Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tyler couldn't stop shaking.

He didn't know why, really. He'd been to the sleazy side of town before. He supposed it might be because he'd never been there for longer than ten minutes. Or because he'd never been mugged before. Or because he'd never been thrown against a brick wall so hard his skull ached. Maybe because he'd never been rescued by a hot guy with in-your-face blue hair, and he'd never, ever been in a bar with so many people his mother would hate.

Okay, so Tyler might've had some ideas about why he was shaking.

"...And he just kind of sagged on me and started to cry," the hot guy was telling his friends at the bar. "He got blood on my shirt. I couldn't not help him."

"I wasn't crying," Tyler told the empty booth he was sitting in.

The bartender seemed unconvinced. Tyler watched him throw a dishrag over his shoulder and lean in toward the small crowd gathering to listen.

"I'm not saying you should've left him, Joshie," he said in a stage whisper. "I'm just wondering why you brought him here. I mean, did you think Gabe would help him stop shaking?"

A lanky dude in the corner waved a hand at them. The gesture was...languid. Tyler was pretty sure that was the right sort of word. It seemed proper for someone who was looking at the ceiling like it was snakes.

Oh, god, Tyler realized, that guy's high, isn't he? My mom is going to kill me.

Tyler's rescuer (Joshie?) shrugged. "Well, taking him back to my apartment probably would've bugged him out worse. This was second best."

The girl at the bar-- not the one with the orange Mohawk and the sundress with skulls, the other one, with the nose ring-- gave Joshie an odd look. "What's so scary about your apartment?"

"Nothing!" Joshie said. "It's just-- look, you try to take some scared kid on the street back to your place. See how that goes."

"I'm not a kid," Tyler explained to his booth, which, at some point, had ceased being empty.

"Yeah, I gathered," said the short, blond, and intense guy across from him. He had a leather jacket and some creative piercings. Tyler jumped. "Oh!"

The blond guy jumped, too, and then he laughed. "Shit, man, I'm not that scary. My name's Patrick."

Tyler stared. Eventually, he reached out a hand. "Tyler."

Patrick shook it. "Nice to meet you."

This was going weirdly well. Tyler paused for a moment and then decided to test the waters.

"I like your, uh. Your. Thingie." He gestured loosely to his own nose.

"My face?" Patrick had a very cute look of confusion. It was offset somewhat by the fuck-me eyeliner and the don't-fuck-with-me tattoos on every inch of visible skin.

"Your stud," Tyler finished pathetically.

"Oh." Patrick smiled. It was a sort of bemused smile. It was the smile someone smiles at a kitten that just fell off a table. "Thank you."

Then, after another pause: "You want one?"

He choked. "One-- what?"

"A nose piercing," Patrick explained. "Do you want one?"

"Right now?" Tyler felt his eyes bug out. It was very uncomfortable.

"No, in general!" He swept his arm broadly. "Do you like them?"

"Oh." It wasn't really something a kid fresh from the suburbs had ever thought about. "I guess."

Patrick tapped the side of his nose. "It's pretty cool. I mean, the first one sucks, but then you're used to it."

"Oh," Tyler said again, because saying that seemed to be going pretty well.

"Yeah." He sighed. "Just don't get them when you're high. You end up moving too much. That's why Gabe's snakebites are a little crooked."

And then, to Tyler's mounting horror, Patrick turned around and waved at the high dude over in the corner, who waved languidly back, turned his head, and threw up.

Patrick turned back to Tyler and made a funny face. "Wow, I've never seen anyone turn that shade of green before."

"Who, me?" Tyler would've guessed he was closer to red than anything.

"He means Gabe," Joshie clarified as he approached the booth. "But you're looking pretty green, too."

"Oh."

Patrick grinned up at Joshie. "You got a real catch, here, dude."

"Don't I know it. What a find." He ruffled Tyler's head, and it was very endearing, but it also hurt. Tyler closed his eyes.

Joshie laughed. "Aww, look, he likes me. Can I keep him, Patrick? I'll feed him and walk him and clean up his--"

"That doesn't look like bliss," Patrick broke in. "That looks like a headache. Dude, I think you're boyfriend's damaged."

"Joshie isn't my boyfr--" Tyler began. He cut himself off by leaning over and puking on Joshie's shoes.

"I told you so," Patrick said, smirking into his drink.

Tyler's victim looked in absolute mortification down at his shoes.

"'Joshie'?" he muttered quietly.

The bartender was pissed. "Josh, clean up after your goddamn boyfriend! Why is everyone blowing chunks in my bar?"

"Oh," Tyler said numbly. "Josh."

Josh just kind of stared at Tyler for a while. He winced. If a tiny, bony little guy with watery eyes and blood crusted on his chin had ever had a chance of impressing anyone in this bar, Tyler Joseph had found the most efficient way to fuck it up. And oh, he fucked it up spectacularly.

It was that kind of night.

And then, incredibly, Josh smiled. He looked at Tyler sitting there, wiping his mouth of bile and absolutely not whimpering, and smiled, and said, "Maybe we should get you to a doctor."

And Tyler nodded, and then his vision went a little black around the edges, and when Josh caught him before he fell into the pile of his own puke, he knew he'd found someone worth keeping around.

Then everything went pleasantly dark and quiet. It was probably the second nicest thing about getting his head slammed into a brick wall, the first nicest thing being his new friends, who called him an ambulance.