice down, “You’re so,”
With a hard press up into Tyler’s body — chest shoved into his back and spine curved so that his groin is tight against the other’s ass — Josh comes, trembling. Spills all into his pants, soaking them, making a mess of himself. He holds himself there, rocking out slow circles with his hips.
Through his own orgasm, Josh is still set on Tyler, Tylertylertyler, his one-track mind. He fists his cock, never faltering, thumbing along the head.
“Good,” The words just tumble in Josh’s haze, voice sugared. “Good. So good, baby.”
Tyler loses it there. Snaps. His eyes screw shut and he pulls at the sheets, unwinding and coming hard over Josh’s hand. He leans back into Josh as he does and finds his comfort.
He’s worked through it, with Josh pulling languid strokes, finally removing the hand from over Tyler’s mouth to pet his hair.
“There you go,” Josh coos. Sweet as ever.
Tyler is winded, only gasping in response. His body is burning, and wet, not only from the cum in his pants but sweat sticking to his clothes.
He lays there, in his untainted bliss. Even as Josh takes his hand away and wipes it somewhere behind him, Tyler’s unmoving, basking. He melts.
Josh’s arm wraps back around his waist, then, over his clothes.
Briefly, it is just them. No music, no shows, no winter and no summer. No God.
Breathlessly, Tyler is wondering, “Do you think-“
Josh stops him.
“I don’t.”
He means it.
Tyler’s mouth opens and closes.
“You sure?”
Josh sighs deep into him.
“Yes.”
So Tyler settles. Openly, listening to the soft snore coming from the front seat, and the rumble of Josh’s slowing breaths. He ignores the stickiness in his pants and lets himself feel instead. Something okay blooms in his chest.
It doesn’t last.
“I just,” Tyler can’t save his mouth. He’s adjusting onto his back, shifting from Josh. “We probably shouldn’t…”
“Yeah.”
Josh understands. Doesn’t stop his heart from twisting itself up and stinging.
He lifts his arm off of Tyler.
Tyler chews on his lip, thinking for another moment.
Then, he crawls out of the blanket, pushing a gap between himself and Josh. He cradles a pillow in his arms. They still face one another.
Even with the heat in the van, Tyler’s warmth is lost as soon as they separate. And, God, he misses it. It’s just not his to have — no matter how vehemently it’s offered.
Now, Tyler will return to being God’s responsibility, because who else possesses such patience to bear that burden? Such strength? Who else, even after rejected and betrayed, will scoop him into their arms with doting love?
Not Josh. Not longer than Tyler would allow, despite his resemblance.
It’s not fair, Tyler remembers, to put that on him. He’d said it himself.
So, he’d find it in Josh temporarily, and then give himself away again. He’s grateful he understands.
“Thank you.” Tyler finds himself whispering.
Josh, with eyes closed, nods. Smiles.
“Always.”
There’s not another word exchanged.