semi-automatic | joshler

22. smile

notes:

guys, i don't want to sound strange or desperate, but if you have any chance to tell somebody about this story (only if you like it of course), it would be really great if you did. my point is that so many stories keep growing and growing and this one always stays in place even though i work on it very hard, and this is very demotivating sometimes, that i even thought about slowing down the updates, because i feel like nobody even reads it. but also i know some of you are here (and i appreciate it a lot), so if you are here, you can leave a comment or a few comments and tell me what you think, just go ahead. it would make me 100x happier.

Play the song: "Cinderblock Garden" by All Time Low.

•

Today feels like every day. There's some snow outside and it's as cold as it was last week. Tyler still doesn't talk and Brendon must have an argument with teachers in almost every class. He asks Tyler inappropriate questions, but Tyler pretends he doesn't hear, as always.

But today is also different, because since the weather is cold, less and less people decide to spend long break outside, so they stay inside, crowding hallways even more. Tyler doesn't mind, because Troye gives him the key to the bathroom that leads to the courtyard at this point and he usually spends a long break sitting on a windowsill in that bathroom and doing whatever he's in mood to do.

He doesn't usually care about locking the door while he's inside, because people already know, that the bathroom is unavailable during long breaks and don't even try to get there. But maybe he should be more careful about it, because a few minutes after he sits down on a windowsill, watching almost empty street at the other side of the building, somebody opens the door.

The fact that Tyler gets nervous is an understatement. In a span of few seconds Tyler considers in what trouble he can get if somebody finds out he spends longs breaks in the bathroom that was supposed to be closed and Troye should have taken care of it.

He breathes in relief, literally in relief, when he sees nobody else but Josh, carefully closing the door, before looking at the direction of the windowsill where Tyler is sitting, and looking like he knew Tyler might be here.

Of course he knew. The door to this bathroom is basically in front of the infamous Josh's bench. He saw Tyler sneaking in here every day, ever since the first day of school.

Every time after they get closer to each other, Tyler feels like for some reason they keep more distance; in school and in general. They are afraid to look into the other's eyes in the hallway—at least Tyler is—and they don't meet again right after.

That's why Tyler is feeling... weird? uneasy? because last time he was the closest to Josh he has ever been, and maybe, maybe it is too awkward to face him now. He isn't complaining, of course, but thoughts of being too clingy and whiny about his problems back then are crowding his mind, and sometimes he thinks like it was too much, like maybe it made Josh uncomfortable, but he went with it anyway because Tyler got so into it.

But on the other hand he convinces himself, that everything was fine with it, because they stayed like that—literally stuck to each other—for at least good two hours, since Josh turned a tv on and they watched some late night film, and Josh had to practically carry Tyler with him as he went to turn the tv on and back to the couch.

And maybe it was actually fine, because Tyler couldn't even concentrate on the film as he was swooning, too preoccupied with Josh's hand on his head, stroking and tangling his fingers through his hair, and the other hand still on his back, holding him as if he could slip from his grasp because of the weird position they were in, but it felt like the most comfortable position in the world. Or maybe it was just Josh's impact, his warm chest and how good he smelt.