summary:
josh has bruises scattered across his cheekbones, and he drags one leg behind him.
there's blood leaking from a cut above his right eyebrow.
"it's not enough." josh shakes his head.
"it's never enough."
or the one where josh begs tyler to beat him up in a walmart parking lot.
words: 1,121
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josh hates the way his ceiling fan looks.
one of the blades is broken and two others are tilted at an odd angle.
when he turns it on, it makes an odd scraping noise every other turn.
josh thinks it's going to fall down on him one day.
he rolls over and checks his phone again.
3:21 am.
his brightness is up high, and he has to squint to see it before he turns back around and sighs.
he feels so empty.
there's a little spot on the glass window of his heart that he can't get off, and the way it aches has got him sick to his bones.
there's something he's missing.
maybe he's gotten kissed and fucked and loved but they each make up a puzzle piece, and the factory sure fucked up because josh didn't ask for there to be a piece missing.
and god, he's so fucking sick of feeling so dead.
he doesn't want to feel like there's not enough bruises marking his pale skin.
that it's been too long since blood last dried under his fingernails.
he doesn't want to feel like you could lower him into a coffin and drop him in the ground and nothing would change.
he rolls over, and stares at the dirty off white of his wall. his blankets are warm. too warm.
maybe, josh realizes, he just wants someone to beat him up.
make his eyelids purple black.
leave marks blooming all over his cheekbones.
split his lip and knuckles wide open.
kick him in the stomach until he can't breath.
paint an array of pretty blue bruises across his chest, so that he can look just like the sky that's so far above.
he wants blood to stain his teeth, he wants his fingernails to break and for every inch of his goddamn body to ache.
he doesn't want to feel so fucking numb.
he's mindlessly swinging his legs over the side of his bed and pulling on black skinny jeans.
he checks the time again.
3:24 am.
josh pulls on a tshirt with a hood, and flicks it over his bright yellow hair. his lips are chapped.
his lighter is already in his front pocket. he grabs the half empty pack of cigarettes and sticks it in the pocket that doesn't contain his phone.
he sticks a knife in his other front pocket. he will see blood tonight.
he doesn't lock the door.
tyler isn't sure how he got here, leaning against the back wall of walmart and patting his pockets for a left over cigarette.
searching himself again and again, all he digs out is his lighter.
he flicks it on and off, and for a frightening, vivid moment, thinks about going to the nearest gas station.
tyler sighs, he sticks the plastic in between his teeth and searches his pockets again.
there are footsteps coming towards him, and he barely has time to register the object being thrown at him until he catches it and realizes it's a cigarette.
tyler lights it up, almost angrily, and nods a thanks to the stranger with a hood over his head.
he twists the ring on his middle finger.
the other man flicks his lighter on too, and the brief light is enough to reveal that his companion is male.
they smoke out there for a few minutes, and their smoke mingles together like some cancerous, fucked up form of art.
tyler's the one to speak up first.
"what're you doing out here?" and he's shocked at how raspy his voice is.
it's silent for a few seconds.
velvety, quiet, he replies,
"looking for a stranger with a cigarette in his fingers willing to punch me until i bleed."
tyler's silent. he breathes out more smoke and cracks his knuckles.
"what's your name?"
"tyler."
the other man hums.
"tyler? im josh. you up for the job?"
"what?"
tyler turns to face him now, and under the faint light of a distant street light, he can make out squinting eyes and a strange smile.
"come on, tyler. i'm offering. when are you ever gonna get the chance to beat someone up?"
"why?" tyler says. his cigarette is burning him.
josh takes a step towards him. he's frustrated.
"you got anger? family issues? take it out on me. come on. my face could use a couple bruises."
tyler shakes his head, and asks more firmly this time.
"why?"
josh is pulling his hood off his head, pulling at his hair with his fists, doubling over.
"fucking do it! throw a fucking punch!"
tyler's pulling his fist back, but he's hesistating, hesistating.
"come on." josh is snarling at him.
"beat me up. beat me the fuck up. make me feel alive again."
tyler crushes his cigarette under his heel, and launches his fist into josh's face.
josh stumbles back, but he doesn't wince. he just smiles, a fucking stupid smile.
tyler is shoving josh back, the heels of his palms digging into josh's shoulders.
his knuckles are digging into josh's cheekbones, into his eyelids. tyler's metal ring is digging into his flesh.
tyler is punching him in the chest and sobbing, his hands are aching and josh is still fucking smiling.
he shoves him over and realizes somewhere in the back of his mind as he paints pretty blues and purples and reds all over josh's body that they've somehow stumbled near a streetlight, and tyler is regretting not getting to look at that pretty face before there were red marks all over it.
josh is on the ground and tyler is kicking him hard, digging into his stomach and bruising ribs.
he steps on one of his legs, hard, and he's stepping back and the streetlight casts hard shadows over his face.
josh rolls over onto his stomach, groaning, and slowly, slowly, on his hands and knees and leaning on the light for support, gets up.
he spits a mouthful of blood on the ground, and leans back.
for a moment, beaten bloody and blue, looking up at the sky, he looks absolutely peaceful.
tyler's voice trembles.
"was that enough?"
josh has bruises blossoming across his cheekbones, and he drags one leg behind him.
there's blood leaking from a cut above his right eyebrow.
"it's not enough." josh shakes his head.
"it's never enough."
josh sits down, hard. tyler joins him.
tyler holds his hand and digs into it with his fingernails.
josh's voice is breathy and wrecked.
"now tell me that you love me, you fuck."
tyler grabs a fistful of his shirt, and kisses him hard. he tastes blood.
they sit together, in the parking lot of a fucking walmart, and they watch the sunrise.