more than friends//joshler

chapter 17

"hey," tyler said as soon as brendon opened the door of his apartment.

"hi?" he was waiting for some sort of explanation. tyler took a deep breath.

"josh and me had a fight and i-" before he could finish brendon had wrapped an arm around his back, drawing him into a hug. tyler couldn't help but sob into his shoulder, being pulled unconsciously into brendon's apartment. he could hear muted talking between him and his roommate, of which tyler didn't know the identity. doesn't he have a girlfriend?

"hey, yeah, so he can take that room?" bits of the conversation floated to his ears as he was still being pressed to brendon's chest. "thanks, love you," he finished, letting tyler move his head back a bit.

"so you're gonna be in this room-you do want to stay here right?" brendon kept his voice low and gentle, speaking slowly so tyler could catch it all. he nodded a little bit. brendon smiled, nodding back and guiding tyler to the room he was talking about earlier.

it wasn't a guest room or anything, it had a drum set and a couple guitars hung on the walls. brendon stepped away from tyler for a few seconds, leaving the room and coming back with two blankets and a pillow. he threw them on the floor and turned to tyler.

"yeah, so you can crash in here, sorry for the instruments, but just arrange the blankets or whatev-" he was cut off by tyler drunkenly falling into the soft heap, snoring away. brendon chuckled, kicking the pile around a bit to at least cover him slightly in the cold ohio winter.

"sleep tight buddy, hope josh comes to his senses for you."

-

tyler's heart rate sped up almost the second he woke up in an unfamiliar place. what happened last night? oh god, did i have a one night stand? please be no. he slowly pried open one eye, seeing brendon's recognizable shag-carpeted floors and the front of his drum set. he was instantly calmed, yawning and sitting all the way up. he could hear faint whistling from the other room, giving him reason to stand up and leave the room, greeted by the smell of pancakes.

"glad you're up, buttercup," brendon said, tipping the pancake pan towards a plate and perfectly hitting the center, offering it to tyler. he raised his eyebrows, coming forward and accepting the breakfast thankfully.

"got any syrup, or, like, forks?" tyler asked, staring blankly at his very plain pancake. brendon laughed a bit, gesturing vaguely to some drawer. as tyler rummaged through the silverware, he realized it was only polite to explain his situation. he took a deep breath.

"so, about last night," he started, "i was hella drunk, and i got home and josh was very much not happy about that. we had a little fight and he was very angry, but so was i, so i left and i went here. i just hope i don't have to move back into my parent's place. i don't want to have to take my name off the lease. i really hope that at least ryan can do that if it comes to it though, even this soon into the contract."

brendon had gone rigid when he mentioned ryan.

"this ryan, is he ryan ross?" his tone was cold, movements more robotic.

"uh, yeah, i believe so. he's our realtor," tyler explained, confusedly looking up at brendon. he had his lips drawn into a straight line, nodding cooly.

"i see," he said blankly, sliding a paper plate with another pancake on it on the counter. then tyler remembered high school, when brendon and ryan had been dating. they were the school's golden couple, the perfect image of teenage love and innocence. then ryan had done something completely unforgivable that nobody but brendon seemed to know about, and tyler could remember clearly that the entire school was shaken by the news of their break up.

"sorry man," he whispered, hanging his head in shame. brendon relaxed a bit, responding a bit late to his apology.

"'s fine," he said briefly. tyler could hear a door opening and gentle footsteps coming from behind him. he turned around, seeing a girl walking slowly to the kitchen. tyler furrowed his eyebrows, gently flipping back to brendon in confusion. he was facing her and smiled, handing her the other pancake he had made before his short burst of anger.

"sarah," he nodded his head towards her, "tyler," he jerked his head in tyler's direction, and he stopped eating shortly to nod and smile at sarah. she smiled back, ripping up the plain pancake on her plate and stuffing it in her mouth, watching brendon start to clean up.

they kept the silence up for a while until all three of them had eaten their fill of food. tyler thanked the two and then trudged regretfully to the room he had stayed in the night before. surely enough, as he was worried about, his phone was lit up with text notifications. upon closer inspection, he noticed that the times of them all spanned from ten last night to seven this morning, when they all seemed to give up on him responding.

did you make it home safely?

the first on the list was from frank. tyler smiled at his compassion even though they didn't even know each other that well yet.

sorry.

tyler blinked a few times. that couldn't have been josh, and only a few hours after he had left.

shit.

did you at least end up somewhere safe?

tyler please

i hope you're at one of our friends places

im so sorry.

you can leave if you want, just tell me what time to be gone and you can pick up your stuff.

the most recent of them had been sent this morning, the others scattered throughout the night.

his mouth was actually open, stuck in a permanent state of shock until brendon came up behind him, shaking his shoulder a bit.

"want a ride back?"

to which tyler could only nod.

-

i love making you guys suffer i split this into two